What Therapy Is Versus What You Want it to Be

Many of us start our therapy journeys with very little idea of what to expect from therapy. Movies make it seem like a speedy explosion of new insight followed by direct instructions on how to get fixed. This is simply not what therapy really is, as much as Dr. Phil might want you to believe it is. Therapy takes time, patience and a commitment to the therapeutic relationship and resulting positive change. If you are currently unsure about what to expect from therapy, I hope to illuminate you on all that therapy can be and about what therapy is not, so you can enter or continue your journey best informed and with realistic expectations that are fair for you and your therapist.

Guidance vs Advice 

Therapists should not tell you what to do. At its core, therapy is about helping you to function best in your own autonomy. If a therapist advises you about each decision you make, you get no closer to living a healthy independent life. If you are being told what to do, you are losing valuable opportunities to build your self esteem and heal from the success or failures of your own choices. Of course it is natural to want someone to give you all the answers, but that would not serve you or your mental health. It is a much more valuable experience to work with your therapist using tools, skills, or through developing new insight to make decisions for yourself. 

Advice giving isn’t good for your relationship with your therapist either. For one, they are just humans like you and are capable of mistakes as well. The problem here is that if a therapist gives you advice and it doesn’t work out well, you’re much more likely to blame the therapist and jeopardize the therapeutic relationship. It’s natural for us to want someone to blame, and if we can easily blame our therapist, where is our opportunity for reflection and change? Instead, anger and frustration at your therapist halts the benefits of your therapeutic experience. Guidance can limit these instances and help you regain a sense of control over your own life and is ultimately much more empowering.

Validation vs Enabling 

Your therapist is not there to agree with everything you say - this would be enabling the behaviors and thoughts that brought you into therapy in the first place. While therapists should always validate your feelings, they do not always have to agree with you, the choices you make, or the way you think. You should never feel judged by your therapist, but you should feel like they respect you enough to be honest. 

Your therapist should always create a safe enough space for you to explore why the choices you make or the thoughts you have are not helpful or good for you. Confrontation or challenging questions should feel like a chance for exploration, not criticism. Without this crucial part of therapy, you would be so limited in the amount of growth you can have. Even more so, your mental health could decline as a result of your thoughts and behaviors being enabled. You always deserve to feel like you are understood and validated, but that is not that same and should not be the same as being agreed with 100% of the time. 

Coping vs Fixing 

Your therapist cannot fix you. We are humans, not robots, so fixing is just not a realistic feat. Symptoms like anxiety are impossible to get rid of completely. Why? Because anxiety is biologically helpful for us to have. We need it to be warned of real danger and to keep us safe. Many of the emotions we strive to avoid are also just a core part of being human. Sadness is just as important as happiness even if we don't enjoy it. Therapy can never take away the fact that you are human and so you will always experience some range of uncomfortable emotions or feelings. Alternatively, therapy aims to try and help you cope with it all in a much more manageable way. 

It is unfair for you to assume your therapist will be able to make all your symptoms and bad feelings go away. No one person or pill can make that happen. What you can expect from therapy is for you to learn how to manage these experiences in a way that helps you get through your day to day more easily. Therapy can help guide you to insight and change that can dramatically improve your mental health, but, it cannot take everything negative away.

Patience vs Magic 

There is no predictable timeline of how long it will take for therapy to work for you. There will likely never be a day that you finish a session with your therapist and think to yourself, “well I am perfect now and will struggle no longer!” Therapy takes time and how long really depends on who you are and the struggles you have. There is never any shame in how long your healing takes, because healing is forever and it’s always progressing. 

If you are working with a therapist on specific symptoms or challenges you may see results faster than if you are working on insight and processing grief or trauma. The effects of grief and trauma do not have a timeline, so nor should the therapeutic process supporting it. Therapy is not a magical potion your therapist brews to make you feel better, although I wish it was. Instead, it is a journey, and one worth spending the time on. Real change takes time. 

Adjust your expectations

Now that you have a better idea of what therapy is and is not, I hope that you can adjust your expectations accordingly. You can use what you know now to help you determine if your current therapy is working for you, or what to expect your first time in therapy too. Although therapy is no magical “fix it” pill, it can still have the life changing effects you deserve.