Ray González writes for Contextual Therapies:
While it is true that people seek to change many aspects of their lives, or to be “other people,” this is not possible in psychotherapy. We cannot change people or their lives, what we intend and do is to help change what people do so that this has an impact on their lives. That is, what changes in people is their behavior, and to be more exact: the interaction or functional relationships between what they do and the context.
AND:
When things are going well and in line with the objectives, the user, client or consultant always remains the same person, the difference is that now they behave in a different or desirable way in certain situations; That is, it expands its behavioral repertoire that allows it to function with greater individual and/or social satisfaction. At this point, it is not so appropriate to say that he behaves with greater adaptation or functionality, since, of course, his behavior has a function and is a way of adapting to a certain environment. The user is their own agent of change.
As you learn and/or modify your behavior during clinical sessions, it allows you to change your context, and this change in several other contexts also allows you to change your behavior and strengthen it. It is a reciprocal interaction where the result is what we do, and often, in a way of economizing on words, what we are. What we are is a form that is equivalent to saying how we regularly behave, but not an essential property. If people’s behavior does not change, it is because the context somehow prevents them from changing.
.