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Therapy

Therapy Wins You Might Be Missing

Here's why therapeutic progress is in the small shifts.

Key points

  • Progress in therapy isn’t instant—it’s built through awareness, emotional depth, and resilience.
  • Sitting with discomfort instead of avoiding it is a key sign of growth and self-trust.
  • Healing isn’t linear; even when it feels slow, every small shift is a step forward.

When clients start therapy, they don’t always see the real problem. They just know that something feels off, and they want to feel better.

Sometimes, a client will assume their current situation is the problem, like an overbearing boss or a toxic intimate relationship. And sure, the situation may be intense and stressful, but as we start unpacking things, a deeper truth emerges. They begin to realize the real struggle isn’t about the boss or the partner—it’s about long-standing patterns. They’ve always had trouble setting boundaries. Self-doubt has been running the show for years. They’ve never believed their voice matters.

That aha moment—realizing the job or the relationship is a trigger, not the problem—can feel empowering. And for a moment, things start to make sense, and this clarity brings relief. But when that feeling fades, and they’re still not feeling better, they wonder if they’re actually making progress, as though identifying the issue should have made it disappear overnight.

Many people get stuck here because they believe progress should feel like constant forward motion, like something tangible and immediate. But in reality, progress in therapy doesn’t always look or feel the way people expect it to.

So, how do you know you’re improving? Here are a few signs that you are making progress, even if it doesn’t feel like it.

Increasing Awareness

A few years ago, I had persistent lower back pain. It hurt when I got out of bed, bent over to feed my dogs, or stood for too long. What frustrated me was that I had no idea why—there had been no injury, no accident, no clear reason for the pain. When it became unbearable, I went to see a physical therapist.

At my first appointment, the therapist didn’t just look at my lower back. Instead, she took a full-body approach, assessing everything from my posture to my movement patterns. Afterward, she gave me homework—not just exercises but instructions to pay attention. She asked me to notice how I sat while driving, how I positioned my body throughout the day, and what habits I had when I was in pain.

A few days later, still in pain, I returned and gave her all my observations, many of which had been eye-opening. I told her I couldn’t wait to start making progress.

She smiled and said, “We already have.”

I stared at her, confused. “How?”

“Did you know you lean to one side when you drive? Were you aware of how often you cross your legs when you sit? Did you know how weak your core was?”

No, no, and no.

“Awareness is progress. Never forget that.”

Mental health therapy works the same way, with awareness as one of the most powerful first steps. It can take many forms—recognizing unhealthy thought patterns, noticing emotional triggers, or realizing how you show up in certain relationships. Sometimes, awareness is noticing how much you distract yourself from discomfort—whether it’s through social media, texting friends, binge-watching shows, overworking, or getting lost in other people’s problems. In other words, it’s about seeing all the ways you avoid your own emotions.

Increased awareness may not feel like progress because it doesn’t lead to immediate relief. But progress isn’t about fixing everything overnight—it’s about seeing yourself more clearly, maybe for the first time.

Experiencing Emotions

In physical therapy, the exercises were torturous and borderline sadistic. In fact, sometimes I left in more pain than when I arrived, which made me doubt the whole process and the therapist.

Many clients experience something similar in mental health therapy—when they begin confronting emotions they’ve spent years avoiding, they assume it means things are getting worse. They may even think therapy is making them feel worse.

Source: Povozniuk/iStock

When you allow yourself to feel anger, sadness, or grief—when you leave a session feeling raw—you might think you’re moving backward and even consider quitting therapy altogether. But in reality, you’re breaking down the walls you’ve spent years building and letting go of an unhelpful way of existing.

It is unsettling and scary, no doubt. But being able to fully experience your emotions—without numbing, avoiding, or shutting down—is actually a sign of progress.

Progress in therapy doesn’t mean always feeling good. Sometimes, it means finally feeling everything.

Tolerating Distress

Experiencing pain in the physical therapy session was one thing. But choosing to lean into discomfort outside of therapy—when it would’ve been easier to slip back into old habits—was the real challenge.

I had to choose discomfort. I had to choose to stand on both feet instead of shifting my weight. I had to choose to sit with proper posture instead of crossing my legs out of habit. I had to choose to resist the urge to lean over when I got in my car.

None of it felt natural. It felt frustrating, tedious—like constant work. But every time I chose discomfort, I sent a message to myself: I can do hard things.

Mental health therapy works the same way. Growth doesn’t happen just in the therapy room. It happens in the moments between sessions—when you choose not to numb out, not to avoid, not to fall into old patterns that keep you stuck.

Progress isn’t about eliminating pain or making life easier; it’s about building confidence in yourself. It’s about proving, little by little, that you can sit with discomfort without needing to escape it.

Life will always have tough moments, but every time you challenge a thought pattern, sit with an uncomfortable emotion, or open yourself to a new perspective—especially when it feels unfamiliar—you’re reinforcing a deep trust in yourself. You’re proving you don’t have to run from pain.

And that is progress.

Conclusion

Healing is not linear. There will be moments when you feel stuck, frustrated, or even worse than you felt before. But if you’re gaining awareness, feeling your emotions more deeply, and learning to navigate distress rather than escape it—trust that something good is happening because it is.

References

Veilleux, J. C., Skinner, K. D., Reese, E. D., & Shaver, J. A. (2020). A theory of momentary distress tolerance: Toward understanding how momentary distress tolerance may contribute to resilience. Clinical Psychological Science, 8(4), 649–666. https://doi.org/10.1177/21677026221118327

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