How to Get the Most Out of Psychotherapy, a Series

Part 3: Make Use of Time Between Sessions

It really is true that you get out of therapy what you put into it. What you put into therapy extends beyond what happens in sessions; it includes what you do between sessions with content from the session. 

Here are three ways to continue working between sessions in order to maximize your benefits from therapy: 

1. Be Open to Reading, Watching, and Listening to resources your therapist recommends. 

Therapy is only a sliver of time each week, but you can reinforce what you are learning by consuming high quality and relevant therapeutic material. Reading, listening, and watching resources between sessions that relate to the work that you are doing supports your efforts to change. If you are interested in a recommendation, ask your therapist. I am always happy to offer recommendations.

If you are avoiding these recommendations, instead of collapsing into self-judgment or shame, be curious and discuss what you’re experiencing with your therapist. 

Questions you could wonder about together include: 

• Did you find the recommendation off-putting somehow?

• Did you forget? 

• Did you start the recommendation and dislike something about it?

Any of this feedback is very useful to explore in therapy. If you aren’t a reader, maybe a podcast episode is more appealing, or an audiobook. Also, recommendations aren’t homework or required, and disliking a recommendation is always okay to communicate.

2. Write down important realizations to help them stick.

Consider jotting a few takeaways down after your session. It’s shocking how quickly a breakthrough or important realization can recede into unconsciousness again and be forgotten. 

Particularly in therapy, we’re working with information that is difficult at times, sometimes because it is painful or unacceptable to us in a way. It’s in our nature to forget that sort of uncomfortable material which is a truly difficult part of learning and growth.

We learn things about ourselves and we learn skills only to forget them again. That’s okay and it’s inevitable. We can rediscover those things again. But, if you are, even sometimes, making a note of a thing you want to remember from a session, it will greatly strengthen your ability to see the bigger picture of your work and to make progress. 

3. Actively try to implement what you discuss in therapy between sessions.

I do not assign homework. However, there is always something a client can be working on in between sessions whether that is tuning into and identifying feelings, practicing self-regulation skills, or working on communication.

The real change happens in your life, through your efforts, with what you take out of the therapy room. If you’re not sure what you could be working on, just ask your therapist. Keeping therapy compartmentalized to just one hour a week is not going to make the most of your time and efforts. 

We’re planting seeds in therapy that as a client, you can tend to between sessions. Therapy includes both learning and unlearning and these processes require repetition. It’s not realistic to expect yourself to fully grasp and integrate new information about yourself or your life the first time you hear the information. Sometimes, we may hear the same idea in 10 different ways before it really lands. That’s normal. 

There will be times when you have more energy to work between sessions– I encourage you to use that energy when it is available and give yourself grace when you have less energy to work between sessions.

These are the three ways, as a therapist and client, that I’ve experienced as being most effective ways to enhance your therapy work between sessions. As a therapist, I really want you to benefit as much as possible from therapy. If you’re interested in learning more about resources I recommend, I have posted them here.