For a lot of individuals and couples, making the choice to initiate the therapeutic process can be difficult. For couples, this may include the resistance of one partner and commitment from the other partner.  For individuals, minimizing or denying issues and concerns can make this a difficult decision. 

I have found that if a person or a couple has a hunch that therapy could be a helpful tool, then trust your gut. Many people enter into therapy willing to work on the surface issues, but as rapport gets established, the client quickly becomes more comfortable and dives deeper into the real issues at hand. 

Oftentimes, individuals and couples that wait too long become much more difficult to treat, and the process becomes longer and slower. Likewise, if the treatment process begins too soon, many clients encounter the “problem of the week” cycle of counseling, which can be perpetuated forever. 

As it relates to readiness, think about your physician or your dentist and apply those standards to your decision. If your issues seem important enough to have a professional intervene, then get started.  If you feel that “home remedies” and “over-the-counter” solutions can or are working, you may want to continue toward those efforts; however, a “regular check-up” or a “dental cleaning” can help organize your home treatments more effectively and offer other tools and recommendations to do your work on your own. 

Today, I want to focus on ways to make the most out of therapy, which starts with a handful of important and common questions that circulate for people considering starting treatment. 

Preparing for Therapy

• Prior to starting therapy, it is important to identify your treatment goals. Oftentimes, for couples, one partner will initiate the scheduling process but not discuss treatment expectations with their partner. 

When this happens, the intake session can become confusing, and one partner may feel attacked or blindsided by the other. It is very common for clients to disclose a problem that is surface level, but they tend to avoid the real issues. When those issues finally come up, it may have             cost the client valuable time and money “working on” non-imperative issues.

        Despite most couples entering into therapy due to communication problems, it is still very important to attempt to align with your partner prior to getting started. 

• The second preparatory step is to identify a willingness for real change. One easy way to do this is by ‘scaling’ your issues.  If your anxiety or depression has identifiable symptoms (which it usually has), note the frequency and intensity of those symptoms.                                                 

Do they occur daily, weekly, always, occasionally, under specific conditions? Also, how intense or disruptive are those symptoms? Using a scale of 1 through 10 can help quantify the intensity and allow the client to observe real change.

          If I feel muscle tension due to stress and anxiousness, and that tension occurs every day when I drive to work, and the tension is so painful that I need to see a chiropractor every week, I may rate that as a 7 or 8. 

         In therapy, I would then want to observe and re-scale that tension on a regular basis until I meet my goal of reducing and managing the stress and anxiety to a level of 2 or 3. 

        Another quick tip, if you take notes, and I encourage you to do that, make sure they are accessible throughout the time between sessions. Therefore, bring a compact notepad or have a preferred notes app on your phone that you can use whenever you have an “a-ha” moment during            a  session. 

Can Therapy Make You Feel Worse?

ABSOLUTELY (but usually not long term)

Therapy forces clients to confront aspects of their personality and specific behaviors that have become disruptive and maladaptive.  Taking accountability for those behaviors is not as easy as looking in the mirror and identifying ‘what’s not working?’. 

Therapy helps the person or couple confront those missteps and offers solutions and changes to those behaviors. These corrections and adjustments are not currently instinctive and natural feelings.  Otherwise, you would already be doing things well or better. 

Also, past and hidden traumas may present themselves through the therapeutic process.  These realizations may require the client to face hard truths from their past that their brain has protected itself from by storing them deep and far away from the client’s consciousness. 

Opening those locks and vaults can be very painful yet powerful all at once.  Through the therapeutic process, the client can learn and understand from these traumas, identify triggers, and empower themselves over these negative stimuli. 

What do I do Between Sessions?

The simple answer is to live your life. Therapy will ask the client to become more self-reflective and gain insight through awareness and observation. 

An effective therapy session should reveal “homework” for the client. Some therapists may assign journaling, listing, scaling, or even reading assignments. Just as when you were in school, the more consistent you were in your homework, the better your “grade” would be in therapy. 

And just an insider tip, your therapist knows when you actually did the homework (wink, wink).

When do I Wait for Therapy?

More often than not, you will want to wait until your next session to discuss and process your feelings.  The two primary reasons for waiting are that it can become very expensive to reach out to your therapist continuously in between sessions, and if you are doing couples or family therapy, it creates an inequitable relationship between the disclosing client and the therapist. 

The second reason is that addressing issues in real time does not allow the client to build resilience toward painful and negative emotions, and it limits the opportunity to improve conflict resolution skills, which can’t be manufactured artificially.  

Many conflicts that occur between sessions can provide tremendous insight as to what caused the conflict, but more importantly, what steps were taken toward resolution and how can the client improve those skills. This is also a key reason why Solid Foundations requires weekly appointments when starting therapy to maintain consistency along with providing regular and timely exposure to the therapist. 

If you’ve been thinking about seeking help through individual or couples therapy, our therapists at Solid Foundations Therapy are here to help you! Visit our website at www.solidfoundationstherapy.com or give us a call at 630-633-8532 today.