Should You Stop Going to Therapy When Things Are…Pretty Good?
Therapy can be a godsend when life throws a curveball (or what feels like an industrial-size bucket of baseballs) your way, or when you need help with a deep-seated mental health struggle, like disordered eating or childhood trauma. That reliable meeting on the calendar gives you a safe haven to sort out your feelings and learn important coping strategies to get you through the worst of times.
While therapists are trained to help people navigate tough feelings and rough patches, you don’t always have to be dealing with A Major Thing to benefit from mental health help. In fact, if you stop scheduling appointments when things get good, you may be missing out on some of the low-key best parts of therapy—the ones that really give you a chance to level up as a person and celebrate how awesome you are.
So why would you want to keep going to therapy?
“Therapy is helpful to people in all stages of life, not only those who are in crisis,” Mishay Butler-Ozore, LMFT, a therapist in Southern California, tells SELF. But how can you know if “people” is you and that stage of life is now? Here, experts explain the benefits of ongoing—or “maintenance”—therapy, how to decide if it’s right for you, and what you can expect in your sessions when life is…pretty good.
It can help you maintain all of the progress you’ve made.
There’s a good chance that you’re in a better place thanks, in part, to therapy. Your therapist probably taught you valuable skills, like how to cope with social anxiety, recognize and reframe negative thoughts, and have difficult conversations without totally shutting down. Continuing to meet with them can help you keep those skills sharp so that you stay in a positive place, Stephanie Roth-Goldberg, LCSW, a New York City–based therapist specializing in sports psychology and eating disorder recovery, tells SELF.
“It’s similar to how you don’t stop meditating when you’ve reached a certain level,” Roth-Goldberg says. If you call it quits, you won’t keep up with the skills you’ve learned; you have to keep practicing them to keep benefiting from them, she explains. In fact, without some active maintenance work, you’re likely to relapse, Butler-Azore adds—meaning, after putting in all that time and effort to change negative behaviors and transform the way you think and interact with the world around you, you may end up slipping back into your old, self-defeating ways.
It’s a great time to celebrate your wins.
Therapy isn’t only for working out problems. Sometimes, you may want to discuss what’s going right in your life. “That’s as valuable as talking about issues you’re struggling with,” Butler-Azore says. Focusing on what you’ve accomplished (and basking in it) can give you the self-confidence and motivation to keep making positive changes, she explains. In maintenance therapy, you may spend an entire session simply celebrating everything you accomplished that month—things like starting a new hobby that brings you joy, perhaps, or getting through an entire family trip without fighting. (Not a bad way to pass an hour, right?)
“It’s hard sometimes to talk about all the positive things going on in our lives with friends and family,” Butler-Azore says. “We can feel like we’re bragging or that nobody cares, but your therapist cares and they’d love to celebrate that with you.” Having a safe space to share your wins gives you a chance to get comfortable with celebrating yourself and your continued growth, if that’s not something you’re particularly good at, she adds.
You now have the headspace to focus on the bigger-picture stuff.
“There’s a difference between seeking therapy for an acute situation, like after you lost a job or are experiencing a crisis, and using it to help you develop as a person,” Goldberg says. She suggests thinking of maintenance therapy as an opportunity for self-growth. When you don’t have a big event or problem demanding all of your brain power and emotional energy, you have more space to analyze some of the everyday behaviors that may be holding you back—thought patterns, relationship dynamics, work habits—and focus on the changes you want to make to improve your mental well-being.
Continuing your sessions when there are no major fires to put out can be a great opportunity to look at how satisfied you are with your life overall, and pick a few things that you’d like to work on, Goldberg adds—even if it’s seemingly small stuff, like a specific thinking pattern that sends you spiraling or a nagging insecurity you have in relationships that hasn’t been a huge deal so you’ve just brushed it aside. Basically, when you’re not dealing with a crisis, you have the headspace to really take stock of your life and focus on growing in ways that are meaningful to you.
You may uncover a new problem.
Just because you solved a major issue in therapy doesn’t mean that a related one won’t pop up later on. For example, you may have finally tackled setting a boundary in a complicated relationship. (Go you!) And then, as you reflect on your other relationships during maintenance therapy sessions, you notice that you’re not so great at setting boundaries in general. Suddenly, there are a few more “problems” you’ve unearthed that could use your attention.
The new issues you uncover could also be totally unrelated to previous sticking points but, either way, the takeaway is the same: When things aren’t so rocky and you have the luxury to analyze more aspects of your life and look for new ways to grow, you may discover other areas of concern you never recognized before, Butler-Azore says. It doesn’t mean you failed, she adds. It means you’re an imperfect human who’s trying to do better (hence the therapy).
A few things to know about “maintenance therapy”
When life is going pretty well, your sessions will likely look different than they did when you were working towards a specific goal or trying to resolve a major issue. Knowing what to expect out of maintenance therapy can help you decide if it’s right for you—and ensure you get the most out of it if you do choose to give it a try.
You won’t go as frequently.
Once you’re in a better place, going to therapy once a week (like you did when you were in the thick of it) will likely feel like overkill. Now, you may only meet with your therapist every two or three weeks or once a month, Butler-Azore says. You may even find that making appointments as needed makes more sense for you.
When you’re not focused on a particular problem or goal, there’s no one-size-fits-all recommendation for how often to go. “Maintenance sessions are usually more focused on reflecting and providing an opportunity to have a sounding board for the day-to-day things that are happening in your life,” she explains. And because these conversations are less structured, the best frequency is whatever makes you feel like you’re getting the most out of your conversations, she says—and what works with your schedule.
It might take a few weeks to really click.
Alyssa Mairanz, LMHC, a therapist who specializes in dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) and the founder of Empower Your Mind Therapy in New York City, suggests giving maintenance therapy a few weeks or even a couple of months to assess if it’s right for you. “You’re not going to go in every week feeling like you had an epiphany of a session,” Mairanz tells SELF.
It may take some time to reflect, dig deeper, and just generally feel like you’re getting somewhere with this new approach. “It’s important not to rush to leave too quickly,” she adds. “Give it a chance so you can recognize the ebbs and flows of life and notice a pattern of how the sessions are going over time.”
You may benefit from switching therapists.
If you feel like you’re no longer getting anything out of therapy or that there’s something different you need from your provider, it could be a sign that it’s time to switch things up. “If you’re finding that there have been multiple weeks in a row that you just feel very stagnant, it’s important to talk to your therapist,” Mairanz says. They may reassess the format of your sessions and make a change.
Or they might suggest you see someone else: “A good therapist will inform you if they think they’ve reached the end of what they can do for you,” Mairanz notes. If that’s the case, ask if they could refer you to another expert who may be a better fit at this phase of your life.
It’s okay to just take a break.
“Not everyone needs to be in lifelong therapy,” Goldberg says. If you really feel like you’re not benefitting from it right now or like you and your therapist have run out of things to talk about, there’s nothing wrong with pausing your sessions. In fact, taking a break and giving yourself a chance to use the coping skills you’ve learned can teach you a lot about how far you’ve come and what else you might want to work on, she adds.
If and when you face a new hurdle in life or think your coping skills could use a little sharpening, you can always go back. And if stopping therapy for the time being feels like the right move, your therapist can help you create a plan for this transition so it doesn’t feel too abrupt or disruptive to your life, Mairanz says.)
The truth is, in one season of life, therapy might be an essential part of your self-care routine; in another, it may feel like you’re forcing it. That’s totally normal. But if you’re looking for a way to focus on evolving as a person—or even just maintaining and celebrating all the growth you’ve already done—sticking with your sessions when times are good (great, even!) might be just what the therapist ordered.
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Originally Appeared on SELF
