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The Value of Patience and Self-Empathy in Therapy

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Many of those who start therapy know or soon realize that it’s a long, slow, and difficult process. Even knowing that, people still sometimes feel frustrated. This is understandable: we all want for our problems to end as soon as possible, especially if those problems are so heavy, blurry, draining, and have been present for decades. Therapeutic Expectations and Challenges A unique thing about therapy is that there is no clear end point. To a degree, self-work involves healing from trauma , growing, and maintaining your mental health, and your well-being in general. And this, naturally, last all our lives. Self-work is an ongoing process. However, therapy can—and need to—have goals. In my work with clients, in the first session I ask what their expectations are and how they will know that we have made progress, so that the person would have some sort of point of reference, even if it’s very broad. It is interesting to note that a person’s expectations sometimes are a part of