When Therapy Becomes a Crutch

I’ve been reflecting a lot lately about therapeutic relationships, the influence of therapy on us as people and our lives, and is there such a thing as being in therapy too long?

It’s a challenging question to sit with, because it’s so nuanced and situational, and if you’re asking this questions yourself there’s a lot to consider, and maybe reading about my experience may support you in some way.

I didn’t realise that my own personal therapy had become a sort of crutch until I was faced with having to take a break for logistical reasons. By this point I had been in therapy with the same psychotherapist for over 3 consecutive years, not including 2 years while I was in university, and the plan was to keep it this way until the day she decided to stop practicing. Life has a funny way of throwing something unexpected in our path to help us come to a realisation that we might not have had otherwise, and mine was that I was handing over my autonomy to my therapist in subtle ways.