I Don't Want You to Need Me Forever
What I hope happens when therapy ends.
There's something slightly strange about saying this as a counsellor:
I don't want you to need me forever.
In fact, I don't even want therapy with me to become something you feel you can't manage without.
That might sound like an odd thing for a therapist to say.
But for me, it gets to the heart of what I'm actually trying to do with people in counselling.
I don't want the therapy room to become the only place where you can make sense of what's happening, cope with difficult thoughts and feelings, make decisions or feel like you know what to do next.
I want us to practise together.
And then I want you to take what you've learned out into the wild.
Because that's where your actual life is happening.
The therapy room isn't where life happens
When you're sitting opposite me, we have a little pocket of time where we can slow things down.
We can notice what's happening.
We can get curious about patterns.
We can experiment with something different.
We can use a visual metaphor or try something experiential.
We might laugh.
We might sit with something incredibly difficult.
We might discover that something you've been doing for years actually makes a lot of sense when we understand what it's trying to do for you.
And all of that matters.
But eventually you leave.
You go back to your relationship.
Your children.
Your work.
Your difficult colleague.
Your anxious Monday morning.
The conversation you've been avoiding.
The decision you're not sure how to make.
The situation that makes your mind start telling you the same old story.
That's where the work really gets tested.
That's the wild.
And that's where I want the things we practise together to become useful.
Watch the video: What if the real work of therapy happens outside the therapy room?
I made this video because this idea has become increasingly important to me in my own practice.
I'm not interested in giving you a set of things that only work while you're sitting in front of me.
I'm interested in helping you develop ways of responding to life that you can keep using when I'm not there.
I'm not trying to make you feel better first
One of the things I love about Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is that it challenges something we can very easily assume about therapy.
We often imagine the process looking something like this:
Feel bad ⟶ work on the problem ⟶ feel better ⟶ get on with life.
And sometimes, of course, feeling better is a perfectly reasonable thing to want.
But what happens when we make feeling better the condition that has to be met before we can start living?
What if you keep waiting until the anxiety has gone?
Until you feel confident.
Until you stop overthinking.
Until you're no longer grieving.
Until the shame disappears.
Until you finally feel certain about the decision.
Until you feel ready.
You could be waiting for quite a long time.
ACT takes a different approach.
We can learn to make room for difficult thoughts and feelings while also choosing where we want to go.
The anxiety can come along.
The doubt can come along.
The grief can come along.
Your mind can tell you that you're going to mess everything up.
And you can still choose your next step.
That doesn't mean pretending you feel fine.
If doesn't mean forcing yourself through things.
And it certainly doesn't mean ignoring genuine danger or overriding your own needs.
It means learning that an uncomfortable internal experience doesn't always have to be the thing that decides what you do next.
What happens when the way we cope becomes the problem?
This is something I'm particularly interested in exploring with clients.
Our patterns usually make sense.
We don't randomly develop ways of coping.
If avoiding something gives you relief, your brain learns something from that.
If checking makes the uncertainty feel smaller for a moment, you're more likely to check again.
If reassurance temporarily settles the anxiety, you may find yourself seeking more reassurance the next time the anxiety appears.
If staying busy keeps difficult thoughts at a distance, slowing down can start to feel incredibly uncomfortable.
These things can work.
That's the problem.
They work well enough in the short term that we keep doing them.
And sometimes a coping strategy that once helped us can gradually become part of a self-amplifying loop.
You get the difficult thought or feeling.
You do something to make it go away.
You feel some relief.
Your brain learns that the behaviour worked.
The difficult experience returns.
You do it again.
And the pattern becomes stronger.
Until eventually you might find yourself organising more and more of your life around not feeling something.
And your world can become smaller.
That's why in therapy with me, I'm interested in function.
Not simply:
"Why am I like this?"
But:
"What is this pattern doing for me?"
"What is it helping me move away from?"
"And what is it costing me?"
Those questions can open up a lot of space.
I want you to become your own therapist in the wild
Not literally. 😂
I'm not suggesting that you should start charging yourself £45 for a 60-minute session.
What I mean is that I want you to become increasingly able to notice what is happening and respond differently without needing me to tell you what to do.
Maybe you notice:
There's that thought again.
I'm trying to get rid of this feeling.
I'm looking for certainty.
I'm avoiding this conversation.
I'm making myself busy because I don't want to sit with what's coming up.
I'm moving away from something that actually matters to me.
And perhaps you can pause.
Notice.
Get curious.
Make a little room.
Remember what matters.
And choose your next move.
That might sound simple.
It isn't always easy.
It takes practice
This is something I'm honest about with clients.
We're not necessarily going to sit in my therapy room, have one brilliant insight and then suddenly behave differently for the rest of our lives.
Wouldn't that be nice? 😂
Most of us have spent years practising our existing patterns.
We've practised avoiding.
Overthinking.
People-pleasing.
Checking.
Controlling.
Withdrawing.
Seeking reassurance.
Trying to get things right.
Trying not to feel certain things.
So learning something different also takes practice.
Sometimes it takes quite a lot of practice.
And it takes courage.
Because trying something new can feel uncomfortable precisely because it is new.
You might still feel guilty when you set the boundary.
You might still doubt yourself when you make the decision.
You might still hear that familiar voice telling you that you're getting it wrong.
The aim isn't necessarily to silence that voice.
It's to discover that you don't always have to do what it says.
My hope for the people I work with
There's a phrase I really like when I think about this:
self-sustaining.
Not self-sustaining because you become completely independent and stop asking for help.
And not because therapy has somehow "fixed" you.
Self-sustaining means that, over time the things we practise together become increasingly available to you in your own life.
You begin to recognise the patterns.
You notice what your mind is doing.
You understand the function of your coping strategies.
You become more able to make room for difficult experiences.
You become clearer about what matters.
You practise moving towards it.
And gradually, those ways of responding become less and less something you need me for.
And more and more something you can do for yourself.
That's what I want.
And what about when therapy ends?
I don't see the end of therapy as a failure.
Quite the opposite.
Sometimes ending therapy is one of the things worth celebrating.
There's something incredibly satisfying about watching someone begin to recognise their own patterns, understand what keeps them going and develop their own ways of responding.
And then, eventually, they don't need the therapy room in quite the same way.
That doesn't mean they'll never struggle again.
It doesn't mean they'll never need support in the future.
We're human.
Life changes.
Things happen.
Sometimes people return to therapy after an ending, and that's completely okay too.
But I want the work we've done together to have become theirs.
Not something that only belongs to the relationship between therapist and client.
Something they can carry.
Something they can practise.
Something they can adapt.
Something they can use when life inevitably does what life does.
So no, I don't want you to need me forever
I want you to be able to leave the therapy room and take something with you.
Into your relationships.
Your work.
Your family life.
Your difficult conversations.
Your anxious mornings.
Your decisions.
Your ordinary Tuesday afternoons.
Those moments when your mind starts telling you the same old story.
I want you to be able to notice:
"Ah. Here we are again."
And instead of automatically following the old pattern, have a little more space to choose.
Maybe you make room for something difficult.
Maybe you do something brave.
Maybe you stop feeding the tiger.
Maybe you carry the suitcase.
Maybe you let the paper ball of shame sit there without having to throw it away.
Maybe you simply take the next small step.
That's the work.
Not creating a life where difficult thoughts and feelings never show up.
But creating a life where they don't have to decide where you're going.
And eventually, I hope the things we practise together become less and less something you need me for...
...and more and more smething you recognise as your own.
Because therapy doesn't end when you walk out of the counselling room.
That's when you get to take it out into the wild. 🌿
If this feels familiar...
You don't have to know exactly what you need before you start counselling.
Sometimes we simply begin by noticing what's happening – the thoughts, feelings, patterns and behaviours that have become part of your life – and explore what you might want to do differently.
My approach is person-centred and informed by ACT, with a focus on awareness, compassion, psychological flexibility and moving towards a life that feels meaningful and aligned with what matters to you.
I offer face-to-face counselling in central Grimsby and online counselling across the UK.
If you'd like to find out more about what working with me is like, you can explore my Working Together page or book a free Introduction Call.
You don't have to have it all figured out before you begin.
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