Then, little by little, things start to change. You feel less anxious, you sleep better, and certain situations become easier to handle. You regain your energy and gain some perspective. And sometimes a question eventually pops into your mind:
If I’m feeling better, why keep going to therapy?
It’s a legitimate question. After all, if you come to therapy to feel better, it seems logical to consider stopping once that goal begins to be achieved.
However, in my practice, I’ve found that feeling better can also mark the beginning of a new phase in the therapeutic process. Not because you absolutely have to keep going, but because the disappearance of suffering doesn’t always mean you’ve understood what caused it in the first place.
When we’re feeling better, we may want to move on.
Sometimes the initial changes brought about by therapy are significant enough that we feel we’ve done what’s necessary. We feel more at peace, we’re able to make certain decisions, and we understand our reactions better. Life returns to normal, and the reasons that led us to seek therapy now seem far behind us.
I completely understand this desire to move on. Therapy takes time, energy, and sometimes courage. Talking about oneself, revisiting painful situations, or confronting certain issues isn’t always easy. When you start to feel better, it’s natural to want to enjoy this new sense of balance.
But it can be helpful to ask yourself what this sense of well-being actually means.
Has the difficulty disappeared? Have we learned to cope with it better? Have we changed something about the way we react? Has the situation that was causing us pain simply faded away?
There’s no one-size-fits-all answer. These different possibilities aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.
Feeling better is an important step. It’s also sometimes the moment when we can start to see things differently.
No longer suffering as much doesn’t always mean we’ve understood what was causing our suffering.
Let’s imagine someone who seeks counseling because they’re suffering greatly in their romantic relationships. They regularly feel neglected, doubt their self-worth, and experience every disagreement as a threat of being abandoned. Over the course of the sessions, they learn to put their feelings into words. She gains a better understanding of her reactions and gradually manages to step back and see things from a distance. A new relationship begins; she feels loved and reassured. Her anxiety subsides. She might then tell herself that she no longer needs therapy, since the problem seems to have disappeared.
However, this more peaceful period can also provide an opportunity to explore issues that were previously difficult to address.
Why was even the slightest distance so painful? Why was it so hard to accept that the other person had needs different from her own? Why did she constantly need reassurance to feel worthy of love?
When the pain is intense, it’s sometimes hard to reflect on these questions. At first, we just try to hold on, regain a little calm, and cope with what’s happening to us. That’s understandable.
Once things settle down, we sometimes have more emotional bandwidth to explore what’s really going on behind our reactions.
This doesn’t mean that every difficulty must necessarily be linked to a root cause, nor that every symptom hides something that absolutely must be uncovered. But it can be valuable not to stop simply at the disappearance of the symptom when other questions remain important to us.
Why do we sometimes tend to repeat the same situations?
From a psychoanalytic perspective, certain difficulties cannot be reduced to a single isolated event. They may also stem from ways of thinking, feeling, and relating that we have developed over the course of our lives.
For example, we may intellectually understand that we don’t need to control everything to feel safe, yet still experience significant anxiety when a situation gets out of our control. We may know that we have the right to say no, yet feel immense guilt as soon as we disappoint someone.
This disconnect between what we understand and what we feel is common. It doesn’t mean we haven’t made progress. It simply shows that change doesn’t always happen at the same pace in every aspect of our lives.
This is also why certain patterns may resurface in different contexts. We think we’ve overcome a difficulty, only to encounter it again in a different form—in a new relationship or at another point in our lives.
Continuing therapy can help you identify these patterns, understand what they trigger, and gradually explore other ways of dealing with these situations.
It’s not about endlessly searching for what’s wrong with oneself. Rather, it’s about getting to know oneself better, so as to no longer be systematically swept up in reactions that one merely endures.
Therapeutic work isn’t just about talking about what’s going wrong.
I sometimes hear the idea that people seek therapy when they’re suffering, and then stop as soon as the suffering lessens. This view is understandable, but it doesn’t fully capture what can happen in therapy.
Of course, alleviating suffering is an essential goal. It would be absurd to downplay the importance of regaining sleep, seeing one’s anxiety diminish, or managing to navigate relationships with greater peace of mind.
But therapy can also provide a space to reflect on one’s choices, better identify one’s needs, understand certain contradictions, or discover aspects of oneself that were previously difficult to acknowledge.
Sometimes a patient starts by talking about a workplace conflict, then realizes over the course of the sessions that what has particularly hurt them is not the disagreement itself, but the feeling of not being acknowledged. Another person seeks help for anxiety attacks and gradually discovers just how much they suppress their anger or disagreement.
These realizations do not necessarily make all difficulties disappear. They can, however, change the way one experiences and responds to them.
People may come to therapy because they are suffering, and then continue because they discover there are still things about themselves they wish to understand.
This doesn’t mean that therapy has to become a never-ending journey of self-discovery. It’s also possible to feel well enough, to want to devote one’s energy to other aspects of life, and to consider the work done so far to be satisfying.
The key is to be able to make this choice after taking the time to reflect on what it means to you.
What if the desire to stop is also something worth exploring?
When a patient tells me they want to stop therapy because they’re feeling better, I don’t automatically view that decision as a problem. Nor do I think I should try to convince them to continue. However, this desire may sometimes be worth discussing during a session.
Does the person feel they’ve achieved what they came here to find? Do they feel self-sufficient enough to continue without this space? Do the sessions seem less necessary to them? Or has something become harder to address now that the therapy has begun to touch on more sensitive topics?
Sometimes people want to stop because they’re actually feeling better. Other times, they feel less comfortable as certain issues bring them closer to things they’d rather not face. Sometimes, therapy seems to have plateaued, and you’re not quite sure what it’s doing for you anymore.
These situations are different. They shouldn’t be interpreted in the same way.
For young psychologists and therapists, I think it’s important to keep this nuance in mind: the desire to stop is neither proof of therapeutic failure nor necessarily a sign of resistance that needs to be overcome. Above all, it is an expression from the patient that we can acknowledge and explore together with them, without presuming what it means.
The therapist may suggest discussing it, but should not make continuing therapy a goal in and of itself. The therapeutic relationship is not meant to make the patient dependent on the therapist’s presence. On the contrary, it should enable the patient to gain greater freedom.
Why is regularity important?
Therapeutic work develops over time. Regular sessions help maintain a thread connecting different moments in life, allow us to revisit what has been discussed, and identify changes that aren’t always noticeable in daily life.
A session may seem unproductive at the time, only to take on a different meaning a few weeks later. A reaction that was previously unclear may become more evident after a particular event. An issue discussed in a session continues to evolve, sometimes without us realizing it immediately.
Regularity also provides a safe space where it becomes possible to talk about things that are difficult to discuss elsewhere. Over time, you may find the courage to address thoughts, emotions, or contradictions that you previously tended to hide—even from yourself.
This does not mean that all therapies must follow the same schedule. The frequency of sessions depends on the individual, their needs, the therapeutic approach, and what is agreed upon with the therapist. It may change over the course of treatment.
Nor is it necessary to wait until you’re feeling bad to schedule another appointment. At certain times, sessions may be spaced further apart, or the focus of the work may shift toward new issues.
The important thing is not to maintain a certain frequency at all costs, but to consider what truly supports the therapeutic process.
Do you have to continue therapy for the rest of your life?
No, and I think it’s important to make that clear.
There is no “ideal” duration that applies to everyone. Some people seek therapy for a specific period, work through a difficult situation, regain a sense of balance, and decide to end their therapy. Others choose to continue working over a longer period because they wish to deepen their understanding of themselves or because certain issues continue to evolve throughout their lives.
Neither of these options is inherently better than the other.
In fact, ending therapy can be part of the process itself. It allows you to reflect on the journey you’ve taken, acknowledge the changes you’ve made, and consider how you can build on what you’ve discovered moving forward.
It’s possible to agree together on ending therapy, spacing out sessions, or taking a break. It’s also possible to resume therapy later if new difficulties arise or if you feel the need for this space again.
The goal is not to stay in therapy simply out of principle. It is to determine what is right for us at a given point in our lives.
In conclusion, in my view, it’s important not to confuse feeling better with the idea that everything is necessarily over. Improvement may be the result of work already done, but it can also open up the possibility of exploring issues that we were not yet ready to address.
Continuing therapy doesn’t mean you’re doing badly, just as stopping it doesn’t mean you’re refusing to work on yourself. It all depends on what you’re seeking, what has changed, and what you wish to pursue.
If you start to feel better, you can discuss this with your therapist. You can take stock of the progress you’ve made, reflect on what’s helping you now, and decide together how to move forward.
The goal of therapy isn’t to keep you in treatment. It’s meant to help you find greater freedom in how you live, think, and relate to others. And sometimes, taking the time to acknowledge what has changed is an integral part of that journey.