Should I break up with my therapist? 3 steps to give productive feedback to your therapist.

Reya Care
4 min readMay 2, 2021

One of the most common questions we hear is: what do I do if I’m not happy with my therapy experience? So, we wanted to create a fuller guide as the answer isn’t simple (unfortunately)! Giving your therapist feedback can be really difficult, but it’s incredibly rewarding not just in improved therapy work but also a better understanding of yourself and your needs. To help you navigate the therapy feedback process, we talked with our therapist advisors to understand how therapists consider feedback and leveraged our own experiences giving feedback to therapists. We break it down into three steps, but know that every situation is different and this is just a jumping off point!

Quick Note: If your therapist makes you feel unsafe, has used inappropriate language, or crossed boundaries, don’t worry about giving them feedback. Email them that you’re ending care and find someone better — your mental safety is the utmost priority.

Step 1 — Consider how you’re feeling

Like approaching any feedback (job, relationship, etc), considering what you’re feeling in advance can make it much easier to communicate and have a productive conversation. The following questions can help you prepare to give your therapist feedback so you can focus on communicating what’s most important and helpful to you.

  • What’s causing you to want to give feedback — was there a specific instance or a general feeling or struggle over time?
  • What do you want to get out of therapy that you’re not getting now?
  • Have you shared freely with your therapist? Why or why not?
  • Have they created an environment that has made it difficult for you to share?
  • How do you feel towards your therapist?
  • Do you dread sessions or want to skip them regularly?

There are no right or wrong answers to these questions, but understanding them will help your therapist support you.

Step 2 — Share your feelings with your therapist

Share your answers to the above questions with your therapist! The four therapists we spoke to all said that consider feedback an essential part of the therapeutic relationship — they welcome it. You can do it at the beginning of a session or when it feels natural to you — though consider avoiding raising it at the very end of the session as that doesn’t give you time to process it (but even then later is better than never). Our advisors emphasized to us that your therapist doesn’t mind if you’re angry with them, feel like you can’t share freely, or are not liking your current setup. Their goal is to help you get the care you need, so no matter what you’re feeling they want to hear it.

We know sharing these feelings can be difficult, but sharing this feedback is not only good for your therapy practice but it can help you be a better advocate for your unmet needs outside of therapy. Push through, we believe in you!

Step 3 — Reflect on your conversation

Reflect with yourself and your therapist about what you learned from the feedback experience.

  • Did they respond in a way that was helpful and allowed you to better understand yourself?
  • Are there lessons from this feedback that can help you in other areas of your life where you want to give feedback?
  • Did you learn something about another relationship in your life?

Your therapist should be interested in your feedback and committed to helping you process it. Therapy and feedback in therapy is hard work — you might not feel immediately better but you should feel heard.

If you’re not feeling heard or supported, this might not be the right therapist for you and that’s totally normal and okay! Different therapists are good for different needs and stages of your care and life. (We’ll talk more about therapy breakups in the future, but for now we’ll keep it simple and recommend you tell your therapist directly, in session or via email, that you want to end care. Ghosting is just as tough in the therapy world as it is in the dating world).

In addition to deepening your therapy practice, giving feedback to your therapist is a great way to practice giving feedback in situations outside of therapy and can help you understand other relationships in your life. Reflecting helps you reap those rewards! Finally, some therapy feedback can come from projecting other relationships onto your therapy relationship, so reflecting with your therapist will help you better understand relationships outside of therapy and how to best express your feedback/needs to that person.

That’s it! You did it! You reflected, shared, and learned! Now, treat yourself! And consider how you want to continue to incorporate feedback into your therapy in the future.

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Reya Care

We find your perfect therapist. Here on Medium we share advice and best practices on finding, vetting, and utilizing your therapist.