Why Therapy Makes Things Worse
Soon after I started seeing clients I began to give them this caveat: Things are probably going to get worse before they get better. This is difficult news to deliver because let’s face it, most people show up to therapy on their worst day, not their best. Things are already bad and then they hear, “Hey, it’s about to get a whole lot messier.” Let me explain why this is the case and it’s totally normal with my “unboxing” analogy.
Doing therapy is like moving into a new home. It can look pretty organized. The boxes are (hopefully) labeled so you know more or less what everything is. And while it looks pretty tidy, a fully boxed-up home isn’t one that you can live in comfortably.
Going to therapy is like unpacking boxes:
The process takes patience and time.
Some items might have broken during transit and will need to be repaired.
Shedding things you used to love but no longer fit into the new home.
And there’s always that moment in the middle of unpacking where it looks like a bomb has gone off in your formerly neat, unpacked home.
It can be discouraging when it feels like therapy is causing more problems because here you are trying to feel better, spending all this money, taking all this time and you feel worse! You might feel like quitting but the thing about moving into a new home is that you pretty much have to finish unpacking. It isn’t really an option to leave most of your boxes unpacked. Nor do you want to hastily shove things into drawers because you’ll eventually need to find where everything is.
You might be thinking, “Nope, I don’t want to go there. I will just sit in my relatively comfortable home with my boxes and make do.” That strategy can work for a while, but you might end up like one of my friends who upon discovering that he was going to be a father started having anxiety attacks. When we spoke about what was going on he confided in me that he did not have an easy childhood and he knew his anxiety was related to his fears around being a father. I told him that he was at a place where his boxes were blowing up, and he didn’t really have a choice anymore. He either had to start unboxing voluntarily or deal with exploding boxes.
A good therapist will help you take the time to put things away where they belong, throw out the things that don’t fit, and even start to accumulate things that are needed for your new home. There is a light at the end of the tunnel and there will come a day where things will feel more organized cleared out.
A final caveat on this analogy. At some point, you’ll discover that the unpacking process is never really done. That doesn’t mean you’ll be in therapy forever. It just means that you might need someone from time to time to help you unpack newly discovered boxes, organize your stuff, or decorate your dream home.
If you would like to work with me I am accepting clients based in the state of California for telehealth. I’m an associate marriage and family therapist (AMFT #131631) practicing under the supervision of Pam Shaffer (LMFT #91321).