You may already know that I’m a big fan of psychotherapy to treat mental health concerns and other personal and emotional challenges. In previous posts, I’ve discussed various aspects of the therapy process, including “How to Find a Good Psychotherapist,”“Psychotherapy Works!,”“20 Life-Changing Benefits of Psychotherapy,” and “10 Things You May Not Know About Your Therapist.”
Now, let’s talk about some simple but important things you can do to help your therapist. Help your therapist? That’s right. By being more in the know about how to get the most out of therapy, you can make your therapist’s job a bit easier, help them understand you better and meet your needs more effectively. All of these things can often enable them to help you feel better–sooner, more easily and with better long-term results.
Here are 10 ways you can help your therapist to help you more:
1) Understand the rules
Therapy comes with many rules and guidelines to keep you safe and to protect your privacy. These include things like how your therapy records are protected, confidentiality of information discussed in therapy, maintaining a professional boundary between you and your therapist, how sessions are scheduled, payment, and more. Your therapist will go over all of these at the beginning of therapy and will give you written information. Make sure you understand and observe these policies, and get clarification on any points that are hard to understand.
2) Be honest
It’s tough to reveal sensitive personal information in therapy and it may take some time before you can open up more fully with your therapist. But do try to be as open and honest as possible. This will help your therapist more fully understand you, your needs and your concerns, thus allowing them to work with you to put together a more personalized and effective plan for your treatment.
3) Show up
You can’t get your work done if you aren’t on the job on a regular basis. Similarly, therapy is less effective if you miss sessions, arrive late, leave early or have irregular attendance. Do your best to be consistent in your attendance and you can improve the likelihood that positive change can occur more quickly.
4) Stay focused
Sometimes a lot of material can get covered in a single therapy session, and it can be hard to remember the important takeaways or insights from the session after it’s over. It can be helpful to bring a notebook and jot down a few notes during or right after the session to capture important points you don’t want to forget or things you need to work on before the next session.
5) Do your homework
It’s not uncommon for your therapist to recommend homework or assignments to complete between therapy sessions so you can try out and practice new skills or behaviors on your own. While it’s sometimes hard to get these done, make every effort to complete these assignments so you can see if they are helpful and to give feedback to your therapist about their benefit (or lack thereof).
6) Share your concerns
Sometimes it may feel like therapy is just not working. You may think you’re not getting any better or you may not feel entirely comfortable with your therapist. Speak up and tell your therapist about these concerns. They may be able to adjust the focus of therapy or adapt their style to help you feel more at ease and to help you get back on track with noticeable progress.
7) Be open-minded
Your therapist may likely suggest new tips, strategies or tools to help you that you’re not aware of. They may even ask you consider trying something that you felt wasn’t particularly helpful in the past. While you may initially be hesitant or skeptical of these suggestions, keep an open mind and be willing to at least give these ideas a try before completely dismissing them.
8) Ask questions
If something covered in therapy isn’t clear to you or you don’t understand the reasoning behind one of your therapist’s suggestions, don’t hesitate to ask questions or request them to go over it again with more explanation. Remember this is your therapy and it’s necessary for you to understand what kind of treatment is recommended and the evidence for why it’s effective for your particular concerns.
9) Apply what you have learned
Therapists will sometimes say that the goal of therapy is to teach you how to be your own therapist. This means you will learn new coping skills which you can use in the future to help you navigate difficult situations more easily. Accordingly, try to intentionally remember and use the new skills you have learned in therapy as you face new challenges in your everyday life.
10) Give it some time
Change doesn’t occur overnight, so sometimes therapy may continue for several months or longer. Try to notice small improvements you are making. Occasionally stop and think about the contrast between how you are doing now versus when you first started therapy. Then the positive changes you have made may seem more readily apparent. Remind yourself that the time and money you are investing now in therapy is worth it to become happier and healthier in the long run.
I hope these tips can help you get more out of therapy and work more effectively with your therapist. As I’ve said many times, therapy can be life-changing if you put in the effort, stick with it, and consistently use the new skills you’ve learned along the way.
Here’s a question: What have you found that has made your experiences with therapy better? Please leave a comment. Also, please subscribe to my blog and feel free to follow me on X (formerly Twitter), “like” my Facebook page, or connect on LinkedIn. Finally, if you enjoyed this article, please share it with a friend!