Don't give up on therapy.

 

I often hear people talk about therapy as if it's one thing, one method, one experience. But therapy is not a monolith, it's an entire field of human connection and psychological craft, with over 500 different types of talking therapy and countless ways of practising them. Even the four "main" branches; cognitive behavioural, psychodynamic, humanistic, systemic -  barely hint at the diversity within the therapeutic world. When someone tries therapy once and decides it isn't for them, it's usually because they've met one corner of something vast.

"Therapy" itself is a slippery word. It means something different depending on who you ask. Culture, religion, social class, family norms, personal history - all of these shape how we imagine what therapy is supposed to feel like. For some people, therapy is a place to talk about problems. For others, it's a place to learn skills. For others still, it's a place to be witnessed, challenged, soothed, or understood. For me, therapy is simply one hour a week I dedicate entirely to myself, a protected space where I can say anything, explore anything, feel anything, with someone trained to hold that space safely. That alone is therapeutic. 

But the reality is that many people don't get that experience the first time. Harvard Health notes that nearly half of all people who try psychodynamic therapies quit early, often because the cost is too high, the relationship with the practitioner doesn't feel right, or the modality simply doesn't match their needs. And when you listen to real people talk about why they stopped therapy, the reasons are deeply human: feeling ashamed, feeling disappointed, feeling like a failure, feeling misunderstood, or even developing romantic feelings for their therapist and not knowing what to do with them. Sometimes the therapist wasn't knowledgeable about the person's specific issue. Sometimes the dynamic felt off. Sometimes the timing wasn't right. None of these experiences mean therapy doesn't work. They mean the fit wasn't right. 

Therapy is a relationship, and relationships require compatibility. The right therapist for one person might be the wrong therapist for another. The modality that feels safe and grounding for one nervous system might feel overwhelming or ineffective for someone else. Even the structure matters. Research shows that therapy with a clear deadline or goal can reduce dropout rates, sometimes by up to 50%, because some people feel safer when there's a defined arc or end to the work. 

The delivery matters just as much. For some, face to face therapy can feel too confrontational or anxiety inducing, for others, face to face may be the only way they feel a connection can grow. Many  people still imagine therapy as lying on a couch in a quiet office, retelling every detail of their childhood, not realising therapy can be done online. Video calls, phone calls and even emails can all be methods of delivery when it comes to therapy. Practices such as ‘walk and talk’ therapies are becoming more and more popular too, moving away from the clinical therapy room and outside instead.

Starting therapy can be a massive choice, maybe the hardest choice someone will make. When it doesn't go well the first time, it can feel like all that work was for nothing. The temptation to give up is real, valid and totally normal. I genuinely believe that there is a version of therapy out there that will work for everyone. You don't have to jump into something that doesn't feel aligned or right for the current chapter of your life but please don't write off therapy forever. If you have ever wondered whether therapy might help, hold onto that curiosity.