How Do You Know If The Therapy Is Working?

Starting a psychotherapy process is moving towards a healthier and more enjoyable life. Now, today we want to answer a frequent question in this context: how do you know if the therapy is working? Ultimately, it is about your mental health, and it is important to know the signs that everything is going well.

In this article, we will identify some of the signs that will help you assess whether you are actually making the progress you want. Remember that emotional well-being is key to your quality of life and if there is no progress, it is better to act.

How do you know if the therapy is working?

For those who are seeing a psychologist for the first time, the experience of therapy can be overwhelming. Also, they may have misconceptions about how psychotherapy works.

It is advisable to consider that advances in psychotherapy do not usually follow a linear progression. It is not uncommon for the treatment plan to begin with adjustments that enhance the results of subsequent interventions.

In addition, patients frequently go through what we could call relapses or setbacks, which does not necessarily mean that the intervention is failing – in fact, sometimes the therapist may intervene in therapy to enhance a discomfort, so that the intensity from this it reaches a point where it ends up motivating change (we would speak of a kind of paradoxical intervention) -.

In most cases, relapses can become learning experiences that reinforce progress.

In this sense, it is not easy to determine if a therapy is working when a time has not passed or when perhaps we only consider an isolated part of the intervention that can bear fruit later. However, there are a series of steps that will help you evaluate the course of therapy.

Steps to assess if therapy is working

The following steps will be very useful to know at a certain moment if the therapy is working or not.

1. Set therapeutic goals with your psychologist

It is essential that from the first session you set a series of goals based on your reason for consultation. For example, if you come because you are very anxious, one goal might be to reduce intrusive thoughts. Once you are clear about what you want to achieve, it is easier to know if the therapy is working.

In addition to this, setting goals is a good way to stay motivated and achieve well-being. Tuominen-Soni, Salmela-Aro, and Niemivirta (2008) published an analysis on goal orientation and subjective well-being. In the conclusions, the team mentions that goals related to personal development are associated with greater well-being.

2. Keep a behavioral log to see your progress

Now that you know where you want to go, the next thing to do is keep track of your progress. For this, talk to your therapist, in psychology there are different methods of behavioral monitoring that you can use. Depending on what your therapeutic goals are, the psychologist will recommend the one that best suits your situation.

When the treatment begins to take effect, you will observe changes in the registry and experience personal satisfaction. Keep in mind that every progress counts; even those that seem small to the naked eye take great effort.

3. Analyze how you feel

This is one of the best ways to know if the therapy is working, as it is about subjective well-being. Take some time during the day to reflect on your emotions and personal growth. To help you with this, you can ask yourself any of the following questions:

• How did I feel before starting therapy?
• How do I feel now?
• Where were you before starting treatment?
• Where am I right now?
• What things have changed since the process began?

By answering these questions, it is easier to realize whether or not your situation has improved with therapy. Another good idea to appreciate your emotions is to keep a personal journal in which you write down your thoughts and feelings.

4. Talk to your therapist

Throughout the process, it is your psychologist who has been carefully analyzing your emotional situation and progress. Therefore, it makes sense to talk to him about the changes that have occurred since the intervention began.

They may even mention facts that you have never noticed before and that show significant progress.

Recommendations to get more out of psychotherapy

There are certain factors that play an essential role in the treatment and that are not usually considered. One of them is your attitude towards therapy; the better your attitude, the better results you will get – the results come when the client / patient is an active agent, and not a passive one.

On the other hand, most interventions need time and consistency to produce results – you can think of it as a gym; when you go out on the first day, you feel better; However, your physical form is not really better until two or three weeks pass and the body begins to consolidate significant adaptations to the increase in demand.

It is not realistic to believe that anxiety, depression or anger will go away after two or three sessions. People often turn to for problems that take time to show their roots.

Also, think that psychotherapy can be an uncomfortable process – if you have ever seen a physical therapist, you can think about the pain you may feel when he begins to work on the injury. Like undoing a contracture, ending an emotional knot may not be a process in which, in certain phases, we feel good.

It is likely that facts or thoughts have to come out that up to this moment you have tried to keep in the most remote place of your mind, because of its power to make you feel bad. When that happens, you must remember that the therapeutic space is a safe place and a necessary step to move forward.

Finally, if after following the steps outlined above, you conclude that the therapy is not working, discuss it with your psychologist. You can always make adjustments and even in this dialogue you can come to identify, with their help, that you have made progress. In the latter case, you can always ask that your case be handled by another professional.