How to Get the Most Out of Therapy
Therapy is expensive. But you know what costs even more? Suffering from problems that suck the joy out of life.
Every year, I see patients who hit their goals in just 3 months. Meanwhile, others take years to achieve similar success. What’s the difference between people who make rapid change and people who can take years to succeed?
Commitment to the process.
Look, it’s wise to seek help when you have unresolved issues. What’s even wiser is knowing how to maximize benefits so you don’t end up spending a fortune on long-term therapy. Here are the 5 strategies my most successful clients use to get the most out of working with me.
1. Pick the Right Therapist
You don’t see a urologist for a heart condition or a cardiologist for a skin condition. You want the right specialist for your complaint. The same applies to therapy. So be sure to do your research before you call someone.
In today’s world, you have a wide range of helping professionals to choose from. That gets confusing — should you see a psychologist or a sex therapist? A marriage counselor or a social worker? There are dozens of categories of professionals with different areas of expertise and different training backgrounds. For example, if you believe you need medications, see a psychiatrist; general mental health should be treated by a psychologist. A marriage counselor should be your first choice for a rocky marriage, while a sex therapist is trained to help with your sex life.
Look for a professional who is trained to work with you on the specific issues you need to address. Picking the right person for the job will save you time and money.
Finally, find someone you actually connect with. Shop around until you find someone who makes you feel you can trust them with your secrets. Not just because they have the proper credentials on paper but because you feel a good rapport with them.
2. Tell Your Truths
Be prepared to share all your truths with whomever you pick. If you’re too ashamed to reveal your secrets to a therapist, you aren’t ready for therapy. I can’t deny that some helping professionals fail. But more often, it’s the client who plays a self-defeating game by not telling the helping professional their full background story.
For example, I’ve had clients who concealed or denied that they had a diagnosis of a significant mental health issue from a previous doctor. I’ve seen clients who didn’t tell me about — or minimized — their traumas until I added up the pieces and drew the truth out of them. Hiding or holding back information will lengthen or even invalidate the treatment plan. It means your therapist will have to revise their initial assessment and roll therapy back to explore your issues in a new light.
Spill the beans so your therapist can properly develop a solid treatment plan based on your real needs. Everything is confidential and this may be your only shot at resolving your problems, so share your secrets to help them help you.
3. Show Up
Make sure you can meet your time commitment.
This includes
- treating your appointments as sacred rituals in your healing process
- showing up on time
- Be time-conscious. Some clients will wait till the last few minutes before talking about the real issue, and then there’s not enough time to properly explore it
There are two important reasons why the above helps you get the best results.
First, you are granting therapy an important position in your life — in other words, you are making it a priority. Treat appointments with respect. These appointments are for changing your life. Holding this mindset puts you in the right space to make meaningful growth.
Second, your therapist cannot be more committed to your growth than you are. When I see a client who is chronically late or can’t stick to a schedule, then I know they are doing therapy performatively, not because of a sincere passion for self-improvement. Sometimes I recommend that they pause our appointments so they can reflect and re-evaluate whether they are truly ready to do the work therapy involves.
Treating therapy as just something you happen to be doing instead of a real emotional commitment is self-sabotaging. A cavalier attitude just wastes time and money. It robs you of the steady progress you could be making. My most successful clients have always been people who make a schedule they can adhere to, whether it is twice a week or once a month. They come in with an attitude of being there to work. The results are powerful.
4. Follow the Treatment Plan
Sex therapy is my specialty, and it often requires people to make some behavioral changes. With that goal in mind, I usually give homework to help my clients make progress even when they’re not in my virtual office.
The clients who make the most impressive changes in short periods of time are the ones who DO THEIR HOMEWORK. Some of them record our sessions so they can review what was said. Others take notes. But most importantly, they do all the homework even when it’s hard. At our next session, we review the work they did or, if they faltered, we discuss the stumbling blocks and overcome them together.
Similarly, since you are paying a goodly sum for the advice, please FOLLOW the advice. People who won’t implement the advice they are given only extend the length of treatment or, worse, blame the process instead of accepting responsibility for their own failure to follow through,
Sticking to your therapist’s treatment plans fast-tracks you to your goals. Fighting the plan, playing games, or ignoring your therapist’s advice guarantee that the treatment will, at best, take longer and cost more.
5. Keep the Therapy Vibe Going At Home
It’s always surprised me how some people believe that it’s entirely up to the doctor to fix their problems. The best, most results-oriented therapy comes about when both sides — patient and doctor — take a team approach.
The clients most likely to see vast improvements in their quality of life are people who keep thinking about what was said in therapy between sessions. They mentally review what was said or they journal about it to help them break through blocks. They implement the advice their therapists gave them by making small changes that keep them focused on the process.
I love when clients come up with personal ways to act on my advice. For example, I might suggest they pick up a hobby, volunteer for something or read particular books — but I’m even happier when they say “Your suggestions didn’t resonate for me but I *did* try this other thing and it’s working great!” Perfect! That means they adapted that advice to their personal needs — and that, in turn, makes them highly motivated to keep up the good work!
Again, my most successful clients have this in common. They remain mindful of their therapy goals and take an active role in improving their lives.
Get the Most out of Your Therapy
What separates people who radically improve their lives during a typical 3-month course of therapy from people who don’t is their attitude. They understand that it will take a team effort to get the work done and they take a proactive approach to self-improvement. They’re not there to be passively worked on, they’re there to work.
These people come to therapy eager to feel a little better each time and are proud to see a marked improvement in their lives and relationships.
They are results-focused. Those results are the whole point. Successful therapy resolves problems, breathes new life into their spirit, and gives them a new source of pride. Better sex, better relationships, better life. It’s a beautiful thing.
photo credit: Dan Meyers @Unsplash
