What is Therapy?
I often have friends or acquaintances ask me about expectations for therapy. I will share with you what I tell them. The connection you feel with your therapist is extremely important for you to be able to have a meaningful and effective therapy experience. The connection should be one that allows you to feel comfortable enough to open up about the personal topics that you need to bring up in therapy. Oftentimes, what we bring into the therapy space is painful; sometimes these topics are layered with shame.
Those topics are difficult enough to face on your own and even more so with another person present. If you walk away from your first or second session questioning whether or not that will be possible, you may want to verbalize your concerns to your therapist if you feel you can. Or you may want to identify a different therapist altogether.
Therapy is tough work. It consumes a lot of emotional energy. I use the term “therapy hangover” to describe this to some of my clients. The impact of what you do in the therapy space does not end as soon as the session is over. There is usually some period of hours or days in which what you unpack in a therapy session may have a lasting impact on you. I use a wound analogy to describe the healing process in therapy: the act of getting into tough topics and examining them can be painful as is cleaning out an infected wound. The pain may linger a bit as you heal.
Hard truth: sometimes it hurts worse before it feels better, but when it feels better, the outcomes are immeasurable. It’s important to take care of yourself during this process. Self-care and wellness are topics that will come up often in therapy with me and we will brainstorm together what your best self-care tactics may be. Having said all this, it’s also important for you to know that therapy should be taken at your pace. My goal as your therapist is to take cues from you about that while encouraging you to heal at a pace that is tolerable for you and keeps you moving toward growth.