For the past 12 months, Mindful Solutions LLC has gotten a steady stream of new referrals. The COVID-19 pandemic, the need to quarantine, and the incredible amount of conflict and stress in the world have created a second pandemic: the mental health pandemic. The good news is that people are seeking professional support as they struggle with social isolation, troubled relationships, anger, depression, and anxiety. However, some people will struggle with therapy when it doesn’t meet their expectations. Many people have sought out therapy for the first time, so they may be unsure of what to expect and have ideas about therapy that are different from its reality. They are desperately seeking help, but they experience disappointment when therapy doesn’t solve their problems. The purpose of this blog is to help guide those who may not know what to expect or who may have already been disappointed, so they can make the most of their time in therapy and get the results they seek.
Once you have found a therapist who you think might be a good fit, it’s still important to set realistic expectations. Even if you connect well and there’s good communication between you and your therapist, it’s important to remember that you want to set goals early in your time together. For example, if you are mostly looking for someone to talk to you in a safe space, and you aren’t seeking advice, you must tell your therapist so they don’t give unsolicited advice that you may not find useful. If you are seeking a directive approach, talk to your therapist about specifics. Some therapists are really great at giving concrete coping strategies and helping you come up with an action plan. You can be in the driver’s seat of your therapy if that’s what you want, or tell your therapist that you want them to provide guidance to you based on the information you give to them about your presenting problems.
You may have gone to therapy for several weeks and tried some of the strategies suggested. Perhaps they are not working yet, or maybe you haven’t tried them frequently. Change takes time, and if you are seeking therapy as a means of changing your behavior or patterns in relationships, remember that the most effective changes take place gradually and with practice. Don’t give up because you’ve tried mindfulness meditation twice and you didn’t like it, for example. Or that conversation you had with your friend based on your therapist’s feedback didn’t go so well. Give yourself credit for trying something different and go back to therapy and discuss those setbacks with your therapist.
Therapy can provide a time for developing concrete strategies to manage your life, but it can be so much more. One of my favorite parts of therapy is when clients reflect on their experiences and gain insight into the ways in which they prevent themselves from changing and moving forward. If you embrace introspection, therapy will help you grow emotionally. You are the greatest agent of change in your own life, and therapy is the space in which you can create change, or explore why that is difficult. The therapist can help you with your process, but you must be engaged in that process.
Difficulty being vulnerable can be another obstacle to effective therapy. It’s understandable that it’s hard to open up right away to a new person. Even though therapy is designed as a safe space where anything can be shared, some people have a hard time being forthcoming, which makes it harder to build a relationship with the therapist. To make it easier, think ahead of time about what you would like to discuss and go to your sessions with material to cover. While a therapist can help guide the conversation, the therapy is for you, so you want to focus on things that are important in your life, and only you know the best content to bring in with you. Thinking about what you have discussed after the session is also critical because therapy is a process that involves more than just sitting in session for 45 minutes. It requires thoughtful consideration all the days between your sessions.
Before you quit therapy, or change therapists, talk about your feelings about how therapy is going so far. Most therapists will welcome the feedback, and they will appreciate the opportunity to help you get from therapy what you seek. When this happens, therapy is much more satisfying for both the client and the therapist.
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