Am I Doing Therapy Wrong?

I sometimes hear this question from my clients, and it can arise due to cues from both our internal and external environments. As someone who’s also a client myself, I’ve had times when I’ve wondered the same thing. Most of us show up to therapy because we want to experience some kind of change. Maybe we want to understand why we react the way we do, why we choose partners with certain characteristics, why we can’t seem to shake our pasts no matter how infrequently they occupy the forefront of our minds. Maybe we want to start setting better boundaries with family, friends, and colleagues. Maybe we want to start feeling less shame and more self-compassion. Whatever our motivations for engaging in therapy, we typically want to feel and do better. It can be discouraging when it seems like that’s not happening.

Therapy, while distinct from relationships with partners, friends, co-workers, siblings, or parents, is still a human relationship. It does, however, involve a dynamic in which the therapist possesses a degree of emotional, psychological, and relational power due to the nature of their position and expertise. It’s normal for us to expect that our therapist should know something about how to help us get to where we want to be, and to assume that they would be able to suggest some tools that are best suited for that journey. Sometimes, however, our therapist might make a suggestion or begin heading in a direction that feels uncomfortable to us. While we might notice our discomfort and hesitancy, there may be another voice in our head that says, “Part of doing the work is being uncomfortable. Your therapist is here to help you, so you should just trust the process.” 

It’s true: growth, healing, and transformation can and does entail discomfort and even pain. But we all deserve to understand and choose the path we’re on. I often tell my clients that there’s a difference between discomfort that we sense we’d like to lean into and the resistance that’s more like an internal stop sign signaling misalignment and potential danger. It’s because of this that I always open up conversations with them when they vocalize questions, concerns, or internal reactions that they notice. I often say, “I don’t know you better than you do, so you’re the one who’s best equipped to discern what the sensation arising in you is trying to say.” While I believe it’s very healthy and productive for clients to initiate these conversations during therapy, I understand that it can seem intimidating or confusing; that’s why I also open up these discussions as the therapist. If there’s something that doesn’t seem to be working in your therapy experience, it’s helpful to share this with whomever you’re working. If your therapist isn’t receptive to what you have to say, or if they aren’t open to having a more collaborative relationship with you, that may be a sign that they’re not the best person for what you need right now. 

In the field of counseling, we often emphasize the importance of employing evidence-based practices in therapy. As our field is both an art and a science, we value conducting research to gather evidence for the effectiveness of different strategies and interventions. If your therapist has never shared about the kinds of therapies and modalities they use in their work, it’s worth asking them about those things. Sometimes we might not be experiencing change or progress because we’re not being given the most effective resources for the challenges we face. Therapists are also required to participate in a certain amount of continuing education to maintain active licensure, to further our understanding of ongoing developments in our field, and to expand our scope of practice. Your therapist should be more than happy to disclose what additional training and education they have and are engaging in.

Another reason for wondering whether or not we’re “doing therapy right” can be the internal narratives and beliefs that have likely been our long-time companions. Maybe we’ve been taught that progress should always be efficient and have certain quantifiable results. Maybe it’s not just therapy, but it’s generally most things about which we feel uncertain and question if we’re doing them right. Perhaps early on in our lives, we learned to only feel and express “positive” emotions and, therefore, when anything feels less than pleasant, it means that something is awry within the process. It can be useful to be curious about the question itself. If you find yourself wondering, “Am I doing therapy wrong?”, it can be an opportunity to inquire further about where that question is coming from. It’s likely that some of the beliefs we hold and stories we tell ourselves can be just the sorts of topics to bring into the therapy process as we seek to shed the things that are no longer serving us. 

Regardless of why you’ve asked this question, it’s important to know you’re definitely not alone. And it's important for you not to feel alone in your therapy experience. Sometimes we can’t be met in our questions because we’ve never said the thing out loud. Sometimes it’s because the person on the other side of the room or screen isn’t able to meet us there because of their own obstacles or unresolved insecurities. It’s essential to look both within and without for clarity. At the end of the day, you know what you need, and it’s okay to make adjustments or alter your course along the way. And, for the record, there’s a 99.9% chance that, no, you’re not doing this wrong.