When You Have Increased Insight Into Patterns & Dynamics

• When you are more aware of your patterns/dynamics

• When the unconscious becomes conscious

• When you are more aware of what used to be invisible or you were unable to articualte what was going on

• Awareness is powerful because now you have the opportunity to stop these patterns/dynamics from continuing, especially if they are unhelpful and ineffective from having the life you want

When You Achieve/Reach Your Goals

• If reached all of your initial goals you wanted to work on and there’s no new goals you want to work on

• If you have new goals, you can let them your therapist know and see if resuming treatment would be useful

When Your Initial Symptoms/Issues Have Decreased

• If you feel better and less sad/anxious/hopeless, this could be a sign you might be finished with therapy

• Or perhaps you’d like to continue going to maintain these gains and areas of growth

When You Don’t Find Session Helpful & Ineffective Consistently

• When you find sessions consistently unhelpful

• Maybe the therapist isn’t offering you anything new perspectives or insights anymore

• Or perhaps you find it harmful or unhelpful because the feedback and insight you are given isn’t relevant for you and your life consistently

• Consistency is the key word here rather than a 1-2x occurrence

When You’ve Plateaued

• Maybe you feel like you’ve grown and changed as much as you can with this particular therapist

• Maybe you need a new approach/model/framework or different type of therapist with a different personality or style

Whenever You Want

• You have the right to end sessions with or without notice to your therapist

• You don’t even have to let your therapist know, though it is always nice to have notice because no one likes to be ghosted

Things To Remember

• Some people go to therapy to learn more about themselves and they view it as growth and persona development work

• Some people go to therapy to manage their mental health symptoms like anxiety and depression

• Consider if you want to use insurance or pay out of pocket because fees are a barrier for most people

Questions to Ask Yourself

• Do I view therapy as short-term or long-term? Why is this?

• What are my goals in therapy?

• When will I know I have achieved or reached my goals? How will I feel? What will be different when I reach my goals?

• Do I view going to therapy as prevention or intervention?

• What’s my relationship to asking for help? Is it easy or difficult for me to ask for help and rely on others?

• What’s my perception of those who go to therapy? Is it positive, natural, or negative?