10 Tips on how to really benefit from therapy

Most people only go to therapy when in great distress or pain. It is very common that they go for a few weeks or months until they feel remotely better and then stop, thinking they are “healed” now. I myself made this mistake for a very long time, reaching a point where I thought “therapy simply isn’t for me”.

In reality though, therapy is not a magic “fix” for your problems. I realised this one year ago, when I started going to therapy again. This time, committed. And I haven’t missed one single session since starting one year ago.

Therapy is not just about going there to talk to someone and them making your problems magically vanish. Therapy is about making a committment to yourself, almost as If you’d commit to learning a new skill.

You wouldn’t expect to master any skill in a matter of a few months, especially not by only taking a course once a week without your own personal effort to practice what you’ve learned.

“a person is a fluid process, not a fixed and static entity; a flowing river of change, not a block of solid material; a continually changing constellation of potentialities, not a fixed quantity of traits.”

-Carl R. Rogers

For me, committing to healing and solving past unhealthy patterns over this past year was the single best thing I ever did. I experienced healing in such deep ways I would not have considered possible.

From my own experience and from discussing this subject with professionals, I hereby wrote down a list of 10 ways on how to really benefit from therapy:

Find the right form of therapy for you

Before starting therapy, make your research. When I decided which therapy would be best for me, I had about ten different First-Consultations until I decided.

There are many different types of therapy forms with very different approaches. Behavioral therapy might be better for someone with OCD than f.i. a psychoanalitical approach. To find out what suits you best, consider:

• What are the symptoms/concerns you are struggeling with?
• What do you expect to get out of therapy?
• Are your problems more rooted in childhood experience or anchored in more present times?
• Are your problems more related to behavior or to affects?
• Which approach seems more natural for you?
• Do you feel more comfortable with a man or a woman?

Have strong, significant and long-term reasons

It is very common to go to therapy when experiencing momentary pain or suffering. Oftentimes, though, when you start getting better, the motivation vanishes.

Therapy is something you have to do for you, and no one else. Your reasons for going are very much unique, as they should be.

Sure, releaving your present symptoms are a strong reason for therapy. But as with everything, symptoms too ebb and flow. Therefore, this superficial release shouldn’t be your main nor only reseaon.

Realise that behind your symptoms lay more deeply rooted problems. Acknowledge this, and remind yourself that these patterns will come out time and time again if the underlying reasons are not adressed.

Really take your time and find your motivation on why you want to go to therapy. For me, my two strongest motivations are not wanting to pass on my struggles onto my (not yet existing) children and not to bring more harm into the world by my unresolved pain. Those are two far-reaching points that keep me motivated even when things in my life are going great.

Make it a priority

I can’t stress this enough. Make your weekly therapy sessions a priority, and prepare yourself for that priority to last several months or years.

I get that life can get really busy. Whenever I plan my week ahead, my therapy session is one of the first things I write down as set.

There is always a way to work around your schedule. I had several months where I scheduled my sessions over Zoom because I was on vacation, in lockdown or in a different country.

Consistency is key here. Just as with learning a new skill, working through deep-rooted issues takes a lot of time, consistency and practice.

Be absolutely honest

We all have things we are ashamed of from time to time. For me, I remember being very scared when I first told my therapist about some of my experiments with drugs around that time or when I had displayed a behavior I thought of as toxic.

Out of those instances though, I realised how important it is to tell exactly that which you are ashamed or scared of. Your therapist won’t judge you in any way.

Quite the opposite, the things you resist telling are more often than not big stepping stones on our way to getting better.

“What you resist, persists.”

-Carl Jung

Prepare for your sessions (and the remaining day after)

Before going in, quickly review your week and plan ahead what you want to work through in your session. Here are some things you can do to prepare for a session:

• What progress have I made last week?
• How has the previous session impacted me?
• What were key situations that I want to talk about?
• What were dominant behaviors/emotions/thoughts in the last week?
• Do I have anything coming up that I want to talk through?

This way, you can make the most out of your sessions. You go in prepared and allow this one hour of talking-time to be more structured and productive for you.

Another little piece of advice is to also prepare for the rest of the day after your session. Sometimes, therapy can bring up a lot of stored up feelings and trauma.

Make sure you have at least one hour after your session for yourself. Best would be to have the rest of the day off, as it can leave you feeling tired and depleated.

Work with what you’ve learned

This links back to my entry example of considering therapy just like learning a new skill. Don’t expect one hour of talking to magically erase your problems and symptoms. The real work lays throughout the rest of your week.

Sometimes, there will be one specific subject that you talk through in your sessions. Othertimes, there will be some strategies or skills for you to practice. Even just the awareness of a repeating pattern of yours can be something to work with for the rest of your week.

I always like to take one essential thing out of my session, write that on a paper and put that paper on my wall. Throughout the week, I either remind myself mentally of that, I reflect on it through my writing or I use it when a certain situations triggers it.

By focusing on one specific thing at a time, you really allow that aspect of your therapy session to sink in and make a lasting change within you.

Some things you will have to revisit week and week, month and month again. Some times may come easy. Some things may not work at all or only in very specific situations. And some aspects might even be a huge breakthrough that brings you ten steps further, as f.i. the concept of radical acceptance was for me.

Have a therapy folder

This ties in closely with the previous and following point in here. By having a destined folder for your therapy sessions, you make space for whatever you learn in your physical sourroundings as well.

Here are some things that you can put in your folder:

• Work sheets from your therapist
• Reflections about a session
• Goals
• A track of your progress
• Anything relating your sessions that you might want to write down on paper
• A letter for your future self

Track your progress

This one is huge. Through writing diary, I accidentally tracked my progress througout the year. Reading back to the beginning times and comparing them to today made me really realise how much of a difference it made, which as time passed I wasn’t aware of to that extend.

Reading back, my biggest struggles were setting clear boundaries and always putting all the blame on me. I’d rather accept toxic behavior and blame myself for it then risk loosing someone. Reading back, I actually wasn’t aware of that. Those two aspects are things that now come almost naturally to me, without really recalling how different it was back then.

Though I consciously did realise a lot of things that have changed, like managing emotions better or not fearing abandonment anymore, I actually forgot how different my type of thinking really was and how severe I harmed myself.

Which is why I really recommend you to track your progress. To write down your thoughts and feelings. As time passes on, you may forget where you first started out.

It also gives you a great sense of confidence and hope, whilst also keeping you motivated to continue your journey. Reading back pages months ago, I would not identify myself with those thoughts or feelings anymore. Realising that showed me that healing is actually really possible on a way more deeper level than only behavioral changes or better coping strategies.

“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”

– Carl R. Rogers

Have short and long term goals

Goals keep you on track and motivated. Make sure to always have some things in the back of your mind that you want to achieve. Those goals can be very individual and vary a great deal depending on your situation.

Make sure to write them down and keep them somewhere easily accessible. This way, you can always recalibrate when you doubt your journey.

Also, break down your goals in long and short term goals. Make sure to set realistic goals. A realistic mid-term goal would be “I learn to manage intense emotions in a more healthy way”. An unrealistic goal would be “I don’t experience intense emotions anymore”, as it is absolutely normal and healthy to not feel 100% fine all the time.

Goals should not add any more extra pressure, but instead aid in keeping your focus and course. Don’t beat yourself up if something takes a lot more time than expected. Just know that one day, you will get there.

Prepare for things to get worse

Progress is not linear, and the same counts for therapy. Instead, there might be times where things get a lot worse as therapy can bring out some really intense emotions that may need some time processing.

Really be aware that things can get though from time to time. Don’t feel discouraged or interpret it as a sign of your therapy not working.

On the contrary, in my own experience, when things got really bad was usually right before some major and lasting positive change was able to happen. With time, maybe you can also learn to welcome though experiences as they often guide you to where healing is most needed.

“The wound is the place where the light enters.”

-Rumi

Summary

Going to therapy can do a great deal in helping you heal and evolve as a person. But as with everything in life, this depends on your intention with it.

When you view certain aspects of your psyche like the potential of “learning a skill“, your approach to therapy might be more fruitious.

Therapy alone will only do so much. You have to committ and view therapy as an aid and guide, with you as the active participator that works with it.

Only implementing some things, like going consistently or working with it throughout the rest of your weeks might make a huge difference in the effectiveness of your therapy.

“One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again.”

ABRAHAM MASLOW