Therapy is often considered a mysterious process, leaving many people unsure about what it actually is and how to make significant progress while in treatment.

Given the highly individual nature of therapy, and the fact that you can’t step outside of it for an objective view, it can be difficult to figure out if you’re making the progress. Here are some options to consider as you move forward:

Revisit Your Initial Goal

As a therapist, I can tell you that therapy may often change direction or focus. It is common to address competing issues as they come up in your life — and that’s OK! You may need extra support on those issues as they come to the forefront of your day-to-day experience. Sometimes, however, this can lead us tolose sight of our initial goalsand needs in therapy.

Revisiting those initial goals for treatment is an important first step in assessing your progress in therapy. Review goals or notes that you made for yourself prior to therapy to get a better sense of how much, or how little, you’ve progressed since beginning your therapeutic journey.

Start A Conversation with Your Therapist

Most therapists attempt to regularly check in with their clients on how you’re feeling about the process. Sometimes, your therapist may forget to check in (I know I’ve been guilty of this as a therapist) when we’re focused on providing week-to-week support.

Opening up a conversation with your therapist about the process of therapy can be a great moment of transition While it’s scary to broach the subject, please don’t feel intimidated. How you think and feel you’ve been doing in therapy is a great source of information for your therapist. Simply saying, “I’d like to talk about how my therapy has been going and get your thoughts too,” is a good way to broach the subject.

You might share your own thoughts about the progress of your goals, and consider asking your therapist theirassessmenton your progress in treatment as well. Your therapist will share honest feedback with you that you can use in the next phase of your journey.

Track Your Mood or Symptoms

Checking in onchanges in your moodor symptoms is one concrete way to measure progress in therapy. For instance, if you started therapy to more effectively manageanxiety, tracking your mood periodically throughout therapy you may provide data on how your anxiety levels have changed throughout your process. If you notice fewer racing thoughts or less worry, then it’s a signal that therapy is on the right path.

If you haven’t seen a decrease in symptoms (or improvements in your mood) then it’s a sign that something about your therapy isn’t quite right. Armed with this knowledge you and your therapist can have a honest conversation about different ways to approach your anxiety and treatment overall.

Also Ask Your Loved Ones

It can be difficult to ask others to weigh in and open yourself up to this kind of feedback, so be mindful to only invite trusted people close to you to weigh in. You can also invite them to talk to your therapist directly if it would be too difficult to get their feedback directly from them.

Progress in therapy is tough to monitor as we are not simply a cluster of symptoms. Our moods change depending on our environment and other factors all the time. But, if you are concerned about your progress take some time to zoom out and consider these approaches to ensure that you get the most out of your therapy experience.

Our goal at Talkspace is to provide the most up-to-date, valuable, and objective information on mental health-related topics in order to help readers make informed decisions.

Articles contain trusted third-party sources that are either directly linked to in the text or listed at the bottom to take readers directly to the source.

Share0Tweet0Pin it0

Share0

Tweet0

Pin it0