Maximizing Progress
Counselling and therapy can be extremely effective in a relatively brief period of time. The research evidence shows that as many as 80% of people can benefit from psychotherapy and experience some degree of improvement if not a complete recovery from their symptoms in a number of weeks. In my own experience, most people will experience improvement in their symptoms and start to feel better within six weeks. For many people, simply coming to discuss your difficulties in an open manner can bring immediate relief and hope.
The degree and speed with which you improve will depend on a number of things -- most importantly the severity of your difficulties, but also the extent to which what you learn and are asked to do in counselling is done between meetings with me. To maximize your progress, I will provide you with concrete tasks and suggestions relevant to the nature of your difficulties each week. And I will also ask you to track what you do and the impact that it has on your mood and behaviour. Monitoring what you do and how you feel has well-documented benefits, whether the goal is to modify diet or exercise habits, change negative patterns of thinking, improve how you get along with others or perform at work, or reduce the severity of your symptoms.
Monitoring progress also allows you to play an active role in your treatment, and in the event that you do not make progress as expected, we will be able to make adjustments to your treatment plan at the earliest sign of difficulty.
