Imagine you have a one hour therapy session per week. This leaves over 165 hours out and about in the world apart from your therapist - "on your own to process".

It's a big space between sessions, and it makes the 60 minute appointment seem trivial. What impact can these 60 minutes have? Yet, they will have an impact on your week. Those minutes trickle out like water seeping into soil, into all the other hours spent between sessions.

This space between sessions is often overlooked when thinking about process and progress in therapy.

In this time your mind will be registering whatever was shared, discussed or highlighted in the therapeutic hour - whether you're aware of it or not. (If you're anything like me) some weeks go by in which you may consider carefully what you'll bring to your next session. Others you'll almost forget you booked an appointment. Some weeks you may go over every word your counsellor said and feel a need to go easy on yourself as you let it all sink in. Others you could crack on without really looking back. And that's all totally normal! The process is working.

With or without you knowing, here are things that happen inside of you between your therapy sessions...

1. You'll be considering how the hour went for you

A moment of evaluation will take place inside you. How did it feel to be in that talky-feely space this week? Did you hate it and will never go back? Did you survive? Sometimes mountains are moved by simply being able to say something aloud to another person and releasing the world keeps turning and you've survived.

2. You'll ponder new insights

This sounds like I'm stating obvious, but this is a key part of therapy! Therapy often involves bringing back previous events or habits (even if they are still relatively recent) and considering them with the new information, tools and knowledge you have today. This results in whole, fresh insight. And it is very common that in this process new memories and thoughts appear.

Let me give you an example: Let's say you felt lonely as a child but never knew this - you didn't know that feeling you had was loneliness. You have a big family and were never alone so, as a child, you never imagined you could be lonely. But recently you've reflected, reconsidered what it means to be lonely and identified that you were indeed a lonely kid and this actually had big effects on you. This may not be earth shuttering, but when you first realise and between your sessions, you may feel the need to give both your present self and your past self a little hug - like, "hey, little Lily, I got you".

3. You'll be trying to digest what new information or events mean for you

Over time - not in the therapy hour - you may digest a difficult change or new reality. The change may be small, but other times it may literally feel like the very person you are is called into question and life turns everything you've ever known to be true about yourself upside down. This is because shocking or damaging events or information alters how we view ourselves, others and the world. In the comfort of your own home, you may be assimilating your life's narrative and situation, this is, understanding how something that's happened to you is now a part of you. You see yourself differently now. It's not an easy pill to swallow and it takes time.

4. You'll be testing out new ways of being

In the spaces of time between therapy, it's common to see clients tweak and change as the "digestion" process happens. Folk may be accepting they're gay or trans and start to live their true selves. Others may be coming to experience what it means to move and interact through the world as, for instance, a newly divorced person, a person who has being given a diagnosis, or who recently discovered they suffered neglect. This could include changing everything - from clothes to friendship groups, even to adopting a new vocabulary in which to describe and understand ourselves. However big or small, aware or not, this is a time of experimenting and experiencing the changes, like taking little steps up in which subtle changes of colour past us by as we climb. It can be an incredible exciting time.

5. You'll experiencing yourself as a person who is listened to and accepted by your therapist

Let's not forget the relationship you have with your therapist! It's not important if you think about your counsellor outside of sessions or not, you are engaging in a therapeutic relationship and this reality is true for every hour of the week. Your therapist (should) be treating you with respect, acceptance and empathy. Your body will recognise this, like it responds to trauma or stress (but it a good way). If you have never experienced kindness or one-to-one quality time, how does it feel to suddenly experience this? If you are well accustomed to respect and valuing, your therapist has reinforced what your body felt to be true. That's something too.

In sum...

Being in therapy requires us to engage, think and talk. But so much happens outside of the therapy hour - the mental and physical happenings that take place for you inside the therapy hour filter into all parts of life, which mean that both cognitively and physically the self is assimilating changes, new insights and outlooks about one's self and surroundings. You are in therapy, quite literally, throughout the whole week - not just for an hour here and there.

Written by Lily Llewellyn

November 8th 2024

Lily is a psychotherapist trained and educated in person-centred counselling and a trained life coach. Her areas of interest include our relationships with ourselves and others as well as the ways in which we relate to objects, such as food and money, and activities, such as shopping and work.