Feeling Stuck? How To Know if You Are Making Progress in Therapy
Updated: Sep 4
by Valerie Dorn
So you’ve been seeing your therapist for a while now, you’ve gained a lot of insight into who you are, your values, your habits, your beliefs, and what’s keeping you stuck. You’ve been practicing new skills and tools that you’ve been taught, like self-compassion and box breathing. You’re starting to feel less anxious, but progress seems slow. You start to wonder: am I missing something? Am I doing it wrong? Why am I not “fixed” already?
We live in a fast-paced culture where as soon as you decide you want something, you can click a button on a screen and it arrives as early as the same day. It makes sense that when you decide you want to “work on your anxiety”, you want to see results – and fast! However, it takes time to see results from therapy, and it requires putting in effort outside of the therapy session itself.
Also, while you are in therapy, life is continuing to happen outside of therapy, and sometimes external events can slow forward momentum.
And sometimes progress can feel like you are standing still as you navigate a curveball thrown your way. Let’s say you have been working on reducing your fear of dogs after having been bitten by a dog several years ago. You’ve been practicing interacting with the dogs in your neighborhood and can now even pet some of them without having a panic attack. Then you go out for your daily walk and encounter an unleashed dog running towards you. You freeze as the dog starts jumping up on you, and you manage to slowly back away, and luckily the dog didn’t follow.
Even though you were not bitten by the dog, you find yourself avoiding walking where you encountered the dog and you felt panicked when you spotted dogs you didn’t know walking outside. You may feel like you are failing at overcoming your fear. However, if this happened to you six months ago, you would have given up walking outside altogether and avoided interacting with the dogs you felt comfortable with. So, have you made progress in therapy? Most definitely yes!
Here are some more examples of progress in anxiety therapy:
Things Not Getting (Or Feeling) Worse
This is a big one! One of the most common reasons that people seek out therapy is that something stressful is happening externally that they are struggling with, such as getting divorced, a demanding job, or conflict with a friend or family member. It can feel like being stuck in a leaky boat in the middle of a lake, trying to paddle to the shore: you’re constantly bailing water trying to stay afloat. The first step is to plug the holes so you stop sinking.
Similarly, in anxiety therapy, you begin by developing an understanding of how you got to where you are now and what’s keeping you stuck. If you don’t know where the holes are, you won’t be able to patch them. So while you may still be struggling, you are no longer sinking. This is progress!
You Feel Worse (Temporarily)
One of the most difficult things about therapy is that sometimes, you feel worse before you get better. It takes courage to be willing to explore how your current patterns developed, and often that exploration leads back to an earlier time in your life when someone hurt you or something bad happened. You may think that it was not a big deal, that it didn’t really impact you, until all of a sudden you realize that it is still affecting you. And that can feel frustrating or sad.
The good news is once you are able to connect with the moment a negative pattern began in the past, you are already beginning to change it. By acknowledging the impact it had on you and allowing yourself to feel angry, hurt, sad, or disappointed, you are already on the path to changing the present.
Seemingly Small Changes Count
Due to the brain’s negativity bias, you may not even notice that you are changing for the better, especially if that change happens gradually.
For example, if you have a sensitivity to loud sounds and startle easily, it might be difficult to notice the exact moment when you were able to recover within minutes, instead of spending the rest of the day feeling completely drained and on edge.
Changing any long-standing pattern takes time. Progress does not mean that you’ll never feel anxious again or that you won’t experience setbacks. More often, progress looks like trusting yourself to be able to handle the difficult moments when they come up, knowing you have the awareness and tools to support yourself through them.
3 Questions to Ask Yourself When You Feel Stuck
How do I respond to myself when I get anxious or make a mistake now compared to a year ago? The subtle shift from self-criticism to self-compassion is huge.
How quickly do I recover when anxiety shows up? Progress looks like catching yourself a little faster when you fall into old patterns.
What am I now able to do that I wasn’t able to do a year ago?
Progress in therapy isn't about becoming a perfectly unflappable version of yourself who never feels anxious, triggered, or overwhelmed. Healing isn't linear, and it takes time and effort.
So if you're wondering whether you're making progress in therapy, take a moment to reflect on where you were six months or a year ago. Give yourself credit for the quiet, subtle ways you are already showing up differently for yourself every single day.
Ready to take the next step in your healing journey? If you’re looking for anxiety therapy in New Jersey or Pennsylvania, reach out to schedule a free 15-minute consultation.
