The Three Stages of Therapy
There are 3 main stages of therapy
1. Early Stage
This stage focuses on getting to know your therapist, your therapist getting to know you, building the therapeutic relationship, and identifying what you want to work on and how to get there.
Rapport building (earning trust, empathy, comfort, active listening)
Assessing if mutual good fit (personality, communication style, therapy approach, values)
Gaining more information (history, family, relationships, support, challenges, previous experiences in therapy)
Therapist outlining what to expect and boundaries
Therapist outlining the trajectory/journey of therapy
Identifying collaborative goals (focus on what client wants to work on)
Providing education on what may be occurring (symptom, diagnosis, theories, terms)
If not a good fit, find another therapist and end treatment
2. Middle Stage
This stage focuses on the change/growth/transformation process.
Exploring themes, patterns, and dynamics
Learning why client do what they do
Identifying barriers/challenges and ways to interrupt cycles of sabotage with healthier behaviors/actions
Change
Trying new things outside of therapy (homework, experiments) and reporting back to see what worked and didn’t work
Decreasing avoidance
Teaching and practicing skills and tools
3. Late Stage
This stage focuses on reviewing the past 2 stages.
Summarizing work so far
Goals are met
Feeling more confident in ability to handle life challenges and transitions without therapist
Thinking about the future and ways to handle possible challenges and setbacks
Saying goodbye and underlying feelings about loss of relationship
Moving sessions to less frequency (every other week, monthly, once every quarter, as needed)
Some of the things that might happen in therapy
Disagreements
Enactments
Transference
Repairs
Illness
Finances
Time off
Taking a break
Referring out
Losses
Ambivalence