3 Factors That Lead To Successful & Supportive Therapy Sessions

This might sound obvious, but you and the therapist absolutely must be on the same page about your therapy goals as being healthy and desirable. For example, a high-functioning person might come to therapy seeking stress management skills because their need for achievement is driving them to get excellent grades in graduate school while working full time, and they need a way to manage the extra demands of their situation. Or they might seek a therapist to help them manage inevitable rejection as they climb the ladder of success to become a Broadway star. I have encountered clients in both of these situations and similar situations, whose previous therapist refused to partner with them in these goals.

Instead, the therapist insisted on helping the clients develop an "insight" that the clients needed: to "learn to sit with failure" or "drop their unreasonable expectations."

While it is true that sometimes high-functioning people can get on a hamster wheel of achievement, where nothing is ever good enough—and it is essential that a therapist be able to help clients avoid this pitfall—it is also important that a therapist be able to recognize a client's potential and help them develop skills to reach that potential.

Remember I said there was a lot of overlap in the three components of the therapeutic alliance? Well, here we go: Just as you and your therapist need to have agreement that your goals are healthy, it stands to reason that if your therapist doesn't think your goals are reasonable, then that therapist may not believe in your ability to achieve those goals. However, just because a therapist doesn't think a goal is achievable for you does not necessarily mean the goal is unachievable!

Obviously, if you and the therapist can't agree on appropriate goals, or if you don't believe your therapist is capable of helping you achieve those goals, then it will be difficult to establish a genuine therapeutic rapport.

Whatever the reason (except in cases when the client has problems forming rapport in general, even outside of the therapy room; or in cases when a client is unable to manage their life in basic terms), if you don't feel rapport with a therapist, please feel free to consider the possibility that the problem is with the therapist rather than with yourself—and keep shopping for the right fit.

Of course, if you've seen 10 therapists in a row and they all seem "off" in some way, then it's possible that you're being hypercritical or you just have a very hard time trusting. The general idea is just that in most cases, a high-functioning person's positive gut-level feeling about a therapist is often an important predictor of therapeutic success.

So while you may notice that I sometimes urge readers to consider therapy, I also encourage you to pay attention to your "inner antennae" about whether or not the person seems truly qualified to help you. Academic credentials and licensing are necessary but not sufficient for a good, helpful therapy relationship to take place: Don't underestimate the importance of your natural sense of whether or not you feel rapport with the therapist and a sense of confidence about their overall abilities, intelligence, and level of conscientiousness.

Even though you may not feel qualified to assess a therapist's clinical skills, remember that their clinical skills hinge at least partly on their ability to help you feel comfortable to open up and share yourself.