Are You Ready to Stop Your Mental Health Therapy?

If you are seeing a mental health therapist, does it seem like a long and tedious process to keep continuing therapy for months and, in some cases, years together? Do you sometimes feel that your issues are resolved, but the therapy sessions do not end?

You may feel burdened by the amount of time, money, and effort they put into an issue that is not tangible or seen physically. The therapy seems excessive; it goes on and on, days rolling into weeks and months. Somewhere, you failed to find a short-term solution for your issues.

Your issues may be ‘all in our head’ or something intangible, but you may focus on them and imagine other adverse consequences in different areas of your lives.

Internalizing your therapist

After several months of undergoing the counselling process, there will often come the point where you would know how your therapist will respond to a particular situation. This process is called “internalizing” the therapist when you consider yourself capable enough to handle the problem independently.

It is a positive manifestation when your therapist’s mindset or voice is internalized in you so that you can deal with the situation on hand by yourself. It might sound ironic, but that can be a point to know that you are ready to take a back step from therapy and get going on your own.

Identifying the right therapist for you

One more point to think about when you go for therapy with a professional is the fine-tuning between the therapist and yourself and the unsaid understanding between you. It is often possible that you have some interpersonal issues with your therapist or that your mindsets are different. Rather than doing much benefit to you, therapy might trouble you even more. Most of the time, treatment is meant to be a safe space where we feel as if we can share our thoughts without reservations. Although it can happen that the fine-tuning hasn’t happened, you need a stop therapy and look out for someone more in tune with your understanding and liking. However, please don’t fall into the trap of finding someone who doesn’t give you honest feedback, even when it is uncomfortable.

Identifying your issues

Another point to consider is when you are unsure about the issue you are trying to address with our therapist. It is possible that when you are focused on a matter that is troubling you at this moment, it is an effect of our past events that is pent up in our minds –often referred to as ‘baggage’. Just because it has happened in the past and we think we have moved on from it, it doesn’t have to be true.

Most of us psychologically have significant pent-up emotional scars that a minor incident triggers a catharsis. So, when the therapy does go on for an extended period, it is not for the minor incident. Instead, it is for the long-term resolution of your past, which somewhere holds onto us.

Duration of therapy is subjective

As vague as this process seems, it is subjective from person to person and from issue to issue. A person who is going through a divorce can be mentally strong enough to find resolution in 6-8 sessions, and a young adult who has come to therapy for parental scolding could take 12-18 sessions. Treatment depends on the impact the scolding or the divorce has had on the person’s life.

While some of us find it convenient and practical to go for a long-term approach to therapy to resolve our issues completely, some find resolutions with just a few sessions. Trauma, OCD, anxiety, stress, addiction or other mental disorders take time for us to resolve. Day-to-day stressors or minor events in our lives that disrupt our thought process and daily functioning can take the same amount of time to fix as it is not something we are used to. It is as jarring into our lives as a viral fever is. It’s like curing fever or any physical illness. We undergo a course of medicines even if we start feeling better on the third day. It’s the same with mental health therapy.

There can also be situations when as a patient, you form such a bond with your therapist that stopping the therapy sessions makes you feel guilty and insecure. We wonder, “What would we do without the therapist’s guidance?”. This insecurity is pretty understandable and can hold us onto taking more sessions. As a patient, it is up to you to decide when to start or stop therapy, irrespective of how you think the therapist would feel. The therapist is there to help you in the best suitable manner.

When to stop your therapy

When the initial objective of why we entered therapy has been achieved, you can end the sessions with your therapist. It is much more advisable to be mindful of how good and confident you feel than otherwise. Of course, this is not a checklist or a tick off criteria for you to stop therapy. There can be additional signs to help you know when to stop treatment and deal with the stressors on your own. The exact methods used by therapists may vary. Depending on the conditions we have gone into therapy for, we need to understand that this is a two-way process. As much as the therapist needs to form a bond with us, we need to do the same. Building trust in the process will help us to understand the process better.

Not a blind eye, but an open, mindful eye will help you understand when to stop therapy.

Are you or a loved one struggling with a mental health issue? Call +91 90008 50001 or click here for an online/ in-person appointment with a qualified therapist.