Why do and analyst needs to understand how people think?

An analyst (I'm a licensed mental health counselor and licensed marriage & family therapist) needs to understand how it is that a client does what they do. Something in their thinking and feeling is getting them into trouble with themselves or others otherwise why would they be there to see the analyst. Sometimes clients can't say much more than "It seemed to be a good idea at the time." but there is usually much behind that which had led the client to that point. And you have it right when you say "how people think". When I ask a client "why did you do that" they are usually trying to come up with a reasonable sounding response. What's more important is how did you come to that conclusion, what factors did you consider and which did you ignore, did you like the results, what part of the results did you like and which did you not, do you want to change the results in the future if faced with similar challenges in the future, what do you have to do to try to change the results more to your liking or that at least keeps you our of trouble.