About Kim
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Therapy with me is a relationship. I take the time to truly understand you—your history, your strengths, your longings, and the parts of you that have been carrying the past around with you like a ton of bricks. Clients often describe me as:
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How to Get the Most Out of Your Therapy Investment
Therapy is an investment—not only financially, but in your time, energy, vulnerability, and willingness to change.
If you are paying for therapy, you deserve more than a place to talk about what happened this week. The most meaningful therapy helps you understand why you think, feel, and behave the way you do—and then gives you the tools to do something different.
But your therapist can only do so much. The clients who tend to get the most out of therapy are the ones who actively participate in the process.
Here are four ways to make your therapy investment count.
1. Get Clear on Your Goals for Therapy
Before you begin therapy, ask yourself: What do I actually want to be different?
“I want to feel better” is understandable, but it is not specific enough to guide the work.
Instead, consider questions such as:
One of the most important things you can bring to therapy is a willingness to consider that you may be contributing to the problem you want to solve.
This does not mean that everything that has happened to you is your fault.
It means that your current patterns are worth examining.
If someone else is entirely responsible for your problems, you have very little power to change them. But when you can identify the choices, beliefs, reactions, and behaviors that are within your control, you have somewhere to begin.
3. Be Willing to Explore Your Childhood
You do not need to have had a terrible childhood for your childhood to matter.
The family you grew up in was your first environment for learning about relationships, emotions, boundaries, conflict, responsibility, trust, and love.
You learned—consciously and unconsciously—what relationships were supposed to look like.
For example, a child who learns that love is unpredictable may become an adult who constantly monitors a partner's mood. A child who learns that expressing needs creates conflict may become an adult who rarely asks for what she wants. A child who had to become responsible too early may become an adult who struggles to delegate, trust others, or rest.
4. Do Your Homework
One of the biggest differences between simply attending therapy and actively participating in therapy happens between sessions.
If your therapist gives you an exercise, reflection, behavioral experiment, journal prompt, conversation to have, or specific practice to complete, do it.
Therapy is not meant to exist only for the 50 minutes you spend in an office.
The session gives you insight.
Your life gives you the opportunity to practice it.
Therapy is an investment—not only financially, but in your time, energy, vulnerability, and willingness to change.
If you are paying for therapy, you deserve more than a place to talk about what happened this week. The most meaningful therapy helps you understand why you think, feel, and behave the way you do—and then gives you the tools to do something different.
But your therapist can only do so much. The clients who tend to get the most out of therapy are the ones who actively participate in the process.
Here are four ways to make your therapy investment count.
1. Get Clear on Your Goals for Therapy
Before you begin therapy, ask yourself: What do I actually want to be different?
“I want to feel better” is understandable, but it is not specific enough to guide the work.
Instead, consider questions such as:
- What problem keeps showing up in my life?
- What relationship do I most want to improve?
- What do I keep doing that I wish I could stop doing?
- What emotions are consistently getting the best of me?
- What decision am I struggling to make?
- What would be different in my life if therapy really worked?
One of the most important things you can bring to therapy is a willingness to consider that you may be contributing to the problem you want to solve.
This does not mean that everything that has happened to you is your fault.
It means that your current patterns are worth examining.
If someone else is entirely responsible for your problems, you have very little power to change them. But when you can identify the choices, beliefs, reactions, and behaviors that are within your control, you have somewhere to begin.
3. Be Willing to Explore Your Childhood
You do not need to have had a terrible childhood for your childhood to matter.
The family you grew up in was your first environment for learning about relationships, emotions, boundaries, conflict, responsibility, trust, and love.
You learned—consciously and unconsciously—what relationships were supposed to look like.
For example, a child who learns that love is unpredictable may become an adult who constantly monitors a partner's mood. A child who learns that expressing needs creates conflict may become an adult who rarely asks for what she wants. A child who had to become responsible too early may become an adult who struggles to delegate, trust others, or rest.
4. Do Your Homework
One of the biggest differences between simply attending therapy and actively participating in therapy happens between sessions.
If your therapist gives you an exercise, reflection, behavioral experiment, journal prompt, conversation to have, or specific practice to complete, do it.
Therapy is not meant to exist only for the 50 minutes you spend in an office.
The session gives you insight.
Your life gives you the opportunity to practice it.