How is therapy like working out? Well, we all know that there are lots of right ways to exercise! And many of us know that there are lots of right ways to do therapy, too. But as this video shows, there are also lots of ways to fail at exercising. And as it turns out, there are some ways of doing therapy that don’t work very well, either!
If you join a fitness class, you may quickly learn some new skills, like how to execute a burpee. But the main task of getting fit is a slower process of capacity-building. By gradually lifting heavier weights over time, or slowly working up your aerobic activity over time, you can increase your strength and endurance. Therapy can be similar. You might learn some skills very fast in therapy, like how to use deep breathing or how to dispute an irrational thought. But oftentimes, the more important work of therapy involves a slower process of capacity-building. In therapy though, instead of improving the functioning of our muscles, heart, lungs, etc., we are actually improving the functioning of our central nervous systems! We are always building the capacities to self-reflect, self-regulate, relate well with others, and experience strong and conflicted emotions without getting too overwhelmed.
As this video shows, one way to fail at fitness is to work above your level, so you fall over and get pinned under the weights or go flying off the treadmill. Many times the same kind of mistake can happen in therapy. Maybe you decide you want to talk about your worst trauma right away, and spend the session sobbing uncontrollably or overwhelmed with anxiety, then you go home and have a migraine for the rest of the day or engage in your worst coping habits. Afterwards, you might decide you never want to come back to therapy again.
On the other end of the spectrum, if you join the gym in order to get fit, you probably would not sit around on some of the equipment, talk about how the equipment is used or could be used, lift one dumbbell a couple of times, then go home and expect to get stronger. Amazingly though, many people do practically the same thing in therapy for years at a time! They want help with managing their emotions, but instead of lifting the weights (actually experiencing their emotions at increasing dosages so they can build the capacity to handle them), they talk about their problems in a way that totally avoids actually stirring up their feelings. Or they say they want to overcome their fears, but they don’t engage in the work of actually facing what they are afraid of in order to accomplish that.
A good therapist is like a good personal trainer. They know how to help you build your capacity by starting at a level you can manage and gradually increasing from there. They won’t push you to a point where you get too overwhelmed and regret it later, nor will they encourage you to stay too comfortable so that you never work hard enough to see any progress. Of course, both good trainers and good therapists value your feedback when working together, so if you realize your therapy has been overwhelming you or not challenging you enough, it’s probably time to say something about it.