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What's Your Intention?

Writer's picture: Curtis Henschel, B.A., CCPA Student MemberCurtis Henschel, B.A., CCPA Student Member

When things get stuck, if they stop feeling real and alive and in-the-moment, a director will ask an actor: “What’s your intention? What’s your objective? What are you doing to get it?”

In theatre, we train ourselves to answer this question over and over. Acting means being connected to our sensations and emotions and using ourselves (our minds, our breath) to do important things. We train ourselves to be committed to action all the time because the moment we are not acting with commitment to something important, the illusion of truth disappears. This is because our senses don’t know what to attach to anymore. 


Without an intention, it is really hard to be in the present moment and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and lost. In real life, if I am stuck in my head or buzzing with self-doubt, uncertainty, blocked by fear, grieving, tearing myself down … I try to remember my training and ask myself for my intention. I know that when attention is fixed on something, there isn’t room for us to be fused with doubts or mind-chatter, to be avoidant, or to turn inward. An intention compels us to act because it’s something we believe we need to do for its own sake, which makes it easier to be in the moment with attention. 


Evidence-based counselling practices like Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT) use the word values instead of intention and focus on helping people to clarify these values so they can, just like actors, plug in, get real, and radiate that purposiveness and power that we recognizing as presence and charisma. Justice-based theories help pull apart the circumstances (like norms and expectations and unfairness) that we can’t see even though we feel them pressuring our minds and changing our bodies and making everything difficult. And there are many ways to look at the origins of certain things in our trauma, experiences, and relationships. Body and neuroscience-based therapies can calm and sort out the things we’ve been collecting and been forced to put on like costumes or character traits. So, in counselling, we can get to questions like:

“What is very important to me?” 

“What are the obstacles that stand in my way?”

“Which stories am I telling myself and acting out that I didn’t write for myself?”

“What can I do to get / live by my intentions?”


For almost a decade, I have trained people to understand the world and themselves in a way that makes obstacles perceivable and nameable. Every world, situation, or plotline – all involve a set of circumstances all interacting together to create tension, drama, tragedy, or comedy. Great actors, writers, and directors learn to engineer drama by layering circumstances and by pitting intentions and obstacles against each other. So in one way, I see counselling as reverse engineering drama. And I’m excited to stick my backgrounds – psychology, neuroscience, performativity, narrative training, and crisis support work – together.


Another great thing about high quality theatre training that relates to therapy? There are hundreds of different skills for getting back in our bodies, loosening up, using our voice, standing strong, processing intense and very deep emotions, becoming anything we want, and shortening the gap between what we imagine and what we are

One of my motto’s has become this: “What we do, we practice. What we practice, we become better at.” When we fuse with our anxiety or shut our senses and body down, when we sustain low or hopeless or self-judgemental states, we get better at that.

But every second we remember to act with intention, to have presence, we get better at it. And it only takes one second to start getting better. And then another second, and another second…


If any of this speaks to you, if you have questions, or if you’re wondering what other completely different angles we might take to address what you’re working through, you can come see me at Evolve Counselling. If you feel you need help but are prevented by barriers from getting it, contact us to discuss options for getting you the services you need


By Curtis Henschel B.A., CCPA Student Member











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