People come to therapy because they want a feel-good experience, a little bit of talking, and expect that they will feel better afterwards. It would be nice if it was that easy. 

Often therapy is difficult: your unconscious fights change, resisting discomfort. There is a sneaky voice in your head saying, “give up, don’t change what you know.” Fear builds up as the underlying causes of the initial issue appear, raising uncomfortable feelings. What you thought was a simple problem turns into something bigger, as you realise there are much deeper issues at play. You’re fighting an understandable fear, fear which is also a sign that therapy is working.

People don’t want to feel worse in a therapy session, so sometimes they make a decision not to come back. But if you can work through the fear, and continue with therapy, the potential to feel much better down the track significantly improves. My aim as an art therapist is long-term improvement of everyone’s issues. If you are seeing some improvement in therapy, and every now and then you have a bad day, then you are probably making progress. If you are feeling like giving up, talk to your therapist or counsellor, and maybe you can slow things down a bit.