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In my practice, it is common for my clients to ask me for a clinical diagnosis for their presenting problems.  Sometimes, they feel more certain for knowing that they have a concrete diagnosis about their issues.  With thorough assessment and continuation of therapy sessions, I often find my client’s presenting problems are only the tip of the iceberg.  In fact, a concrete diagnosis, such as depression or anxiety disorder, does not provide much useful information for the psychological treatment plan.  Often, people with the same diagnosis have very different psychological issues and the treatment plans for them could be very different. 

Another example would be the way we deal with different service providers in our lives.  If we need services from a professional interior designer, we may need to specify very clearly on our expectations and may also do some research before meeting him or her.  In fact, they may also appreciate our approach to them as being detail-minded.  On the contrary, if we need to seek help from a construction worker for some minor renovation work, we may need to adjust our expectations and ways of conveying our needs.  Sometimes, if we are too formal in our correspondence with them, they may not know how to respond to us and may delay the completion of the services.

Our brain is organized in a way to minimize our use of energy by helping us to sorting out information and categorizing with our past experiences.  This is why people tend to make premature judgment on things they think they already know.  For example, it is not difficult to tick the diagnostic criteria of people with depression.  It is also common for people to fill in some online questionaries to find out whether they had depression.  However, every individual is unique and if the person wants to obtain the most suitable treatment, it takes at least several sessions for the therapist to develop preliminary treatment plans.  In my clinical work, it is quite common for me to keep discovering new findings of my clients.  It is quite impossible for a therapist to only use one type of therapy to help a single clients’ all psychological issues.

Beginner’s mind is a childlike mind of not knowing.  With adequate professional knowledge in clinical practice, it is also important for a therapist to realise one does not know all.  As a result, no matter what our field of profession is, it is important for us to be humble to live in the present moment and not setting limits to our preliminary findings.  In our lives, it is important for us to turn into the unfolding of every new moment of our lives instead of thinking we already know what will work.  We need to make decisions moment-by-moment accordingly.  Any preconception and known facts may limit the new possibilities. 

In this new year of 2024, let us learn to see things in Beginner’s Mind.  It is important for us to stay humble and embrace that there are much that we do not know.