Six Ways to Get More Out of Therapy
1. Set a goal
Usually people come to therapy because they want to feel better. They feel distressed because something in their life isn’t working right. Maybe it’s a situational concern, or they’re feeling anxious or depressed, or maybe they’re struggling with problematic relationship. Regardless of the problem, you want the pain to stop. Of course you do.
But our first step is to fine-tune what “feeling better” might look like for you. In a sense, what we’re trying to do is construct a psychological yardstick for change. If you have a clear result in mind, it provides a sharp focus for your therapy. Ideally, we’d like your goals for therapy to be realistic and measurable.
Unfortunately, when you’re distressed, goal setting might be the last thing on your mind. If thinking about it this way seems like too much challenge, try constructing an image in your mind’s eye. Take a moment and create an image of where you are, right now, problems and all, and then think about where you’d like to be, assuming therapy was successful. Don’t worry about how you’re going to get there; the main thing is just to get a picture of what “feeling good” might look like for you.
This image has power. It provides focus, motivation, and guidance.
2. Make regular appointments
One of my colleagues (Olivia Noack, MSW)) once said that therapy is a little bit like archeology. It takes time and effort to “uncover” something valuable about your own unique psychology, but if you space the sessions out too much the sands of time will cover over what you’ve discovered.
Rule of thumb: try to schedule weekly appointments, especially at the beginning of therapy. If you must cancel a session, try to reschedule the appointment that same week.
Regular appointments build momentum.
3. Sight inward
It’s tempting to blame others for our problems. Of course, other people do contribute to our suffering. But in therapy, it’s more productive to consider your own role in creating whatever you experience, be it positive or negative. Consequently, a therapist will encourage you to examine the inner world of your thoughts, feelings, needs, and perceptions in addition to the outer world of relationships.
Therapy doesn’t aim to cure life, but it does seek to help you improve your ability to adapt to it. Whether you realize it or not, your problems have a pattern to them, patterns which originate, not from circumstances, but from within.
4. Be patient with the process
Therapy is complex. On the surface, it may seem as though you’re just “talking” and not really doing anything. But as you plunge into the heart of your concerns, your therapist is listening for how your thoughts, emotions, perceptions, motives, and memories work in concert to create patterns of behavior. Your therapist brings specialized knowledge, training, and experience to the process of understanding you.
For instance, all of us are sometimes motivated by forces outside of our awareness. Your therapist tries to identify these forces and bring them to your attention. In this way, we can better understand how hidden parts of you may be blocking your own best efforts to change. This is one of the most valuable benefits of therapy, and it’s not something you can readily get from self-help books or from well-meaning friends who give advice.
We live in a culture that thrives on convenience and speed. We’ve come to expect easy, fast results in life. Unfortunately, therapy, like a good education, offers you neither. You may be hurting and struggling and eager to be feeling better as soon as possible, but therapy doesn’t work that way. The process of change is seldom linear and our psyches (like our bodies) tend to resistance change as a matter of course.
Be patient. Real change takes time.
5. Expect a little anxiety
Truth is, therapy can be unsettling. Some individuals may have difficulty opening up. Others may feel anxious about facing their true feelings. Sometimes change takes longer than expected, and it takes work. But all of these things are merely signs that the change process has started.
The prospect of change also brings with uncertainty with it. Uncertainty can make us feel apprehensive. The trick, however, is not to be alarmed by these early feelings of discomfort, but to see them for what they really are: growth.
6. Persist
One of the biggest mistakes we routinely see in therapy is that clients do not stick with the process long enough. Psychological symptoms will wax and wane, depending on the stress in your life and your current capacity to cope. When this happens it’s easy to be lulled into thinking that symptomatic fluctuations represent real change, so you stop therapy. But in fact, real change––change that endures––requires time, effort, awareness, problem solving, action, trial and error, support, and courage.
Stick with it. It may turn out to be some of the best money you ever spent.