What Should I Talk About in Therapy?

In therapy, you can actually talk about anything you want!

Therapy is a place to work out your inner and outer conflicts. A place to find out what you really want and who you really are. While in therapy, it’s safe and it’s expected to question the norms and beliefs everyone else pressures you to accept. You can slowly peel back the layers of everything that is and isn’t you.

It’s helpful to just say whatever’s on your mind. It’s okay to be weird, experiment, and even go without a script.

Sometimes, you might just say to your therapist, “I’m not sure what to talk about today. Do you have any ideas?”

As your therapy progresses over time, you may find yourself without a particular topic you wish to discuss. 

“People who are new to therapy sometimes worry that if they don’t know what to talk about, then the session might be a waste of time or unproductive.”

Believe it or not, many of us have often times gone to an appointment thinking “I have nothing I need to talk about today.” Weirdly, though, those sessions can be the best! A session in which we talk about whatever happens to be on our minds can produce new discoveries and breakthroughs.

If you’re worried about not having a topic to discuss or have a feeling of “going blank”, it could be because your “inner critic” is at work. Don’t be concerned; your therapist expects this to happen occasionally and can help you work through it. Just be open and let your therapist know how you’re feeling.

Try to consider that it could also be a natural pause or plateau in therapy. You might have just achieved an important goal or resolved a major crisis. When this happens, you can often get things going again by revisiting your therapy goals and exploring whether there’s something else you want to change or figure out.

On the flip side, it is possible you may be that you are close to a major shift or breakthrough—one that has brought you right up to the edge of your defenses but not quite past them.

Remember that therapy is a place in which you don’t always have to find something new to change or fix. 

“Don’t try to predict or plan the topics in your sessions too much. Therapy is a very organic process.”

There’s no step-by-step organized playbook that must be followed. Therapy is an individualized, unique process for each specific person.

The very best advice we can give you is to just “go with the flow”. Talk to your therapist about whatever happens to be on your mind that day. Rely on your therapist to know and guide you through topics that will help you grow and flourish. Some topics are more productive to discuss than others. Trust your therapist to know this.

Therapy isn’t just about work—it’s also about learning to be still. Maybe today is the day you give yourself permission to simply be—and to remember who you are, especially when you don’t have an agenda, or someone else to please.

In fact, one of the biggest gifts of therapy is helping you learn how to relax into simply being you—into accepting and loving yourself just as you are, right now.

Citation(s): based on https://blog.opencounseling.com/what-should-i-talk-about-in-therapy