(Done for now, that is.)
Reader Questions
- Is therapy the kind of thing where anyone can benefit from it, at any time in their life? Or are you “done” with therapy after a certain point?
- If you’re in therapy throughout your whole life, does that mean you’ll never stop growing into the best version of yourself? Or does it mean that you become completely dependent on your therapist’s support?
Leah’s Answer
Let’s think about the reasons you might start going to therapy in terms of small, medium, and big.
Dealing with a one-off crisis like a job loss or breakup: Small Therapy
Working through a persistent issue, like relationship insecurity or anger towards an estranged parent: Medium Therapy
Getting to something like long-term happiness and success by rearranging core aspects of your inner world: Big Therapy
Big Therapy probably sounds more than a little daunting. To prove that it can be done, let me use myself as an example.
When I finished with my psychoanalysis, I still had plenty of little pockets of nuttiness. (And I still do! But not quite as many as I did then.)
I knew I was done because a friend asked me something about therapy, or how I felt about myself. I don’t remember his exact question. What I do remember is standing in his yard and having this clear, calm thought:
“I’m good. I’m peaceful.”
What that thought showed me is that I had gained what I call, self-loving self-awareness. I was done with therapy…
…for a while. But since I’m always trying to become a better therapist, and I knew that the body has to be involved in getting and feeling better, I searched until I found bioenergetics. And besides helping my patients more quickly, I began to uncover things inside of me that were still hidden.
Did I Ever Go Back to Therapy?
No, not in the traditional sense. But I certainly continued to work through the things that I needed to figure out by first unraveling and then weaving them into the kind of peaceful, self-loving self-awareness that I’d built by understanding myself and my history through Big Therapy.
Not all therapy is about problem solving. Small and Medium Therapy are about short-term problem solving. Big Therapy is about building out your self-loving self-awareness and your ability to act flexibly or remain still when a situation calls.
Quite frankly, many therapists are solely in the business of providing only Small and Medium Therapy, even if they work with every client for a long time.
Obviously, that’s problematic. If you’re just going back to your therapist to get a fresh band-aid every week, you’re never emotionally autonomous. You’re always relying on your therapist for that good feeling, instead of knowing how to get to feeling good all on your own.
You can think of the big difference between Small/Medium and Big Therapy as treating symptoms vs. curing a disease once and for all. I don’t want to scare you, but in Small or Medium Therapy, the process of talking through your problems can get you mired in a swamp of negative self-evaluation.
When you build self-loving self-awareness, you’re laying down a solid foundation for all the self-work you’ll do going forward. That self-work can last the rest of your life—which doesn’t mean you have to be in therapy forever! You might go back to meet with your therapist once every few years, or once a month. Or you might try a different style of therapy (like myofascial release, psychedelic, or breathwork) to unlock new potential within yourself.
Still Wondering If You’re Done?
Take some time to reflect on how you respond to external guidelines or expectations. Are you the kind of person who benefits from the accountability of checking-in weekly with someone who knows you really well? Or do you prefer to be more self-directed in your personal growth? Once your therapist has helped you find and polish the tools that work best for you, you can absolutely move forward on your own.
And it goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway:
There’s no shame whatsoever in “going back” to therapy.
After my psychoanalysis finished, I would call up my old therapist maybe twice a year. We’d have a conversation with the surface goal of figuring out something specific that was going on with me and the people in my life.
What that conversation turned into every single time was this: Me talking it through with someone who knows me so well that I wound up figuring out (mostly by myself) exactly what she would say to me. Once 5 or 6 years had passed, I didn’t even need to call her up to have these sporadic conversations anymore.
Now, keep in mind that I probably wouldn’t get that same fast, efficient solution if I were talking with someone new to me. Like I’ve said elsewhere, it’s usually the therapist-client relationship that makes or breaks your results—not a therapist’s technique of choice.
You can’t divorce the results of therapy from the history you have with that particular therapist.
It’s all about the relationship.
