What to do when therapy gets hard?

Let’s be honest – therapy can be hard and there is no way around it. The good news is that it doesn’t need to be difficult throughout the therapeutic process. Here are a few tips to help get you through when times get hard.

Start by accepting that therapy will be hard. Remember the saying that difficult things bring the greatest rewards? That’s not always the case, however, with therapy, it is. Therapy can bring up painful memories, thoughts, and or feelings that are causing stress in your life. And while we may not be experiencing the painful occurrence in the present day, it does not mean that our mind and body do not recognize the pain that was suffered. Many times the body will hold onto traumas from the past which can affect the way you feel physically and emotionally in the present.

A suggestion that I present to those that I work with is to keep a journal and to write in it when they are feeling anxious, sad, or struggling to get through a moment. It's during the time that they are writing in their journal that they discover what it is that they are truly experiencing. Sometimes it has nothing to do with what's actually going on in the moment, it is more about past occurrences. It's fascinating how things that happened in the past can have such an impact on things happening in the present.

Now that we've accepted that things will be difficult at various stages in the therapeutic process, it's time to talk about the most important tip that can be offered. The most important tip is to keep going. Therapy definitely works, but you have to work it, it's not a passive activity. The more engaged you are in the therapeutic process, the better the results. It would be easy to stop going to therapy when it becomes difficult, but then you would not have gained the full benefit from it. Commit to attending sessions according to the treatment plan laid out by your therapist and you will see results.