You started therapy hoping to feel better. Instead, you sometimes feel worse. Sessions leave you drained instead of relieved. You're talking about things you'd rather avoid. Some weeks you dread going.

If therapy feels hard, you might wonder: is this working? Am I doing it wrong? Should it be easier?

Here's the uncomfortable truth: therapy often feels hard precisely because it's working. But it's also worth knowing when hard crosses into unhelpful. This article explores why therapy is difficult and how to tell whether your struggle is productive.

Why Therapy Is Inherently Challenging

You're Facing What You've Been Avoiding

Most people develop coping mechanisms that help them avoid painful thoughts, feelings, or realisations. These defences work—that's why you developed them—but they also keep you stuck.

Therapy involves lowering those defences and facing what's behind them. That's inherently uncomfortable.

If you've been avoiding grief, therapy means feeling the grief. If you've been intellectualising instead of feeling, therapy means feeling. If you've been keeping certain memories at bay, therapy might mean acknowledging them.

This isn't cruelty; it's necessity. Healing requires engaging with pain, not perpetually skirting around it.

Vulnerability Is Uncomfortable

Letting another person truly see you—including the parts you hide, the thoughts you're ashamed of, the feelings you can't explain—is profoundly vulnerable.

Our instincts often tell us to protect ourselves, maintain a positive image, stay in control. Therapy asks us to do the opposite: admit struggle, show weakness, risk judgment.

Even when your therapist is completely accepting, the act of revealing yourself can feel exposing and uncomfortable.

Change Is Disorienting

Even positive change can feel unsettling. Your familiar ways of being—however dysfunctional—are familiar. Developing new patterns means losing that familiarity.

If your identity has been built around certain beliefs about yourself ("I'm the strong one," "I'm broken," "I don't need anyone"), challenging those beliefs disrupts who you think you are.

Growth requires letting go of old selves. That's disorienting, even when the old self wasn't serving you.

Things Often Get Worse Before They Get Better

When you start exploring problems instead of suppressing them, those problems become more present. You might feel worse initially because you're actually experiencing what you'd been pushing away.

Imagine having a wound you've been covering with a plaster for years. When you finally remove the plaster, the wound is exposed—it hurts more in the short term, even though you need to clean and treat it for proper healing.

Therapy Challenges Familiar Patterns

We all have patterns that don't serve us but feel comfortable:

Always putting others first
Avoiding conflict at all costs
Expecting perfection from yourself
Choosing unavailable partners

These patterns feel normal because they're what you know. Changing them means doing things that feel wrong—even when they're actually healthier.

Learning to say no when you always say yes. Expressing anger when you always suppress it. Setting boundaries when you always accommodate. These feel uncomfortable because they're unfamiliar, not because they're wrong.

When Difficult Is Actually Good

Some struggles in therapy signal progress:

Feeling Emotions More Intensely

If you've been numb, disconnected, or intellectualising, starting to feel can be overwhelming. But feeling is usually a sign the defences are lowering and real work is happening.

Noticing Patterns You'd Rather Not See

Recognising your own contributions to problems—seeing how you push people away, or repeat unhealthy choices, or sabotage yourself—is painful but essential.

Experiencing Resistance

The parts of you that resist change are usually protecting something. Strong resistance often means you're approaching something important.

Questioning Long-Held Beliefs

"Maybe I'm not as unlovable as I thought" can be strangely uncomfortable. Beliefs we've held forever, even negative ones, feel like truth. Questioning them destabilises our world.

Feeling Worse After Sessions

Sessions that touch on painful material can leave you feeling raw. This isn't a sign of harm—it's often a sign of deep work.

Experiencing the Relationship

If you start having strong feelings about your therapist—appreciation, frustration, longing, anger—that's material to work with, not a problem to hide.

When Difficult Is a Problem

Not all struggle indicates progress. Some difficulties signal something's wrong:

Consistently Feeling Misunderstood

If your therapist repeatedly misses the point, misunderstands your concerns, or responds in ways that don't fit your experience, that's a fit problem.

Feeling Judged

Therapy should feel challenging but safe. If you feel judged, shamed, or criticised by your therapist, that's not productive difficulty—that's harm.

No Progress Over Extended Time

Therapy should eventually produce some change—better understanding, different patterns, reduced symptoms. If months pass with no movement, something needs addressing.

Dreading Sessions Without Understanding Why

Some dread reflects avoiding important work. But dread can also signal genuine mismatch or that the approach isn't working for you.

Feeling Worse Over Time, Not Just Initially

Initial increase in symptoms is common. Ongoing deterioration without any improvement suggests the therapy isn't helping and may be harmful.

Never Feeling Better After Sessions

If every session leaves you worse and you never experience relief, insight, or connection, something's not working.

Your Concerns Are Dismissed

If you raise concerns about the therapy and your therapist dismisses them, that's problematic. Good therapists take client feedback seriously.

How to Navigate the Difficulty

Name It

Tell your therapist that therapy feels hard. This is exactly the kind of thing therapy should address. It's not complaining; it's bringing important material into the room.

Distinguish Types of Difficult

Try to identify what specifically is hard:

Is it the content (talking about painful things)?
Is it the process (opening up, being vulnerable)?
Is it the relationship (something about the therapist)?
Is it external (the time, the money, the logistics)?

Different sources of difficulty need different responses.

Go Slower If Needed

You don't have to rush into the deepest material. Good therapy happens at a pace you can manage. If you're consistently overwhelmed, ask to slow down.

Build Coping Resources

If sessions regularly destabilise you, work on coping strategies. Your therapist can help you develop techniques for managing difficult emotions before, during, and after sessions.

Give It Enough Time

Most therapists suggest giving therapy at least 4-6 sessions before evaluating fit. Initial difficulty often resolves as trust builds.

But don't stay forever in something that isn't helping. If months pass without progress, that's worth examining.

Talk About the Relationship

If you have difficult feelings about your therapist or the therapy itself, bring them up. This is often some of the most valuable work.

Trust Yourself

You know the difference between productive struggle and something being wrong. Trust that knowledge. If something feels off, it's worth exploring even if you can't explain why.

Questions to Ask Yourself

Is there any relief, insight, or connection alongside the difficulty?

Hard therapy usually includes some positive moments too—feeling understood, gaining insight, experiencing connection. Pure misery without any relief is concerning.

Do I understand why it's hard?

If you can recognise that therapy is hard because you're facing grief, or challenging patterns, or being vulnerable—that's productive difficulty. If you're confused about why it feels so wrong, pay attention.

Am I avoiding something important or is this approach wrong for me?

Only you can really answer this. Consider whether you'd feel this way with any therapist or whether there's something specific about this one.

Do I feel safe, even when uncomfortable?

Therapy should be uncomfortable but safe. If you don't feel fundamentally safe with your therapist, that's a problem.

Has anything improved at all?

After several months, there should be some change—even if not in symptoms, perhaps in understanding or perspective. Complete stagnation is concerning.

What Your Therapist Should Be Doing

A good therapist responds to difficulty by:

Normalising: Helping you understand that struggle is part of the process.

Adjusting pace: Slowing down when you're overwhelmed.

Checking in: Regularly asking how therapy feels for you.

Taking feedback seriously: If you say something isn't working, genuinely exploring that.

Not taking it personally: Being curious about your experience rather than defensive.

Being transparent: Explaining why certain things feel hard and what purpose they serve.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long should I stick with therapy that feels hard?

There's no formula, but consider: Is there any progress at all? Do you feel safe with this therapist? Can you articulate why it's hard? If it's productive struggle, keep going. If you genuinely feel it's wrong, trust that.

Should I tell my therapist therapy feels hard?

Yes. This is exactly the kind of thing to discuss. It's not complaining—it's bringing important information into the work.

Is feeling worse after sessions normal?

Sometimes, especially after difficult sessions. If every session leaves you worse with no insight or relief, that's concerning.

What if my therapist dismisses my concerns?

That's problematic. Good therapists take client feedback seriously, even (especially) when it's about the therapy itself.

Can therapy make you worse?

Yes, though it's not common. Bad therapy, wrong approach, or wrong fit can cause harm. This is why paying attention to your experience matters.

The Bottom Line

Therapy is often hard. You're facing avoided material, being vulnerable, challenging patterns, and rewiring familiar ways of being. None of that is easy.

But there's a difference between productive struggle and something being wrong. Productive struggle includes some relief, insight, or connection. You feel challenged but fundamentally safe. You can understand why it's hard even when it hurts.

If therapy feels consistently harmful, unsafe, or just wrong without explanation—trust that. Your experience matters.

The goal isn't effortless therapy; it's therapy where the effort is worth it. Where the difficulty serves growth. Where hard moments lead somewhere meaningful.

If you're struggling in therapy and wondering whether it's normal or a problem, that's worth discussing—with your current therapist if you trust them, or with a different professional if you don't.

I offer a free consultation where we can discuss what you're experiencing. Sometimes an outside perspective helps clarify whether you're in productive difficulty or need to make a change.

Therapy should be hard sometimes. It shouldn't make your life worse overall. Knowing the difference matters.

Why Therapy Sometimes Feels Hard (And Why That's Okay)