These people are not all trained in the same way and they can't provide the same kinds of treatment. If you're with a therapist who isn't qualified to provide the kind of care you want, or if your needs are now outside their remit, you may find yourself struggling. Another common reason therapy stops feeling effective is the client-therapist relationship. Klapow says these blocks often pass, but that if they don't, you need to figure out the next steps.
Whatever your reasons — whether it's the therapist, the therapy, or a feeling you can't explain — it's important to not just bow out without a conversation. For one, it's rude, but more importantly, it prevents you from figuring out what's going wrong so that you can both work together to fix it.
Stopping suddenly will also deny you closure and a chance to talk about your therapy wins, McBain says. A good therapist, Klapow says, will welcome your feelings and have an action plan. A therapist who gets defensive or upset at this conversation, he says, is showing that they're not qualified to deal with your issues, and you're probably right to not want to work with them anymore.
Sometimes you can fix therapy issues with changes in how you receive therapy. Other times, however, you'll need to move on. Changing therapists or therapy methods can be emotionally difficult, and ideally your old therapist should help you through the process.
If you can't talk to your old therapist about what precisely went wrong, McBain recommends journaling about it or talking to a family member or friend.
Learn from the process and think about what you really want and need from a therapist, and then look for one with those skills. When therapy stops working, it can signal small issues that need to be fixed or bigger problems that require more fundamental changes. Either way, it's important not to keep it to yourself. The more honest you are, the more help you can get, so be brave and have that tricky conversation. Heidi McBain. While discussing problems is certainly a large part of therapy, the goal of therapy is actually to work on change.
Therapists are not magicians, and therefore cannot help a person change anyone else besides the client. The client drops out of treatment. Real change and psychotherapy can be hard, emotional, long, and sometimes expensive.
Many clients expect that therapy means going to someone who agree with everything you say, validate and support every feeling and decision, be available whenever needed or otherwise meet some hypothetical fantasy of what that person imagined therapy would be like. The client is not honest or realistic about their issues. Many people have shame and anxiety about discussing their most problematic behaviors or thoughts and only share part of the story with their therapist.
For example, a woman is complaining that all of their boyfriends leave her and she wants to work on recognizing healthy dating behaviors. The therapist and client are not a good fit. While most people can make progress with a number of different therapists, there are absolutely times when the client and therapist are not a good interpersonal fit.
For example, a client with anxiety about people pleasing, criticism, and shame is unlikely to have successful therapy with a therapist who is constantly confronting them with negative feedback, who often appears obviously frustrated with the client, and comes across as devaluing or otherwise narcissistic. Success and failure are often subjective. For example, if a client outlined a specific list of goals to accomplish and they did not accomplish all of them in therapy.
Does this mean the therapy failed, or that there is more work to be done? Most therapists tend to avoid concrete thinking when it applies to more subjective ideas, such as the therapy process. Client needs a higher level of treatment. Some clients need a higher level of care than that therapist can provide, and this may not have been initially been clear to their therapist. However, there are times when these feelings can create issues that are counter-productive to the treatment, and some therapists will try to offer the client a referral to another therapist who they believe would be better suited to help the client.
There are many reasons why clients make progress in therapy, or why they may not. This question originally appeared on Quora - the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.
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