What Your Therapist Wants You To Know

Therapy is not a straightforward process. It can be challenging and downright painful at times, but can also be profoundly healing. While I hope that all therapeutic relationships contain a free flow of information and feedback between therapist and client, this too can be complicated, and we might benefit from some simple suggestions from a therapist’s perspective. To that end, I wanted to share some thoughts and encouragement that may provide some clarity and even improve your experience of therapy. 

Therapists really appreciate when you share how you’re feeling about therapy

For many people, sharing our honest feelings towards someone is not a regular part of our lives. But the therapeutic relationship is unique – it’s one in which giving and receiving feedback can serve as practice for our other relationships. Sharing the thoughts and feelings that arise in response to what your therapist says and does can be opportunities for valuable insight as well as practicing self-compassion. Rather than getting defensive or dismissing your feelings, you and your therapist can look at these feelings together and hopefully learn something about what they’re trying to tell you. In the process, we may learn that our feelings are worth our time, consideration, and sharing with others. 

The therapeutic relationship is one of the most important parts

Many clients express frustration about not being able to remember what they talked about in sessions. If they do remember, they don’t know how to apply it to their lives outside of therapy. While these are valid frustrations and worth looking at, don’t neglect looking at the overall way your therapist approaches you. One of the main reasons therapy can be so healing is not because our therapists are brilliant (though there are many talented therapists out there), but because therapists are compassionate, curious, and patient. Rather than get frustrated about not remembering what you discussed, see if you can imagine the way your therapist might respond instead – how would they look at you? How would their voice sound? Would they judge you or be accepting? Would they put pressure on you to figure it out or would they be patient? Applying your therapist’s attitude to your struggles may be one of the most healing things you can do. 

Therapists don’t have all the answers

This may seem like a given, but I’ve run into this enough times that it feels worthwhile to address. Oftentimes, emotional wounds are like complex physical injuries from childhood that didn’t receive the treatment they needed, so they healed in a way that now restricts our lives. We might be able to perform day-to-day tasks, but certain things are just difficult because of the injury. Now imagine this injury is completely invisible – all we can see are the difficulties we have because of it. A lot of times, we come to therapy wanting to fix our difficulties without recognizing the original injury. Furthermore, it might feel uncomfortable or even threatening to look at the original injury. All of this is understandable, but makes therapy a very complex process. 

Therapists can offer perspective, insight, suggestions, patience and care, but we by no means “have all the answers”. Unexpectedly, you may find that what you were seeking was not what you needed. Instead of answers, or fixes to problems, you may find that the most valuable part of therapy is being listened to and talking with another imperfect person who reminds us that we don’t have to be perfect, and that by accepting ourselves as we are, change and growth happen naturally. 

Therapy can feel daunting to start. That is why we offer free 15-minute phone consultations in which you can speak with a therapist, ask questions, and get a better feel for how therapy with them might look if you decide to start. We can’t wait to hear from you.

Warmly, 

Ileana Arganda-Stevens, LMFT #129032

Therapist, Supervisor, Program Manager

Thrive Therapy and Counseling

she/her