How To Get The Most Out Of Your Therapy Experience

After many emails and phone calls, you finally found a therapist with whom you feel might be the best fit for you AND they have openings. Remarkable, right? They offer both telehealth and in-person, which feels really convenient for your schedule. You aren’t in a crisis and your paying out of pocket so you plan to meet twice a month. So twice monthly for 55 minutes, you’ll meet with a professional to help you target your goals…statistically, that’s not a lot of dedicated time…

These scenarios are common for folks who reach out to me for support. And here’s what I encourage to get the most out of one’s therapy experience…

Meeting In Person

If you can meet in-person, I strongly encourage this. Telehealth is super convenient. It can also be ideal for folks who prefer to meet with a therapist outside of their small community. Some folks prefer not run into their therapist in the grocery store or have their children in the same school. Research shows that telehealth produces the same benefits as in-person. However, as a seasoned therapist, the anecdotal data states that in-person feels different: clients report feeling a “digging deeper” effect to their therapy experience when they have their therapy session in-person. I would suggest this has everything to do with attachment and relationships-connecting with a whole body of a person is different. Remember all those Zoom social gatherings during COVID? They never felt the same as spending time with friends and family in the flesh.

Therapy Journal

Keeping a therapy journal. For some, this is elicits a strong negative reaction: “Journaling? I’m not doing a Dear Diary.” is not an uncommon statement. So let me clarify. Most clients are on a biweekly schedule, which amounts to 110 minutes every month of concentrated you time. Then clients head back to their work meetings or school pick up or the grocery store and the treadmill of life begins again. Giving yourself a tool to pause and bring some introspective focus between therapy sessions has been highly effective for my clients. What does this look like? A therapy journal is different than a “Dear Diary.” A therapy journal is a place to jot down thoughts, experiences, frustrations, insights that happen for you between your therapy sessions. With our busy lives, it’s not uncommon for clients to say “What did I talk about last session?” Providing space and a place to track your experiences (thoughts, feelings, insights) between sessions is “doing the work” between sessions. This process will only bring momentum to your work.