Stuck in Therapy? These 3 Patterns Could Be Contributing
Though I wish it weren’t so, many therapies get “stuck” at some point, leading to premature termination or a less-than-ideal outcome. Here are three of the many possible patterns that could lead you to feel stuck in therapy. If any of these feels familiar, be sure to bring this up with your therapist right away. Hopefully you can put your efforts together to overcome the factors keeping you from making the progress you envision.
1. Waiting for the Therapist to Heal You
When we take our experience or difficulties to a helping professional, many of us harbor a wish, secretly or not-so-secretly, that the professional’s advice, explanations, or prescriptions alone will be enough to heal us. We wind up in a passive, dependent stance in therapy, approaching therapy as though it will be like surgery: I’ll lie back, and the doctor will diagnose my ailment and cut it out of me. Therapies can go on for years with the person expectantly waiting for a piece of advice or interpretation that will finally part the clouds. Meanwhile, the therapist is left puzzled, wondering why change has not occurred despite all the good ideas that have been discussed.
The omnipotent and powerful therapist is a nice fantasy, one that therapists (myself included) can accidentally participate in by overworking—providing unnecessary or unhelpful advice, explanations, or instructions, or taking full responsibility for therapeutic progress. Those of us who have managed to get out of such an entanglement, where the therapist is overworking and the person in therapy is passively waiting, have learned an important lesson: no therapist has ever changed anyone. Change cannot result from a therapist “doing something” to us; it comes from us doing something differently with ourselves.
Infants and children are completely dependent on others for survival, and the passive/dependent stance that many people approach therapy with may be a remnant of that need. My clinical experience suggests the yearning for a powerful, magical caregiver who will come along and make it all better often sticks around because it was not fulfilled at the time it was supposed to be—childhood. However, part of growing up is learning to think and solve problems for ourselves, and developing the ability to mobilize our own resources in the face of a challenge.
A good therapist will help you create the optimal conditions for you to do this but simply cannot do it for you. If you are waiting around for your therapist to do this, and if you have a sense that your therapist is not aware of this pattern or is reinforcing it somehow, the passive/dependent stance in therapy could be keeping you stuck. Talk to your therapist about what is going on.
2. Fighting Against Reality
Just as therapists cannot change people (a difficult reality for many to accept), therapy cannot change reality. Many of us come to therapy with a secret agenda: I want to change reality so that my anxiety-provoking feelings about reality will go away. We ask our therapist for “effective communication strategies” that might help us be more persuasive to a distant father, or detoxify a toxic spouse. We burden our therapy with fixing someone else’s problems.
There is, of course, a time and place for learning such communication strategies in therapy; however, if the goal of this learning is to change or control an unchangeable person or situation, the therapy will inevitably fail because the goal is unrealistic.
Believe me, if I could change reality, I would—reality can stimulate all kinds of uncomfortable, anxiety-producing reactions in us. I don’t like those feelings, either! But we’re all probably better off learning to accept and cope with the thoughts and emotions that reality tends to stir up in us, rather than continuing to chase after the fantasy of a perfect reality that we can control and change. After all, so many of our problems are a result of the difficulties we have in coping with reality and our feelings about it.
If your therapy has become focused on changing or controlling someone else, or a situation that is beyond your control, your “stuck-ness” may continue until you refocus on the things you do have some control over; namely, your inner reactions to outer realities.
3. Chasing Someone Else’s Goals
Many people, when asked why they are seeking therapy, reply: “Well, my wife/husband/partner/friend says …” They have not necessarily come to therapy of their own free will, but at least in part to meet the needs of another person. This can also be the case for people who come for court-mandated treatment and for adolescents. And it can limit the efficacy of therapy in a number of ways.
If your therapy has become focused on changing or controlling someone else, or a situation that is beyond your control, your “stuck-ness” may continue until you refocus on the things you do have some control over; namely, your inner reactions to outer realities.
First, because they are not internally motivated to achieve their therapy goals, people who are compelled into therapy by others may not put in the necessary amount of effort and energy that change requires. They may not even see themselves as having a problem or a goal to work toward.
They may submit to the will of the referring person and pursue goals that are not truly their own. They may decide to change themselves to make the other person happy, and their behavior may even change as a result. This kind of change can be quite transient, though, ending with a complete reversal and the refrain, “I only did it to make you happy!”
On the flipside of that coin are people who say, “I’ll be damned before I change,” and perpetuate their life problems out of stubbornness against the person who compelled them into therapy. This defiance, while sometimes pleasurable in the moment, can be quite self-defeating, as the person in therapy is intentionally perpetuating problems just to “stick it” to the other person.
Therapists can get caught up in this, too, pursuing outside parties’ goals rather than those of the person in therapy. Many of us learn the hard way that if someone’s will and desire for change are not on line, the therapy will inevitably get stuck. If you’re not in therapy of your own free will, complying with or defying someone else’s goals for you, or feeling like therapy is going nowhere, make sure to bring this up with your therapist. Together, you can develop goals that will help you get unstuck and lead to the outcomes you desire.