Making Therapy Work So It Works for You

“There’s a myth,” says Dr. Tzipporah Koslowitz, that amazing therapist at LINKS who knows lots about grief and therapy, and grief about therapy, “that therapy should make us feel better. And it does—but sometimes, we have to feel worse first. I know, that’s so annoying! But think of a splinter or a root canal. We have to dig out the infection before we can start the healing process. If therapy feels both good and uncomfortable, that’s OK. I always say therapy (and this includes my own therapy, with my own therapist) is the best gift you’ll ever dread.”

Dr. Koslowitz has actually a lot of smart stuff to say. Stuff that she said at the LINKS Shabbaton this past winter, at the workshop we gave together titled Tools to Make Therapy Work.

The toolbox workshop was a subtle way in which Dr. Koslowitz and I were drumming up business for ourselves by making you want desperately to go to therapy. JUST KIDDING. We actually just wanted to help you girls make an educated decision IF you need therapy (yes!), if you are IN therapy, how to make it work for you; and lastly, if therapy is NOT working for you, how to know that in order to leave and find a new therapist that will work for you.

For those of you who missed this fabulous workshop because you were doing other very, very important things like eating nosh, shmoozing with friends, and eating more nosh, here’s your chance to find out all about it in this article.

“Therapy can sometimes make us feel like we’re breaking down, but we have to ask ourselves— are we actually breaking UP?” asked Dr. Koslowitz, and continued, “breaking up with our old understanding of ourselves, breaking up with coping tools that weren’t serving us, breaking up with our trauma patterns that hold us back? The point of therapy is change, and when we’ve been traumatized, change can feel really uncomfortable and threatening. That’s OK.”

What you gotta understand that therapy makes you feel better; not necessarily to feel better. If you go to therapy to address a specific problem (or plural problems), then of course eventually you are going to feel better. But the actual process of therapy may be difficult. You will feel things you don’t like feeling (those are called feelings, by the way); anger, upset, frustration, betrayal, sadness. You gotta be nuts to go to therapy, waste your time and money actually asking someone to help you feel all those awful feelings. Yup. But not nuts at all (unless it’s those nuts you are eating by the LINKS Shabbaton instead of attending our workshop). Smart. If you turn off the faucet of feelings, you don’t get to choose which feelings come out of the faucet; so by-by joy, happiness, pride, love, excitement and all the other great feelings that are fun and wonderful to feel.

But here is something important to know when you finally get yourself into therapy.

“Your therapist’s feelings are HER problem, not yours,” Dr. Koslowitz says. “Don’t ever worry about telling your therapist something that will make her feel uncomfortable. There’s no such thing as “oversharing” in therapy, and there’s no such thing as “trauma dumping” in therapy. That’s literally where we go to share it all! This includes your story—even if you feel your story is “too much” for people to handle. Therapists are the people who CAN handle it! This also includes your feelings about therapy. If you feel like it’s too much or she’s going too fast (or too slow) or anything else, tell your therapist. She’s trained to handle that feedback.”

Yup. Couldn’t have said it better. Therapy is finally the place where you don’t have to take of anybody except for yourself. And if that feels selfish to you, then know that there is no way you can take care of other people (including eventually your husband and kids and students and co-workers and, and, and) if you don’t have your own well filled up full of your own cared-for-ness (made up word).

Well, you probably want to know, “What if therapy is making me feel yucky? Isn’t it enough that I feel yucky enough that I even considered therapy to begin with; now I need to feel worse???”

“If therapy is feeling too uncomfortable, talk about that with your therapist. I always tell people that I’m a psychologist, not a psychic. I can’t read your mind. I can help YOU read your mind, but only if you tell me what’s going on,” says Dr. Koslowitz. “Therapy is like the story of Goldilocks—you want to feel the “just right” level of discomfort. Too little discomfort means you’re not making progress. Too much discomfort doesn’t help anyone. If it feels “too much” or “too little,” tell your therapist.”

And now here’s the big question.

“What if I try to talk to my therapist and she doesn’t hear me? I’m feeling horrible, I try to tell her that and I still feel horrible?”

Dr. K has an answer for everything. “If you try to tell your therapist, and she’s not receptive, give her another chance. If you try again, and it still doesn’t work, talk to your mentor or whoever referred you to therapy in the first place. Sometimes, the “best” therapist just isn’t the best therapist for YOU. It’s OK to transfer to another therapist, if a wise adult in your life discussed it with you and thinks that’s a good idea.”

Hear that? Good. And if you’re worried about your therapist’s feelings, go back a few paragraphs and check out what Dr. K already said about that.

At our workshop, girls brought up some more problems that make them afraid to go to therapy.

My mother/father would never let me.

My friends say it’s dumb and all therapists are dorks.

My teacher said that you don’t need therapy if you work on yourself and read mussar.

Here’s the thing.

Your parent is really a very smart person (usually) and they may have very good reasons for not wanting you to go to therapy. Maybe it costs too much money (there are options we can help you with). Maybe they are afraid if you start therapy then suddenly you are going to imagine problems that were not there before (yeah, right). Maybe, and this is a very funny thing that at LINKS we hear about all the time, maybe you just THINK your parent doesn’t want you to go to therapy but really they would be thrilled if you finally bring it up. At the workshop, Sara Rivkah shared with us very funny incidents in which parents called the office to say, “I want my daughter to go to therapy. How do I bring it up without making her feel bad?”

And meanwhile, a LINKS girl, the daughter of that mother is the one who says at the Shabbaton, “I want therapy. How do I bring it up to my mother?” And then LINKS is the shadchan to make it happen!

And let’s say your parent is very, very smart and cares about you very, very much and still doesn’t get the whole therapy thing. Well, you can call the LINKS office anyway, and talk to one of us there and get good advice as to how to talk to your parent. Okay? Perfect.

Now let’s move on to the situation with your friends who are all really, really smart too. If they are your friends, that’s seems pretty accurate. They are smart, that is, about everything except therapy. And as smart as they are, they are still not adults and they are not therapists so no, they do not necessarily know too much about it and are not the best people to give you advice. The worst kind of anti-therapy friends are the ones who make fun of other people who go to therapy. I’m going to tell you a secret. Those kinds of friends who make fun of therapy are secretly wishing they could go to therapy. I promise. So, do yourself a favor; go to therapy. And do your friends a favor; tell them you are going so they could say, “Fine, tell me how it goes and I’m going to go, too. Like for fun. To see how it is. To make sure you are not doing anything nuts.” Yeah, right.

Now, I also have some things to say. But mine are all about food, because if that’s why you skipped the workshop at the Shabbaton to begin with, I’m going to entice you back with food. So here are my food-based therapy tips how to make therapy work so it works for you.

Therapists are human beans too, in case you hadn’t noticed. Also, maybe full of gas. If you realize that then you can learn to be in a relationship with someone imperfect but perfectly good anyway; and internalize a new form of relating that can be helpful in your life and relationships.

Take perspective or pills; someone may need new glasses, so it’s OK to throw out the old pear. Medication can be a lifesaver sometimes so be open to that suggestion and don’t get stuck with myopia because others don’t understand this)

Even if you’re a PIE, right now it’s up to you to frost it, decorate it, eat it. Social workers look at each person as a Person-In-Environment; meaning, you are influenced and affected by your environment and that’s too bad sometimes. Your environment may not be all that great and that is why you are in therapy, but at this point, even if it’s not great, you can’t just wait for others to change. Take your environment and figure it out. Eat it, Girl and become a better and happier person anyway!

Modality doesn’t matter, mood does—so you gotta know how to do-it or die-it. So if you are asking which type of therapy works, honestly, it doesn’t make a difference. What makes a difference if you do it, if you get in the mood and click with your therapist to make it work. If you don’t, your life will be deprived—you will be on a diet of with decreased amount of joy and satisfaction and extra pounds of unhappiness.

Things can be ruptures or rotten, so if you see something, say something—or you may throw up [your hands in defeat]. Sometimes things are rotten. In therapy, in your life. Do something, kiddo or you will end up throwing in the towel, throwing up your hands in defeat. And giving up is not an option for our LINKS girls who are part of our LINKS family. So if something feels not right, talk about it—first to your therapists, and then if that doesn’t help, you can reach out to an adult or mentor or someone at LINKS to help figure it out.

Now, this all food for thought. Coming to our workshop next year? Good. Let us know how your therapy goes.

Originally published in Teens Connect, a division of LINKS