Deciding to stay or go when it comes to your therapist might be one of the most confusing aspects of mental health treatment. Therapy isn’t working the way you want it to, but is it time to leave? Or are you just going through a rough patch? This uncertainty makes people lock themselves into therapists who are ineffective, or causes them to jump ship on something that could be working had they just stayed on board.
The Discomfort That’s a Sign It’s Working
Therapy is uncomfortable. It’s not comfortable when you feel judged and assigned blame for your trauma, but it’s certainly uncomfortable when asked to explore problematic patterns you’ve been avoiding or to sit with feelings you’ve been avoiding over time. Good therapy isn’t always easy, and clients find that discomfort tends to peak just before a major breakthrough.
However, the discomfort is interpreted as a sign that therapy isn’t working. Sessions are harder, you’re more aware of what problems you’ve been avoiding, your coping mechanisms learned in the past aren’t working anymore but new skills haven’t yet been acquired, and everything feels worse than it did at the beginning. This negative middle phase makes people feel like therapy isn’t working anymore—and they leave.
But this discomfort is actually a sign that you’re almost there. This is a sign that you’re working through something huge. Those who recognize these patterns—like those in therapy with a Denver counselor—understand that feeling worse before feeling truly better means that the first steps of change are on board. If you leave in this middle phase, however, the change that was starting to occur gets aborted.
The Signs It’s Better to Leave
There are several signs that it’s better to jump ship and find a new therapist. If your therapist runs late every week, cancels frequently, zones out while you’re talking, that’s a sign of ethical failure and malpractice. If your therapist spends more time talking about him or herself than listening to you, that’s an ineffective therapy session. And if you feel judged, shamed, or as though you need to manage his/her feelings in order for him/her to help you, then no.
If your therapist has poor boundaries—texting you outside of sessions for personal reasons (besides confirming appointments), providing personal contact information instead of office contact information, developing social or romantic relationships with you—that’s not okay. There’s no gray area here.
Additionally, if your therapist puts his/her needs before yours—pushing an agenda instead of sitting back and allowing you to explore your feelings—this isn’t okay either. Effective therapy works in the goal direction of the patient; the therapist’s own biases should not infiltrate these waters unless absolutely necessary for ethical concerns.
The Therapist Who Just Isn’t a Fit
There are times when a therapist may be perfectly competent and skilled but still not the right fit for you, which makes it hard to identify. Maybe there’s no connection; maybe you don’t feel genuinely heard—maybe their approach doesn’t match yours and yet there’s nothing glaringly wrong about them—they’re just not the one for you.
This kind of mismatch occurs all the time and isn’t anyone’s fault. Sometimes therapeutic relationships have a chemical reaction; sometimes they don’t. Maybe you want someone who’s more direct than your current therapist’s gentler approach. Maybe you want practical skills while your current one is focused on insight-based understanding (and vice versa)—neither are wrong approaches; they’re just mismatched.
However, what’s difficult is telling when there’s incompatible resistance to the task at hand versus stubbornness yourself for leaving. If you’re feeling misunderstood in ways specific enough that you can derive clear examples of functional flaws, then that’s incompatible. If it’s more of a vague notion of not working out but you can’t articulate why, then that’s resistance worth uncovering before leaving.
The Timing Question
How long should therapy continue before it’s deemed ineffective? There’s no time limit; however, patterns emerge. If you’re three or four sessions in and feel uncomfortable and in danger—or judged beyond belief—you don’t have to stick it out since major incompatibility is at play. However, if you’re three sessions in and looking for major life-altering effects right away—then that’s normal and not what’s going to happen before the rapport is established and patterns are assessed.
A good guideline is about two-to-three months under no glaring red flags. By then, you should have some sense if the relationship is productive or if your thoughts are being heard in addition to if the approach makes sense to get to your needs. If it feels off after this time period, it may be beneficial either to at least explore your concerns or find someone else.
Having the Conversation
It could be beneficial for your therapeutic relationship before leaving to discuss what isn’t working with your therapist in question because good therapists welcome feedback and notes if something isn’t happening as planned. How they respond says a lot, too.
If they invalidate your feelings, become defensive or call into question why you’re bringing it up—goodbye. You should leave. But if they listen intently and explore what they can do either differently or help you find someone who can meet your needs more effectively, that’s someone worth keeping—even if you choose to leave in the process.
Additionally, this conversation helps illuminate what isn’t working: the therapist or therapy in general. Sometimes it’s not personal; sometimes there’s resistance toward the process itself which a good therapist can help illuminate along with the therapeutic side of things in addition to making changes down the line.
The Multiple Therapists That Haven’t Worked
If you’ve gone through several therapists and none have worked, that’s problematic worth addressing—either from your standpoint or theirs’. It’s good to note since if you’ve gone through several therapists and you’re looking for someone with niche offerings/understandings/approaches toward different trauma/disorders/transfers of learning outside of session—this might make sense that you’ve yet to get there but it also means you’ve yet to find your fit still.
But it also suggests that there has been resistance in general toward therapy itself. It doesn’t mean something’s wrong with you; it means maybe therapy isn’t effective at this moment or maybe therapy isn’t what you need right now—or maybe you’re not ready for the work it takes to efficiently engage.
Conversely, it means it’s time to explore what’s kept you from more effective therapeutic gains. If patterns emerge across these various relationships with disparate personalities or overlaps exist with different therapists—as long as it’s well-intentioned and supported—then it’s helpful information that acts as data worth considering.
Trust Your Assaessment of Progress
Ultimately, feelings about progress—even if substantiated—not only get validated over time but realized through acknowledgment over time amount to what’s truly right when it comes deciding whether to stay or leave for now. No one says something drastic has to happen practically; instead, it’s about process-oriented development: Are you progressing?
Are you getting to know yourself better? Identifying patterns more than what was noticed before? Are small decisions turning into big choices or at least making sense? Are you feeling less stuck? If all signs point to tentative motion despite superficial lack of momentum (because progress takes time), then that’s what’s important without needing major shifts right away.
However, if after months—and honestly—you can’t point to any change—with understanding or how you’ve gone about things—that’s what’s problematic and means something needs to change whether it’s your perspective on staying or going for now until it gets figured out later.
This decision doesn’t necessarily have to be permanent. You can try out different therapists and always come back if that doesn’t work out; you can take breaks from therapy and return later; whatever it takes to find where support helps is key—and sometimes requires trial and error first until something clicks into place at last.
