Therapists Answer: So How Does Therapy Really Work?

Deciding to give therapy a try is encouraging and empowering!

Understanding that there could be things you need to work on can be difficult and I promise we know it took true strength for you to decide to trust us with your mental health. Therapy is not the replacement for a friend, a quick fix, or a place to get advice. Therapy is a safe space to explore your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors with a professional who can help guide you through them. It is also important to remember that therapy is a process and will take time. You may have waited a long time to tackle these problems and they are probably draining your energy. It can be difficult to be patient with the therapy process, as you probably want this to be an immediate fix to everything you’ve been quietly dealing with.

The reality of it truly is that therapy is an art and a science.

When  we think about therapy, we have to consider it as a process in which the client will undergo phases. There are 4 main phases to the therapy process.

Phase 1: The Commitment Phase

This can be thought of as the beginning of the therapeutic relationship. Within this phase the counselor and the client will spend time getting to know each other, building trust, and empowering the client to allow them to feel safe and willing to share their experience. This can be expected to take anywhere between 3-6 sessions primarily dedicated to relationship building.

You can expect to talk about your goals for therapy, things that you have been struggling with, maybe play games, and begin to notice some small changes in your mindset. 

It is important to remember that you, or your child, will not make major progress right away. Though it may have taken a lot of courage to come see someone, you should not expect to make big changes and start feeling better right away. This phase should look more like finding stability through motivation and psychoeducation than making changes. 

The client can expect to learn coping skills, mindfulness strategies, and tips to manage their negative symptoms. 

Phase 2: The Process Phase

In the Process phase, it is expected that trust has been built and the client may finally start to open up about significant life events that they had been holding back before. For clients that laid it all out on the table in the first session, this is the time that they will be able to dive back into those experiences and search for patterns or new information that they may have skipped over the first time. 

This is often a time for consolidation between the client and the therapist. This is the most complex stage of treatment because the client will often begin to understand main themes in their lives that they may have ignored or not noticed before. The client will be able to spot out incongruence or inconsistency within their life and their counselor will help them make sense of these patterns by confronting the connections between their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. 

In this phase, the client can expect to begin implementing the skills they have learned and using them to their advantage within their daily lives, outside of the therapy room. 

Phase 3: The Change Phase

This phase, deep into the therapeutic process, is where the client will begin to identify the differences between their previously perceived self, to their more healthy version of themselves. They will be able to relinquish their negative identity and consciously replace it with a new, more positive version of themselves. 

The client can expect to initiate further changes they feel are necessary and be able to sustain positive behavior because they prefer these behaviors over their previously used maladaptive behaviors. 

Phase 4: The Termination Phase

Termination, or graduation, from therapy is the final stage of the therapeutic process when the client is officially an expert of their own mind, and it implies that the therapist and the patient recognize each other as autonomous and independent individuals.  The dependence for the therapist will begin to diminish and the client can be expected to realize their own strengths and responsibilities for their own life. 

The client will be able to identify their own ability to make choices and respect their own personal autonomy. Although in some cases this phase may pass extremely fast, this phase often lasts longer than the rest of the treatment. This can happen either in the form of memories and fantasies concerning the therapist, particularly at times of stress, or as infrequent requests for maintenance sessions with the therapist.