If everything is fine, then why am I in therapy?
When I was 19, I went to my first therapy appointment. I was a sophomore in college, struggling with some family dynamics, and feeling overwhelmed at the thought of tackling it alone. I was lucky enough to have a very wonderful therapist I could see through my school, and came to rely on them and their warm holding space over the following two years.
Through most of our relationship, I was in a state of crisis almost every week, though not always related to the issue I came in to work on. By the end of our relationship, I was much more stable. As the years went on, I tried different therapists when I felt I needed more support or help. Sometimes those relationships were fruitful, and sometimes they weren’t. Inevitably, though, I would quit once I felt “stable,” or didn’t have anything to talk about.
While it is completely appropriate to recognize when a relationship has outgrown its use therapeutically, or you’ve realized you simply need a break from the therapy process, there is a common misconception that therapy isn’t useful or “worth it” when one is not actively suffering. While I don’t prescribe talk therapy to every single person or problem, I do think there is value in continuing to see a professional even when things are going well in life.
There is something special, miraculous even, about going through an intensive process in therapy (such as grief work, post-traumatic re-integration, acute stress management, etc.), and coming out the other side feeling somehow more stable, secure, and changed. It is often these deep, shadow-laden processes that incite such significant change in the first place. But there is also something that opens on the other side that can lead to even more insight and growth.
It is only on the opposite shore of deep suffering that we actually have the capacity to do the deepest work — to touch the wounds and deeply hidden complexes that are far too scary and activating while we are in crisis. That isn’t to say you can’t do deep work while in crisis, but rather that crisis is often a time where stabilization is the primary goal. How do we get back to baseline so that we are functioning at the capacity we need to in our own lives? Cracking open deeply held beliefs and narratives about ourselves can end up flooding us more when we are barely holding it together.
Often, people seek therapy in the midst of these crises — when it is the most difficult to do basic tasks like even seek a therapist out, let alone go through several consultation calls — because they need additional support. The unfortunate outcome is that sometimes these crises get stabilized and folks leave therapy because they see the work as being “done.” However, it is often this dismissal of the process that leads to crises repeating. To be clear, I do not mean that people are seeking out suffering consciously or making themselves victims of abuse or are at fault for getting ill, or anything of that nature. Rather, our trauma and unconscious beliefs and attachments pull us toward situations, people, and contexts that are likely to re-trigger us. When we are able to do the deeper work during times of stability, we can start to challenge our old patterns and make different choices in our lives.
The ability to expand choice creates more agency and aliveness in our day to day. There is not actually a right or wrong, good or bad choice — but the fact of having a choice, of feeling that you are the driver of your own life, means you get to decide, moment to moment, how you want to respond to situations. Sometimes, those choices don’t net the result you wanted or expected. But you feel like an active participant in your life and in the world, rather than a passive responder, a person for whom things happen to, with no say in the matter.
Now, this concept is a bit fuzzy because at the same time, we are never truly in full control of anything. The world is filled with random events, and individuals have their own personalities, limitations, beliefs, and behaviors that we cannot predict. We don’t seek to expand our capacity for choice so that we can control everything. We want choice so that we can feel like agentic actors even when consequences fall out of our hands.
You may feel fine or “functioning” or happy with your life — and in fact, I hope you do! — and still benefit from therapy. This place is actually the perfect time to start therapy for a multitude of reasons:
You may be ready to explore more existential or shadow-y concepts or ideas, which can create opportunities for learning, growth, and expansion.
Forming and developing a relationship when you are feeling stable is the perfect safety net for when you inevitably do need more support (because the thing about life is that it’s never just one state, forever). Trying to create a relationship of trust and safety while in crisis is more difficult. If you already have a trustworthy therapist when things in life go awry, you will have more ease navigating and exploring the difficult emotions.
You may have more capacity for intentionally bringing up difficult feelings and sitting with them instead of running from them, which gives you an opportunity to practice regulation, agency, and relational healing.
My hope for people who choose to pursue therapy is that they get what they need, even if it’s not what they expected — whether that is crisis stabilization, inner child work, relational healing, or working through more complex trauma or mental distress. This can start at any time — tomorrow, or even, right now.
This post was not written with AI, I just have always loved the em dash :)
