Ever wonder what you should be getting out of your therapy? My bet is that most folks have a pretty good sense of what they’re trying to achieve in therapy and what’s important to them, but it’s often difficult to actually put it into words and actively “go after” it. With this in mind, let’s think about what makes for good sessions in therapy.
First off, you should feel welcomed by your therapist and have the sense that your life and your welfare is important to the therapist. Your therapist should be attentive and not distracted during the session. Answering phone calls and texts is a no-no. Your therapist should be up-to-date with where you are in your life’s journey and what issues you’ve been dealing with in previous therapy sessions. Notice this has a lot to do with the therapist’s abilities to organize the session and create a stable environment for the client to explore his issues.
Clients come to therapy because they have a problem (or problems) they need to deal with. Perhaps other issues surface during the course of the therapy, but initially primary focus should be given to the “chief complaint”…the basic reason the person came to therapy. As the chief complaint gets resolved, then focus can shift to the newly surfaced issues. If this doesn’t happen, the client may feel like a chef with too many entrée items cooking simultaneously…like the therapy hour is chaotic and unfocussed, with “too many balls in the air”. It’s up to the therapist to keep the complexity of the sessions managed.
Like it or not, we’re all products of our past, both recent and distant. Understanding and appreciating the current difficulty the client is wrestling with is important, but discovering it’s relationship to past issues and events is tremendously valuable and should never be overlooked. For instance, a couple came to see me because the husband could no longer tolerate his wife’s tendencies to be nitpicking and controlling, which were making the husband distance himself from her. Instead of just angrily reacting to each other, we discovered that her controlling tendencies were trends she had adopted when younger to compensate for her chaotic homelife; she approximated order in the midst of the chaos by controlling. Neither of them had ever seen this truth for what it was. As soon as both of them began to appreciate the power of her history to architect her present, his irritation toward her diminished and his understanding increased. He stopped feeling simply picked on and criticized and saw that her controlling was about her, not him. She then felt more partnered with on life’s journey and less “on her own”, as she had so many times during her youth. He distanced himself from her less, which had the effect of reassuring her of his love and devotion to her. It’s crucial to note that without an understanding of the dynamics of the past they wouldn’t have been able to resolve the conflicts of the present.
Finally, therapy shouldn’t last forever…and when the primary goals for coming to therapy are reached, then the ending of therapy should be discussed. The usual human tendency will probably be to continue in therapy after the initial goals have been accomplished without talking about it and agreeing that this is what the client wants to do. There’s nothing wrong with staying in therapy to explore other issues that have risen to the surface, but it should be clear this is what the client wishes. As therapy goes along, the therapist should occasionally ask “how are these sessions working for you?” Asking that question opens the door for the client to talk about his satisfaction with the progress he has made in therapy and to determine if he wants to continue or to end the therapy at this point.
To sum it up, good therapy involves:
- feeling valued by the therapist
- comprehensively understanding the current problems as well as the historical aspects which amplify them
- discussing goals becoming achieved and considering the end of therapy
Chase E. Kneeland, M.Div. LMFT 