12/13/2025
A deeper look at why so many clients feel worse after 'going to therapy.'
Over the years, my clients have shared hundreds of stories about the poor experiences they've had while going to therapy to address their challenges. I've also experienced more frustration than enlightenment while working with therapists. The primary problem is that the type of training provided to the majority of well-intentioned psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors, and social workers is outdated and can prolong pain rather than heal it.
Here's an example. A woman went to a therapist to heal from a series of traumas she'd endured. This woman was bright, successful, and had done a lot of personal work on herself, but she still felt stuck.
Her therapist instructed her to write down on paper an inventory of every painful event sheâd ever experienced. She turned in one page during the following session. The therapist looked at it and said, âThis isnât enough. Mine was four pages.â
For a client already drowning in rumination, catastrophic thinking, and emotional overwhelm, this wasnât therapeutic; it was re-traumatizing (according to the client). Instead of helping her regulate, reframe, or resolve the pain, the therapist unknowingly encouraged her to dig deeper into the very neural patterns that were keeping her stuck.
And to be clear: This isnât the therapistâs fault. This is a training issue.
The Problem Isnât Therapists: Itâs the Model They Were Taught
I spent seven years in college and graduate school studying psychology. 33 psychology courses in all.
Out of those 33, only one provided tools I still use today, and it was considered âcontroversialâ because it taught the basics of NLP (neuro linguistic programming), which is not part of the traditional clinical psychology curriculum.
And thatâs the problem: Most psychotherapy training programs heavily emphasize analysis, diagnosis, and talking about the problem, but provide little instruction on rapid, experiential, belief-level interventions that actually solve the issues.
As a result:
Many therapists unintentionally reinforce rumination (the #1 predictor of depression).
Clients can spend years rehearsing the narrative rather than changing the meaning.
Sessions can become emotionally exhausting rather than empowering.
Healing is often conceptual, not experiential.
Again, there are outstanding therapists providing transformational work. Numerous non-degreed coaches are also missing the mark with the various 'alternative healing therapies' that exist today. Therapy and coaching can absolutely be life-changing. But if weâre honest about the data, the gaps are hard to ignore.
Hereâs What the Research Shows
1. Rumination makes symptoms worse, and many therapy techniques trigger rumination.
Meta-analyses on depression and anxiety consistently show that repetitive negative thinking is a strong causal contributor to emotional suffering.
When clients spend session after session rehashing trauma without resolving it, their neural pathways for fear, shame, and helplessness deepen. The brain becomes more efficient at producing the pain. How many couples have you heard about that went to marriage counseling and their relationship actually improved? Most admit that it caused them to argue more.
This is why:
CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) without belief-level change has a limited impact for healing trauma
Talk therapy alone often stalls after the initial relief
Many clients report feeling worse after sessions
2. Insight alone does not create transformation.
Clients often leave therapy with an understanding of why they feel the way they do⌠but still feel that way. This is known in the literature as the âinsight-action gap.â
Understanding the pattern â eliminating the pattern.
3. The average time to see meaningful improvement in traditional psychotherapy is long: months to years.
Meanwhile, experiential, belief-focused modalities (OBA⢠(one belief away method, hypnosis, EMDR, somatic therapies) often produce measurable changes in minutes to hours, not months.
Humans transform through experience, not discussion.
4. A large percentage of clients drop out before receiving meaningful benefits.
Studies show 47â57% of clients discontinue therapy early, primarily because:
âIt isnât helping.â
âI feel worse after sessions.â
âI keep talking about the same problems.â
âNothing is changing.â
My therapist listens but doesn't provide any tools.
These arenât client failures, as some therapists might suggest. Instead, they are methodological limitations.
Where Traditional Therapy Falls Short
Therapists are often compassionate, caring, and committed professionals. But theyâre working within a system thatâŚ
Under-trains them in subconscious change work
Over-emphasizes intellectual analysis over emotional resolution
Teaches âprocessingâ trauma but not neutralizing it
Frames healing as slow and incremental rather than rapid and experiential
Most therapists were never shown how to:
identify the core unconscious belief driving the suffering
deactivate the emotional charge around trauma
install new empowering beliefs
create rapid, lasting state changes
help clients stop self-sabotage at the identity level
This is why they often default to what they were taught: âTell me more about the trauma.â âWrite it all down.â âLetâs explore it deeper.â
But neuroscience now shows us something critical:
You cannot heal a trauma by rehearsing it. You heal it by transforming it.
So, Is Psychotherapy Harmful?
Hereâs the honest answer:
Not inherently. But the wrong approach, with the wrong client, at the wrong time, can absolutely cause harm.
If a client is stuck in ruminationâŚ
If the therapist unintentionally reinforces the pain loopâŚ
If sessions constantly revisit the wound without upgrading the belief beneath itâŚ
âŚthen yes, symptoms can worsen. This doesnât mean psychotherapy is bad. It means psychology is evolving, and must evolve. Because people arenât looking for catharsis. Theyâre looking for a resolution.
They want:
emotional freedom
confidence
peace
closure
breakthroughs
rapid relief
sustainable change
Not 200 hours of talking.
Why Belief-Change Methods Like OBA⢠Are the Next Evolution
The One Belief Away⢠Method is built on two ideas that the traditional model overlook:
Unconscious beliefs, not events, keep suffering ongoing.
Changing the belief changes everythingâfast.
Instead of retraumatizing clients or deepening rumination, OBAâ˘:
isolates the root belief in minutes
upgrades it experientially
releases emotion at a subconscious level
installs new, empowering neural pathways
produces results most clients describe as âinstant relief.â
Itâs not âdiggingââitâs disentangling.
Itâs not âprocessingââitâs upgrading.
Itâs not years of copingâitâs minutes to breakthroughs.
