How do you know if therapy is working?

We seem to live in a world where everything must be measured. Our children are tested to destruction and so are their teachers. So much to be checked, benchmarked and given some sort of agreed value. But can measurement be applied to therapy.

It shouldn’t really be a surprise that we want to know if therapy is of value. A very fair question given the investment of time, self and money that we put into the sessions. A good place to start is right at the beginning. You and your therapist will likely have agreed some objectives. In short, what do you want to get out of the work; things that will directly address the reason you came in the first place. 

The big areas to focus on might be a greater clarity about the challenges you face. You have a better sense of why you feel the way you do which might in turn impact your levels of anxiety or you find yourself happier. You may feel you are getting more out of life and that relationships that matter to you have become deeper or have greater meaning. Perhaps you find yourself engaging more with life, simple but often profound.

There are many goals in therapy, too many to cover here, but key perhaps is that you both understand your goals for the work. These may change over the course of the sessions, which is fine, but ultimately you are aware of a shift, that you are moving in the right direction for you.

If this ceases to be your experience then try talking to your therapist about your experience of the work. It might be time to move on and work with a different therapist and in a different way. What matters, though is you and how you want to measure your journey to find the experience of being that you seek.

This article first appeared in Gallery Magazine

Therapy: what is it?

Perhaps one of the toughest questions a client can ask and not just clients. My counselling students often begin with that question; to start with a firm understanding of what therapy entails and what benefits it might bring. Makes sense to me. My experience of fear is that frequently it is dominated by the unknown. We are fearful of what we don’t know, what we have yet to experience. We fill those gaps with something we have read or heard from others and then, sometimes, with thoughts that can seem dark and foreboding.

My answer is often, initially at least, a disappointment: therapy is about the client so their experience of it is personal; in essence the client owns it.  So disappointing because it fails to fully remove the unknown element. To step into the therapy room and not know what this might mean.

It may help to hear that, as therapist, I don’t know either. At least I don’t know what the therapeutic process is going to be with a new client. Working without expectations can seem daunting but once I was used to that aspect to the work I found it liberating. No client is indicative of any ‘type’, I can honour the truth and individuality that is the person sat in front of me.

That may seem to contradict all of the experiences we’ve had in the past and probably the way we often treat others. All those stereotypes we use to try and make sense of the world and the people we meet. In therapy, though, assumptions can cloud the truth of who someone is.

Therapy, then is an open, quiet space into which you can walk and explore feelings, thoughts and experiences without the baggage of assumption. Therapy belongs to the client and I think that might just be definition enough.