Are You Feeling Disappointed With Your Therapist or Therapy?

When people think of therapy, they often imagine or secretly wish for the idealized caretaker. You may want or expect a therapist who is warm, understanding, accepting, supportive, reliable, unbiased, concerned, protective, calming, and so on. You may expect someone who makes you feel better about yourself, or alternatively someone who is going to ask the hard questions and whip you into shape. Maybe it's both. It is natural to have these wishes, and they speak to what we feel we need, have not had, or cannot get in other relationships.

When you don't get what you expect from your therapist, you may feel discouraged. Perhaps your therapist starts to remind you of a judgmental family member or nagging boss. Maybe you find that they sound insensitive, annoying, or disinterested. Maybe you're finding yourself bored or frustrated in therapy or afraid to disappoint your therapist. It might be glaringly obvious what is bothering you, or you may feel perplexed.

In any of these cases, a common reaction can be to wonder if the therapist is not right for you. As a therapist, I challenge you to pause before ending things with your clinician. It may surprise you to know that talking about ending therapy can sometimes lead to the most clinically important work yet.

When You're Disappointed With Your Therapist: Why the Therapy Relationship Itself Matters

When I begin working with a new patient, I suggest they are likely to have reactions to me. I ask them to look out for these reactions and challenge them to share what comes up, especially those aspects that they are reluctant to share. As we continue to work together, I will often check in with patients about their reactions to me. This can feel awkward, stressful, or irrelevant.

I focus on the therapy relationship in this way because my clinical philosophy holds that any issues you repeatedly encounter in relationships will eventually come up in the therapy relationship. When it does, you and your therapist can be curious about it together; you can examine what is happening between the two of you and how that relates to the concerns that brought you to therapy. You can also experiment with working through conflicts differently. Through these processes, your understanding of how you are in your relationships can shift and evolve, and you may find yourself open to more options for navigating future conflicts. In this way, while often uncomfortable, focusing on conflict with your therapist can be clinically powerful.

What Makes It Hard to Say

Sharing about your reactions to the therapist or your concerns about therapy can often feel quite intimate and vulnerable. Depending on your past experiences in relationships, you might feel hesitant to bring anything up. It might feel pointless, or you might feel apprehensive about how the therapist will feel or think of you. Maybe you're worried they will make you second guess yourself. In any of these scenarios, your expectations about your therapist's reactions, and in turn how their reactions will make you feel, are important.

Here is where I suggest that you get curious. Where are these expectations coming from? Is there any way this could have a different ending? You might be surprised. As therapists, we strive to create a safe environment in which you can go out on a limb and try something different. If it still feels too difficult to say something, you can try easing into it by sharing with your therapist that you're finding yourself holding something back. Exploring the reason you don't want to say something can be just as productive as discussing what you don't want to say.

Endings have a way of staying with us, and how you choose to navigate endings in life impacts what those endings mean to you. Even if you feel certain about ending things with your therapist or your discussion leaves you disappointed, simply having the discussion has the potential to be empowering. You may still choose to walk away, but you can do so knowing that you reflected on this decision and shared your truth with another person. Of course, you don't have to talk to your therapist about your concerns at all. I only ask that you consider it.

Finally, the way your therapist thinks about you leaving might be more nuanced than you'd expect. They may ask you to reflect on your reasoning and any hesitation you may have about stepping away. It is common for people to have complex feelings about leaving, and it is worth exploring all sides. Still, therapists know that sometimes leaving therapy is the necessary next step. We know that this may not be the right time for you, and we will be here. Periods away from therapy can be as much a part of your process as the time you spend in therapy, and stepping away from therapy is not failing or giving up on yourself.

If you would like to explore this further, read about Dr. Sorrel Johnson or Request a Session.

Real Talk Clinical Psychology is a clinic in Houston, Texas. Our clinicians are in-network with Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cigna, UHC/Optum, Tricare, Curative, and Oscar.