{"id":279,"date":"2025-09-05T12:55:50","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T10:55:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/psychotherapy-you.eu\/?p=279"},"modified":"2025-09-05T12:57:45","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T10:57:45","slug":"your-therapy-is-not-progressing-check-what-might-be-the-reason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/psychotherapy-you.eu\/?p=279","title":{"rendered":"Your therapy is not progressing? Check what might be the reason"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Let\u2019s talk about accountability today. Accountability is a solid characteristic that only grown-ups have. Children only learn it throughout the upbringing. This is where the situation gets tricky already, because when you sit in psychotherapist\u2019s office, you also bring your inner child over. If this is the first time you hear this term, your inner child is your child-like part that has been there forever and shows up once in a while in your adult life. It can be fun and spontaneous, but also can mess up with your decisions. Your inner child has its emotions, coping mechanisms, ideas on the world and people. Your inner child has survived and made its way to the grown-ups\u2019 world and faces issues the best they can- as a child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is how I often summarise the cause of mental struggles. Coping mechanisms that used to work back in the difficult day, in an unrestful childhood, no longer work and here and now turn out to be rigid, inappropriate and inhibiting. They make our life and relationships miserable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So how can a therapist tell their client, who\u2019s in an inner child mode, that \u201cIt is you who is creating the unrest and misfortune.\u201d Not gonna happen. This is harsh and cruel. You cannot hold a child truly accountable if they\u2019re probably still learning. It just doesn\u2019t make sense. So what does?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SOOTHE YOUR INNER CHILD<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There’s a certain conflict. It\u2019s a grown-up who came to therapy. He or she took a brave decision to risk a change in their life because they can no longer keep this way. How to resolve the conflict between an inner child who has its ways and a grown-up who seeks change. Inner child expresses his need: \u201cHelp me please, hold my hand and take away my pain.\u201d It’s a need to be nurtured and guided, and it’s also a very good sign in therapy. It means unconscious child mechanisms surface up and one can finally notice them, hear and examine them, feel them, take care of them and let them go.  If all these child needs had once been met by the parents, there wouldn\u2019t be mental problems here and now. The stage of caressing your inner child can take some time in therapy- months, even years for some. Because years of neglect cannot be reframed just in a switch.  Getting to the point, what does it have to do with accountability?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ACKNOWLEDGE YOUR SUFFERING, THEN, IT’S TIME TO BE ADULT<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

While it’s necessary to open childhood wounds, experience difficult feelings, and blame parents for their wrongdoing, this is just a phase. A necessary stage to overcome, close and move forward. However, some people stop at this stage and live in perpetual resentment, regret, and hope that their parents will eventually change. They do not do it consciously. It’s a deeply hidden pattern called repetition compulsion. Repetition compulsion must be stopped. Otherwise nothing will change. And this is where the aforementioned accountability comes back. To make matters worse, a client doesn’t want to take responsibility for their own life. They would then have to acknowledge that they, too, are doing something wrong. It\u2019s so\u00a0 much easier to shift the blame onto someone else, to conveniently assume the role of victim. It\u2019s so much harder to admit that my fate is in my own hands, and if I suffer, I probably have a part in it. It is a difficult realization, I agree. We have all been there- change requires effort. Effort is not attractive, and effort combined with pain lies against human nature.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MY FAULT?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Irvin Yalom, a renowned existential psychotherapist, puts it this way:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cResponsibility means authorship. To be aware of responsibility is to be aware of creating oneself, one’s destiny, one’s life situation, one’s feelings, and\u2014if so\u2014one’s SUFFERING. No real therapy is possible for a patient who refuses to accept such responsibility and persists in blaming other people or other forces for their own misfortune. A person is responsible for their own life\u2014not only for their own actions, but also for their inactions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are many therapeutic approaches and the common motif in every one of them is the role of accountability. Until we confront this uncomfortable and painful truth, we will not move forward therapeutically. This requires courage, but also the pain of growing up. Embracing adulthood. Choosing a more difficult path, yet one that is more satisfying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

THE REINS ARE IN MY HANDS<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There’s something very comforting about this. Since I’m the author of my suffering, I can do something about it. I don’t have to be insecure or helpless, dependent on anyone else. I can take conscious control of my life and, step by step, choose how I want to live it. Now, ask yourself: How do I contribute to my misery?
Do I overanalyze?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do I allow too much?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do I take on too much?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do I not follow my needs and gut?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do I try to please everyone?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do I expect someone to figure it out?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do I not ask for what I want?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do I believe that because I want something, others must want the same?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do I withdraw?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do I dwell in the past and hold grudges?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Am I blind to the good?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I do that what for? How does that make me feel?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I leave you with your answers. Have a good day. \u262f\ufe0e<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s talk about accountability today. Accountability is a solid characteristic that only grown-ups have. Children only learn it throughout the upbringing. This is where the situation gets tricky already, because when you sit in psychotherapist\u2019s office, you also bring your inner child over. If this is the first time you hear this term, your inner […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":280,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-about-psychotherapy"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychotherapy-you.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychotherapy-you.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychotherapy-you.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychotherapy-you.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychotherapy-you.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=279"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/psychotherapy-you.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":282,"href":"https:\/\/psychotherapy-you.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279\/revisions\/282"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychotherapy-you.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychotherapy-you.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychotherapy-you.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychotherapy-you.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}