Feeling worse after a therapy session? Here's why.

For many people who have attended counselling, it's a common experience.

You leave therapy and experience overwhelming feelings of exhaustion, or a lower mood than before.

Some clients have described this as almost like a 'hangover' from a session, one that can at times last up to a couple of days after!

If this sounds like you, know that it's normal, and may have several causes. It can be really helpful to understand the reasons why we feel worse after a counselling session, to contextualise the experience as part of a therapeutic process. This is something you can then speak to your counsellor about to try to mitigate the impact of this on the other areas of your life. Therapy can be hard and challenging work, but it can be helpful to recognise this as part of a process of psychological change, and not necessarily a symptom that something isn't working. Let's talk about what might be happening!

Why you might feel worse after a therapy session:

• Reason one: Deep exploring into the psyche.

  One of the most common reasons clients might report feeling 'worse' after a therapy session is because of deep psychological exploration. You can think of this in a number of ways - for example - the pain of breaking a bone to reset it, a feeling of tiredness after a long train ride, the exhaustion you might feel after a workout. Therapy challenges the brain and the long established networks of the psyche. Making and breaking connections takes a lot of energy and recovery time! If you go to the gym, you often feel sore afterwards, as your muscle has been 'broken down' in order to rebuild again. Counselling is often experienced in a similar vein, as you plunge into feelings and experiences in order to understand or relate to them in a new way. It might be worth thinking about how to take it easy following your counselling session to allow the body and brain to recover, or think about how you schedule sessions to give yourself time to integrate these feelings in-between.

  
  

• Reason two: Protective parts feeling vulnerable.

  Another common reason can come from stumbling across a 'hidden tripwire' that makes a protective part feel unsafe. During counselling, we're purposefully looking at the parts of us that feel vulnerable and trying to understand the mechanisms we use to keep ourselves safe. These mechanisms serve a really important purpose in the psyche, but can also cause unintended or unwanted side-effects. These are often the parts of us that we really want to change, but the parts that are the most resistant! It's hard to keep track of all protective parts, and sometimes we might accidentally stumble across something that feels really vulnerable. This is usually hidden from our view by the protective part, so they can have a reactive 'don't go there!' response which can come out at the end of a session as a sense of anxiety, worry, or desire or reassurance that we can't quite place. My job as a therapist is to help the protective parts feel safe, and to facilitate understanding about what these parts might need or want from us. That said, if we're not aware of the part, or the part is routinely having to act in extreme ways, we might still experience some 'backlash' inside of us, which can lead to feeling raw or exhausted.

  
  

• Reason three: A rupture in the therapeutic relationship

  'Ruptures', or moments of disconnection, are common in therapy. This might happen when the counsellor misunderstands something the client says, gets something wrong, or when the client misunderstands the therapist. When this happens, it can feel uncomfortable or uneasy. Ruptures can help make relationships stronger if they are understood and repaired. This is why a counsellor might try to talk to you about your relationship with each other, as sometimes this is where the 'gold' is. It's important for the therapist to attend to and clear up any misunderstandings, and it can be really helpful for the client to voice confusing or negative feelings towards the therapist. However, this can be really difficult in the moment, and can then lead to sometimes feeling worse after therapy. However, there's some medicine to be found - if we can reflect on what has happened or what has triggered us, it can bring us closer to undertanding ourselves and our difficulties in a new or more profound way.

Self care is really important after counselling, to help all parts of us feel looked after and cared for. Thinking about a self-care routine can be really helpful to give ourselves space and time to psychologically and emotionally recover from deep counselling work. Oftentimes, you're working really hard, so after a session try to give yourself a pocket of space for some downtime, some TLC, and some rest.

Scheduling some time to rest and be gentle with yourself can help recovery after deep psychological work

To enquire about counselling with me, contact me here or click here to check out my approach.