Is therapy supposed to be this incredibly important relationship that shapes the rest of your life, or is it actually not that deep?
INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT RELATIONSHIP
You feel worthless, warped, deeply lonely, in terror of intimacy due to severe childhood abuse and emotional abandonment. Your psychotherapy gradually guides you to reframe, repair, and in a sense re-do your childhood, learn gradually to get those needs met now in healthy ways.
You’re still wounded, and scars are still visible and you’ll still notice them sometimes, but you now enter into friendships as a functional, caring adult, ready to give and receive. You can manage intimate, committed relationships too, although you might go back for a few booster sessions before getting engaged. And you now love yourself and others in the very best way.
For the rest of your life, that therapist and that therapy are with you, and you can go back there in your head and use it all as a permanent resource. Incredibly important.
NOT AS DEEP
These would be therapies where you didn’t need to go very deep or weren’t ready to. Therapies where you got help deciding to retire now or wait two more years. Or stopped smoking. Or got over a phobia of flying because your new job required air travel.
You got clear and confident about retirement plans, stopped smoking, and were able to accept the promotion that required flying. Maybe not earth-shaking, but very good for you.