Why therapy can’t be rushed

Have you ever seen a therapist and everything seemed to be going well…and then, a few months or so into meeting, the therapist said, “You’ve made great progress here, and I think you’re ready to meet less often”? You maybe went from meeting weekly, to biweekly, to monthly, or maybe even terminated altogether. How did this experience feel?

Maybe it felt fine, because you felt like you were running out of things to talk about. Most likely, you genuinely did feel better and the issues you originally came to therapy for had improved. You probably felt optimistic that you had made progress and you were excited to try going it on your own.

For a while, things were good. You remembered the skills you learned, you made improvements to your daily routines, and you were increasingly surrounding yourself with positive social supports. You felt proud of yourself for your hard work and your progress.

But as it happens, life continued to do what life does. New stressors occurred. Triggers came up. You found yourself, at times, struggling to remember the skills that you’d learned in therapy. Maybe those skills that had once been so effective no longer seemed to be helping the way they used to. You thought about reaching back out to your old therapist, but maybe they were booked or maybe something in you just hesitated. You felt like you needed more, and you weren’t sure you would get it if you returned to that environment.

Sometimes, going to therapy for short periods is perfectly appropriate. You may need support getting through a difficult time in life or help resolving a specific issue. You see a therapist, you get what you need, and you are ready to move on. But if you are a person who has experienced complex trauma, you likely need more.

As the name says, complex trauma is complex. You may not realize that you have “complex trauma” or even trauma at all until you get deeper into therapy. Most of the time, complex trauma clients show up because they are going through a difficult time or need help resolving a specific issue, but as we get into it, we realize the roots of the problems go deeper than we knew. Instead of finding simple resolution to problems, we work to understand how we got here in the first place, why certain situations seem to repeat themselves, and why it can be so hard to get out of them. We begin to understand why it’s always been so hard for us to ask for help, why we’ve always pushed through challenges, why we’re so tired all the time no matter how much sleep we get, why we’re still anxious no matter what self-care practices we engage in.

If you’ve ever seen a tree with roots sticking out of the ground, you’ve seen that the roots twist and turn and overlap. We also know that we only see a few of the roots, and there are many, many more underground that we can’t see. When we are doing complex trauma work, we will find ourselves on a path of many twists, turns, and unknown destinations. We’ll discover things we never knew existed, but make perfect sense once we understand them. You’ll be surprised by the things that come up, but once you’ve committed to the path of self-discovery, healing, and wholeness, you’ll have a hard time going back.

This is my absolute favorite work to do with clients. And this is exactly why therapy can’t be rushed. We need to allow time, space, and patience for our hurt parts to be revealed. Many of us really want to be seen and heard, but we’re so used to putting on a brave face, minimizing the significance of our own challenges, masking our emotions, and saying we’ve got this after getting the smallest bit of help, that we aren’t going to be open books after a few sessions. Sometimes, it takes a full year or so of weekly therapy before we really start to do deep work. Sometimes, two or three years into working together, we have gotten to know ourselves pretty well but we still really appreciate having the weekly space because awareness does not equal change. Building awareness is such an important step, but change takes time and practice and repetition and so much patience. Changing a lifetime of habits and coping mechanisms requires support and encouragement. And, of course, while we do all of this really important work, life is still happening. We may be deep into trauma work when suddenly you get a new boss or experience a significant loss or your partner or child is struggling and you need support to support them. Trauma work takes a pause while we attend to the needs in our current life.

I also equate the therapy process like working out. Working out will benefit your body and mind in many ways, but you have to keep at it consistently to maintain results. Why should treating our mental and emotional health be looked at any differently?

You deserve care. You deserve to thrive. You deserve support. It’s not always easy to commit to yourself, but I hope you will be glad you did.