How do you know if therapy is working?

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

In this article, we will identify some of the signs that will help you evaluate if 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 therapy is working?

For those who see a psychologist for the first time, the therapy experience can be overwhelming. They may also 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 therapeutic plan to begin by making adjustments that enhance the results of subsequent interventions.

Besides, 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 can intervene in therapy to enhance discomfort, so that its intensity reaches a point where it ends up motivating change (we would speak of a kind of paradoxical intervention) -.

In most occasions, relapses can be transformed into learning experiences that reinforce progress.

In this sense, It is not easy to determine if a therapy is working when 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 evaluate 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. Establish therapeutic goals with your psychologist

It is essential that from the first session a series of goals are set based on your reason for consultation.. For example, if you come because you feel very anxious, one goal could 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 of goal orientation and subjective well-being. In the conclusions, the team mentions that objectives 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 you should do is keep track of your progress. For this, talk to your therapist, In psychology there are different behavioral monitoring methods 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 at first glance take a lot of effort.

3. Analyze how you feel

This is one of the best ways to know if the therapy is working, since 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 was I 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 your situation has improved or not 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 entire process, it is your psychologist who has been carefully analyzing your emotional situation and progress. Therefore, it is logical to talk to him about the changes that have occurred since the intervention began.

He may even mention facts that you had never noticed before and that demonstrate important 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 the attitude you have towards therapy; The better your attitude, the better results you will obtain – the results come when the client/patient is an active agent, and not a passive one.

On the other hand, Most interventions require time and perseverance. to produce results – you can think of it like a gym; when you go out the first day, you feel better; However, your physical shape is not really better until two or three weeks pass and the body begins to consolidate significant adaptations to the increased demand.

It is unrealistic to believe that anxiety, depression or anger will disappear after two or three sessions.. Often people come for problems that take time to show their roots.

Also, keep in mind that psychotherapy can be an uncomfortable process – if you have ever been to a physical therapist, you may think about the pain you may feel when they start working on the injury. Just 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 will have to come out that until now you have tried to keep in the most remote place in your mind, due to their 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 described above, you conclude that the therapy is not working, talk to your psychologist. You can always make adjustments and even in this dialogue you can identify, with their help, that you have made progress. As a last resort, you can always ask that another professional handle your case.

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