How to Make the Most of Therapy
Stigma regarding mental health treatment is slipping away and more people are comfortable seeking help from a professional regarding personal problems. This is great! It’s also important to recognize that making a call or sending an email to set up that first appointment is only one step toward becoming a healthier person. Your relationship with your therapist is important, and it can be hard to predict who you will “click” with. It’s also possible you might need different things from a therapist at different points along the way. You might need a lot of support and empathy at the start, but need someone who is more willing to challenge you as you progress.
Don’t knock something until you’ve tried it
If your therapist recommends keeping a journal, completing a worksheet, or bringing awareness to certain thought patterns, it’s only fair to you and your work with that therapist to try those exercises before insisting they won’t work—-even if you’ve tried them before. Your therapist has specialized training and experience and is asking you to try those activities for a reason.
Plan on Meeting Weekly for the First Six Months
If you see your therapist every week for six months, you are giving yourself the best chance of making noticeable progress in that time. It’s also important to keep in mind that if you plan on meeting weekly, it’s probably going to average closer to twice a month due to holidays, illness, work, etc. I rarely will bring someone on as a new client if they won’t commit to meeting weekly at the start.
Goals Are Important
While your therapist can help you formulate goals, if you don’t have an answer to The Miracle Question, hold off on setting up an appointment and take some time to consider it. The Miracle Question is: if we fast-forward to six months from now and your most pressing problem is resolved, what will your life be like? Specifically, how will things have changed for you? It’s almost impossible to get good results if you have no idea what results you’re looking for.
Don’t Make an Appointment to Appease Other People
Friends, family, and partners often mean well be encouraging people they care about to go to therapy, but if you don’t want to go and don’t feel like anything in your life needs to change, it’s not going to work. In the end, therapy is about working on yourself and that means changing something whether it’s actions you take or the way you think about something. You have to attend your appointments and (most likely) pay for them and put in the effort of applying anything you learn between sessions. It isn’t up to another person to decide it’s time for you to change your life.
Ok, but People in My Life Say I’m Being “Too Much”
More likely than not, they’re trying to encourage you to look after your health and don’t really find your calls burdensome. However, if you are relying solely on a couple of friends or family members for support, consider at least joining a support group or branching out so that you have more people to reach out to when you just need to talk or need someone to keep you company. All of us go through periods of needing to lean on the people who care about us more than we typically do. If they’re really your friends, they’ll understand.
Consider Self-Help Options First
Full disclosure: I get stumped about what to talk about in my own therapy sometimes. I know I need to do it because I need someone to support me the same way I support others. I owe it to my clients and my loved ones to have a confidential space to process everything. However, it isn’t always easy for me to articulate what’s bothering me. If I pop open a book by Harriet Lerner or one of my other self-help favorites, it often helps me clarify what’s bothering me in a way that I convey to another person instead of just the vague sense of something is bothering me.
If You Want to Try Therapy, Try It!
Please don’t read this and come away with the idea that I am trying to talk anyone out of going to therapy. If you really want to give it a try, definitely do it. I am in this field, accept insurance, and always have at least one intern who can see clients on a sliding scale basis because I want everyone who wants therapy to be able to access it. Therapy is a substantial investment of time and money on your part. So it’s important to have a good idea of what you want to work on and what “results” would look like for you so you can share that with prospective therapists. It helps you find the right person, and it helps them help you.
