Well said. I love these kinds of pieces. It feels so important to break down the misconceptions and show people what therapy can actually be. And true to form, I put out a connected piece this week too 😊
This is such a good question and I wish I had a good answer for it. It is certainly true. There are plenty of therapists that aren't great, and even great ones can be the wrong fit depend depending on the person. I don't think there's a single answer because so much of it depends on what the person is struggling with, how long they've been struggling, how much insight they have, etc. I generally recommend people give a new therapist three or four sessions before really tuning into their gut and deciding if the fit feels good or not. Change takes longer than that, but I do think there is wisdom and listening to your gut.
I love this entry soooo much!!! Having had so many challenging relationships over the years just trying to find the right "fit", I finally realized that it wasn't all them and it wasn't all me. For years I blamed myself. That I was too much. I even had a therapist refer me to another saying "don't be scared of her dark thoughts"! 😐 So what was I supposed to think? Now, after a lot of hard work and guidance I know it wasn't all me. (Although I did say just yesterday at the end of session "Sorry I was a lot today") So I still have some work to do. But we all do. I loved so much how you talked about "feeling" better. Before you even wrote it I said "understanding my emotions/thoughts/feelings". 😂 Therapy is a process. There is no perfect. There's no gold star. For every single one of us it's different. It also absolutely changes over time ... as we grow and "do the work". Okay ... I'll finish my own mini-TED talk. Thank you as always for your insight and reflection. ✨️
Well, I one loved your mini Ted talk. I think therapy is such a complicated and confusing process for so many people, and we often think it's just us so we don't say it out loud. I'm glad we are both trying to say it out loud.
This last paragraph sums up therapy perfectly. Over the past two years I’ve experienced great emotional discomfort with both highs and lows. I’ve come to uncomfortable realizations about my own behaviors as well as those of some key people in my life. Some weeks I’ve felt like I was making great emotional progress and other weeks I’ve felt like I had regressed and would never see sunlight again. This pattern has and is leading me to greater self awareness and a much more content life. I wouldn’t undo a minute of the pain for anything!
Thank you for sharing your experience here. Therapy really is a wild ride (and least my experience has been). And I agreed, I wouldn't undo the hard parts, they are what have ultimately moved me forward the most....
I agree with the entire article. Especially this line: “It can feel like you’re getting worse, when in many cases you’re becoming more in touch with your experience.”
I’ve been thinking about that recently, not as an idea about therapy, but as something that shows up in the room and can make the therapist nervous.
Sometimes therapy looks worse before it looks better.
I don’t love saying that, because therapists can use that sentence too easily. A client feels worse, the work feels messy, the family gets worried, the therapist gets worried, and suddenly we have a beautiful explanation for what may simply be bad pacing. So no, pain is not proof of depth. Intensity is not proof that something important is happening.
But sometimes something important is happening.
A person who survived by pleasing everyone starts getting angry. A person who survived by staying busy suddenly feels grief. A person who survived by explaining everything very intelligently discovers that, under all that language, he is frightened. From the outside, this can look like regression. It can look like the client was more functional before therapy. Maybe he was. Or maybe the functioning was being purchased at a very high price.
That is where the therapist’s belief about the person is not a decorative value. It is part of the clinical work.
The therapist has to believe, strongly, that beneath the anxiety, shame, overthinking, pleasing, numbing, irritation, and collapse, there is a core self with intrinsic value. Not a better performance waiting to be trained. Not a more regulated version who will finally make everyone comfortable. A self. Already valuable.
Without that belief, the therapist will almost inevitably start helping the client return to the old arrangement. Look better. Calm down. Be more reasonable. Stop upsetting the system. Get back to what everyone recognized as “progress.”
And sometimes that is the betrayal.
Because the symptoms are not the person. The protectors are not the person. Even the temporary mess is not the person. The person is still there, though sometimes buried under so much adaptation that even the client no longer trusts it.
The article says therapy asks us “to stay with it a little longer.” I think the therapist has to stay with something too. Not just the client’s pain, but the conviction that there is someone underneath the protective structure worth waiting for.
Thank you for writing this. I have experienced all of this over my years in therapy. Today I am almost into 6 years of trauma therapy and I don’t see this part of my healing journey ever ending… life keeps happening.
I totally get that. It's hard work and it's also a privilege to get to do it. I'm glad you found someone you like working with, that is half the battle I think.
Spot on. Thankfully, I entered counseling, guided there by a recommendation of close friends who knew me and knew the counselor. I knew I could trust them. I did see different ones in the practice over time, depending on what I needed. I landed with the one I have stayed with, and so grateful. Don't stop writing. If you ever run out of things to write about (HA), just start all over again. By that time, you'd have a new audience anyway
Ha! What a fantastic idea. That would save me quite a bit of time and also spare me having to feel the feelings… Oh wait, I forgot the whole point of this is to feel the feelings!
Thanks for this insight. When I needed it most, in my 30s, I couldn't begin to afford therapy. I wish I could have. It could have made a huge difference for me.
👍
A good therapist is pure gold.✨
Truth!!!
Well said. I love these kinds of pieces. It feels so important to break down the misconceptions and show people what therapy can actually be. And true to form, I put out a connected piece this week too 😊
Seriously, I swear I didn’t see it…we are just on the same wavelength. Now i’m going to look❤️
This all feels true to my experience…. Good one!
So glad it resonated❤️
This is really useful; thank you.
So after roughly how many sessions should we start to experience changed patterns before concluding that the therapist is not a good fit for us?
I don't mean to be pessimistic, but I've heard there exist a number of not-so-competent therapists out there.
This is such a good question and I wish I had a good answer for it. It is certainly true. There are plenty of therapists that aren't great, and even great ones can be the wrong fit depend depending on the person. I don't think there's a single answer because so much of it depends on what the person is struggling with, how long they've been struggling, how much insight they have, etc. I generally recommend people give a new therapist three or four sessions before really tuning into their gut and deciding if the fit feels good or not. Change takes longer than that, but I do think there is wisdom and listening to your gut.
Thank you! That makes sense.
❤️
Daggum! Beautiful!!!
Thank you❤️
I love this entry soooo much!!! Having had so many challenging relationships over the years just trying to find the right "fit", I finally realized that it wasn't all them and it wasn't all me. For years I blamed myself. That I was too much. I even had a therapist refer me to another saying "don't be scared of her dark thoughts"! 😐 So what was I supposed to think? Now, after a lot of hard work and guidance I know it wasn't all me. (Although I did say just yesterday at the end of session "Sorry I was a lot today") So I still have some work to do. But we all do. I loved so much how you talked about "feeling" better. Before you even wrote it I said "understanding my emotions/thoughts/feelings". 😂 Therapy is a process. There is no perfect. There's no gold star. For every single one of us it's different. It also absolutely changes over time ... as we grow and "do the work". Okay ... I'll finish my own mini-TED talk. Thank you as always for your insight and reflection. ✨️
Well, I one loved your mini Ted talk. I think therapy is such a complicated and confusing process for so many people, and we often think it's just us so we don't say it out loud. I'm glad we are both trying to say it out loud.
This last paragraph sums up therapy perfectly. Over the past two years I’ve experienced great emotional discomfort with both highs and lows. I’ve come to uncomfortable realizations about my own behaviors as well as those of some key people in my life. Some weeks I’ve felt like I was making great emotional progress and other weeks I’ve felt like I had regressed and would never see sunlight again. This pattern has and is leading me to greater self awareness and a much more content life. I wouldn’t undo a minute of the pain for anything!
Thank you for sharing your experience here. Therapy really is a wild ride (and least my experience has been). And I agreed, I wouldn't undo the hard parts, they are what have ultimately moved me forward the most....
Love this. The longer I do this job, the less I feel like I know lol.
That is a true story for me too!
I enjoyed reading this.
Thank you for reading and for sharing! I so appreciate the community here.
I agree with the entire article. Especially this line: “It can feel like you’re getting worse, when in many cases you’re becoming more in touch with your experience.”
I’ve been thinking about that recently, not as an idea about therapy, but as something that shows up in the room and can make the therapist nervous.
Sometimes therapy looks worse before it looks better.
I don’t love saying that, because therapists can use that sentence too easily. A client feels worse, the work feels messy, the family gets worried, the therapist gets worried, and suddenly we have a beautiful explanation for what may simply be bad pacing. So no, pain is not proof of depth. Intensity is not proof that something important is happening.
But sometimes something important is happening.
A person who survived by pleasing everyone starts getting angry. A person who survived by staying busy suddenly feels grief. A person who survived by explaining everything very intelligently discovers that, under all that language, he is frightened. From the outside, this can look like regression. It can look like the client was more functional before therapy. Maybe he was. Or maybe the functioning was being purchased at a very high price.
That is where the therapist’s belief about the person is not a decorative value. It is part of the clinical work.
The therapist has to believe, strongly, that beneath the anxiety, shame, overthinking, pleasing, numbing, irritation, and collapse, there is a core self with intrinsic value. Not a better performance waiting to be trained. Not a more regulated version who will finally make everyone comfortable. A self. Already valuable.
Without that belief, the therapist will almost inevitably start helping the client return to the old arrangement. Look better. Calm down. Be more reasonable. Stop upsetting the system. Get back to what everyone recognized as “progress.”
And sometimes that is the betrayal.
Because the symptoms are not the person. The protectors are not the person. Even the temporary mess is not the person. The person is still there, though sometimes buried under so much adaptation that even the client no longer trusts it.
The article says therapy asks us “to stay with it a little longer.” I think the therapist has to stay with something too. Not just the client’s pain, but the conviction that there is someone underneath the protective structure worth waiting for.
Thank you for writing this. I have experienced all of this over my years in therapy. Today I am almost into 6 years of trauma therapy and I don’t see this part of my healing journey ever ending… life keeps happening.
I totally get that. It's hard work and it's also a privilege to get to do it. I'm glad you found someone you like working with, that is half the battle I think.
Spot on. Thankfully, I entered counseling, guided there by a recommendation of close friends who knew me and knew the counselor. I knew I could trust them. I did see different ones in the practice over time, depending on what I needed. I landed with the one I have stayed with, and so grateful. Don't stop writing. If you ever run out of things to write about (HA), just start all over again. By that time, you'd have a new audience anyway
Ha! What a fantastic idea. That would save me quite a bit of time and also spare me having to feel the feelings… Oh wait, I forgot the whole point of this is to feel the feelings!
This was such a great read thank you!
Thank you for reading❤️
Thanks for this insight. When I needed it most, in my 30s, I couldn't begin to afford therapy. I wish I could have. It could have made a huge difference for me.
It's really criminal how hard it is to access. Good care.
great summary!
Thank you❤️