What is the goal of Therapy? Building a Bigger Self

 When people come to therapy, the question is often some version of, “How do I get rid of this?” How do I stop the anxiety? How do I beat depression? How do I silence the thoughts that keep me awake at night? It’s natural, of course. When you’re in pain, you want relief.

But here’s the catch: the more we try to shrink the problem, the bigger it tends to feel. Anxiety becomes something to constantly monitor, a presence that must be fought at every turn. Depression becomes a battle to win, and when you’re not winning, it feels like failure. The harder we try to push these things away, the more they dominate.

What if the way forward isn’t about making the problem smaller at all? What if it’s about making yourself bigger?

I don’t mean bigger in the sense of inflated or grandiose, but bigger in the sense of spaciousness. Imagine anxiety as a stone. Place it in a small glass jar and it fills almost all the space. Drop the same stone into a swimming pool and it’s still there, but almost irrelevant in the scheme of things. The stone hasn’t changed size, but the container has. The problem is no longer the whole story.

Instead of trying to shrink the problem, focus on growing the self

A lot of psychology quietly points in this direction. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy suggests that rather than eliminating anxiety, we learn to live in line with our values while making room for discomfort. Viktor Frankl’s logotherapy insists that suffering becomes bearable when set in the context of meaning. Buddhist psychology reminds us that thoughts and feelings can be noticed without being allowed to dominate. Even Nick Chater, in The Mind Is Flat, suggests that our sense of self is not fixed but improvised—so why not improvise something larger, more generous, more expansive?

This is where the distinction between shrinking and expanding really matters. The shrinking mindset treats life as a battle: fight anxiety, conquer depression, banish self-doubt. But the more you fight, the more you reinforce the idea that your ability to live depends on winning that war. And since no one gets through life without some measure of anxiety or sadness, the war is unwinnable. Expansion, on the other hand, doesn’t ask you to get rid of the problem. It asks you to grow around it—to cultivate a life rich enough that anxiety or depression can exist within it without defining its borders.

Instead of asking, “How do I make my anxiety go away?” you begin to ask, “What matters to me even with anxiety here?” You invest your energy in what expands you: relationships, creativity, service, adventure. You stop waiting until you feel better to live, and you live now, alongside whatever feelings come. The pain doesn’t vanish, but it takes its place as one element in a larger story.

The horizon metaphor helps here. When your gaze narrows to the problem, it blocks the whole view. But expand the horizon—through meaning, connection, or perspective—and suddenly the problem is still present but no longer overwhelming. The landscape of your life has grown, and the pain becomes a feature rather than the whole terrain. So maybe the better question isn’t, “How do I make my anxiety smaller?” Maybe it’s, “How can I become larger than my anxiety?” Growth doesn’t mean the stone disappears. It means it no longer dictates the shape of the container.

But do we even have a self?

How do we build a bigger self?  This is where things get interesting…and complicated…because we’re wading yet again into the territory of ‘the self’, an area so many of my blogs often end up in. And I feel torn here because on the one hand I believe the goal of therapy is to build a bigger self but I also believe the Buddhists are right that the self doesn’t really exists. It’s an illusion.

The way I see it, both perspectives can be true, depending on the level you’re speaking from. On the practical, everyday level, we need a sense of self. It’s how we navigate the world, make commitments, love people, set goals. Saying “I want to become larger than my anxiety” makes sense in that domain. But on a deeper level, it’s also true that the self is not a solid object. It shifts, it dissolves, it reforms. It’s more like a story than a stone.

When I talk about building a bigger self, I don’t mean reinforcing a fixed identity or clinging to an ego. I mean expanding the story you’re telling about who you are, and holding it lightly. You’re not building walls; you’re opening windows. You’re not insisting on a permanent “me”; you’re learning to improvise a wider, more generous version of yourself.

In that way, “building a bigger self” and “seeing through the illusion of self” aren’t opposites at all. They’re two sides of the same move: loosening the grip of the small, fearful self, and stepping into a sense of life that is roomier, freer, less confined.

So, with that said, how do we build a bigger self?

1. Anchor in Values

   Ask: What matters to me beyond feeling better? Maybe it’s family, creativity, service, adventure. Start building your days around these.

   
   

2. Do Expansive Things

   Learn new skills, invest in relationships, create, train, explore. These don’t erase problems but give you a wider identity than “the anxious one” or “the depressed one.”

   
   

3. Practice Making Room

   When painful thoughts or feelings show up, experiment with saying: “I can hold this. I am more than this.” Notice how that shifts the relationship.

   
   

4. Seek Perspective

   Conversations, books, travel, therapy, spirituality—anything that widens the lens makes the “problem” relatively smaller.

There is a lot more that could be said here, but this is a start.