are you doing too much therapy?
can solving our addictions become an addiction?
Therapy is having a moment. Dating someone for a few months but want things to go better? Therapy! Mother issues? Therapy! Want to live the bohemian lifestyle of your dreams? Therapy…with psychedelics! Even some the most psychology-averse people in my life seem to have come around to treating mental health like physical fitness, and our collective social feeds seem to have been taken over by licensed and not-so-licensed mental health pundits. I have been advocating for sitting your butt on the therapist’s couch to anyone who would listen to me for years. But this all got me thinking, is it possible to have too much of a good thing?
“My therapist has just become another person that I have to impress,” a friend told me over thanksgiving dinner. She said she would end up wanting to be so good at personal growth that it would become another thing she needed to do perfectly. When I talked about the danger of mental fitness becoming another self-improvement project on the Man Enough podcast, a lot of you shared that you felt this struggle too. It’s not just me, it’s not just my friends… it seems like a lot of us feel conflicted about this sudden therapy surplus in both our real and digital lives.
Before we move on, let me just say that I already hear the entire internet collectively saying, let’s all play the world’s tiniest violin for people who are so financially stable that they can afford to do too much self-work. But let’s remember abandoning recovery is a common issue for people in a peer-to-peer support groups, like twelve step programs, where treatment is completely free. Many people drop their sponsor or stop going to meetings because they can feel like they’ve become consumed with the task of healing. Regardless of financial circumstance, solving an addiction can become an addiction in itself.
Instead of solving your problems, therapy can feel like it just creates new ones. If you have a tendency for perfectionism, therapy might give your inner critic more material to roast you with. Some days, I’ve noticed that I’ll wake up only to find that the amorphous negative thoughts about my general failings as a person have been replaced by more specific ones about my failure to heal the part of me that creates those imperfections in the first place. I recently starting noticing some supremely embarrassing thoughts about flopping my “healthy” morning routine. Journal, you piece of shit! Meditate, you royal fuckup! That disgusting lemon water won’t drink itself, idiot! My morning voice is just George Constanza shouting, “serenity now!”
Sometimes, I feel like doing more therapy just gives me more things to fail at. I’ve wondered if I’ve become too aware of my bad habits and limiting beliefs. Doing therapy after a while, can feel like knowing too much. It’s like turning on the light for the first time, only to suddenly notice you’ve been living in complete filth the whole time. Some days, I think I long for the mess I couldn’t see. Darkness has its benefits. Some monsters are better when they stay hidden.
I just wish more people talked about how therapy can destroy your self-esteem before it eventually builds it back up. Healing happens when you can integrate learnings, but no one talks about the period in between where you know everything that’s wrong and feel utterly powerless in the face of it. It’s a special hell to know exactly what you’re doing wrong and not being able to change it. Some of my darkest periods have been the ones where I just watch myself fall into the same self-destructive behaviors that I’m in therapy to heal from. My story can become: I’m not just broken, I’m also bad at fixing the parts that aren’t whole. I’m not just a broken car, I’m also a shitty mechanic. Some days I miss my pre-therapy brain, because I didn’t know how much I didn’t know.
With all of this in mind, I turned to my friend, Molly Richardson, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, to give me some practical advice on when it might be a good time to take a breather from self-work. Molly recommended assessing if therapy is working for you by examining your life outside of your therapist’s office. “Are relationships suffering?” she asked. “Has anxiety or depression increased? Are you participating in negative behavior patterns the same or more since therapy started?” If you fit into that category the good news is, you can make a change.
It might seem counterintuitive but the best place to bring your ambivalence about therapy, might just be in therapy. “If someone is worrying about doing “too much therapy”, I would encourage them to bring this worry to their therapist,” Molly recommended. “I personally believe that there should be check-ins done between therapist and client about how the work is going,” my star therapist friend said.
Even though it might not seem in the interest of a therapist’s bottom line, a good therapist will be able to help you determine a healthy pace or a temporary pause for your sessions. “I do think there is a point where doing less therapy might be useful to someone,” Molly acknowledged. “I think if the problem that brought the client to therapy has significantly improved, this might be a sign that less therapy could be a possibility. Also, if the client has developed useful tools, better coping strategies, and a better understanding of themselves and how they operate in the world, it might be a good time to do less therapy or to take a break.”
If you feel like you’ve turned your healing into another task you need to accomplish, it’s not your fault and it’s not just up to you to fix. Perfectionism doesn’t just convince us that we have to do things well, it convinces us that we have to do it alone. That’s why bringing it up to your therapist is key. “We are a culture steeped in self-improvement ideas,” Molly told me. Great counselors like her recommend confiding in your mental health practitioner and putting these thoughts into writing or in an email to them before your session so that the conversation is easier to have.
Molly also recommends reflecting on what true healing looks like for you. Does it mean a more vulnerable and vibrant dating life? Does it mean more authentic communication with your family or coworkers? Even if you don’t struggle with an achievement-mindset, it’s a valuable writing prompt. Think of it this way, when you start any training program with a physical trainer, the first thing you’ll do is set your goals of health and wellness, why not do the same with your mental wellbeing?
By sharing all of this in therapy, you’re not only making your experience more authentic and real, but you’re also tapping into the full potential of your sessions. A player doesn’t hide an injury from his coach, so don’t fall into that trap with your mental health professional. “It may sound like a scary thing to do but therapy is supposed to be a safe and non-judgmental place for clients to bring all their good, bad and ugly,” Molly said. “It will not serve the client if they find themselves wanting to only present what they are doing right to get their therapist’s approval. In the end, the client will be the one that suffers and does not allow the therapist to fully do their job.”
Whatever you’re scared to bring up in therapy is probably precisely what you should be talking about in therapy. I believe in you. Let me know how it goes. And before you go, I’d love it if you tuned into a very special episode of Race to 35 where Monica Padman and I talk to Chelsea Handler about why not having kids can be the most altruistic thing someone can do.
x
Liz
Relatable! Overanalyzing stuff definitely makes me feel worse at times and unfortunately “self growth” and “self care” has become a competitive sport especially on social media
I have had therapy on and off for years. The off periods can also last years. I think a break to get on with life and put into practice insights gained in therapy has been a good thing. I think the trick is knowing when you might need to start going again. For me a return has been prompted by parenting challenges.