Why Your Therapy Might Be Keeping You Stuck (And What You Can Do About It)

"Why am I still stuck, even though I’ve been going to therapy?”

“I understand myself more, but nothing seems to be changing.”

“I’ve been in therapy for months, but I still feel the same.”

If you’ve found yourself thinking like this, you’re not alone. Many people come to therapy wanting things to shift. They want anxiety to ease, relationships to improve, or confidence to grow. But instead, they find themselves circling the same ground, week after week.

So why might your therapy not be helping in the way you hoped?

And more importantly, what can you do about it?

You’re talking about your problems, but not really feeling them

Your therapy might be helping you understand your story, how the past has shaped you, how certain patterns keep repeating. But insight on its own doesn’t always lead to change.

Sometimes, insight becomes a way of keeping feelings at a distance. You might find yourself explaining why you feel anxious or stuck, without really connecting to the feelings underneath.

Therapy then becomes another place where emotions are kept out of reach. And real change tends to happen when you’re able to feel what’s been buried, not just talk about it.

You’re staying in your emotional comfort zone

Some types of therapy feel warm, supportive, and safe. That can be important at the beginning. But if your therapist never gently challenges you or helps you look at what you might be avoiding, you can end up going round in circles.

Growth often involves discomfort. Not because therapy should be harsh, but because meaningful change usually means facing things you’d rather not look at. And that’s rarely easy.

If your therapy stays only in what’s comfortable, it may also be staying on the surface.

Your emotional defences are still running the show

We all have ways of protecting ourselves from feeling too much. We overthink, distract ourselves, minimise pain, or shift into intellectual explanations. These defences are automatic, and they probably helped you cope earlier in life. But in therapy, they can get in the way.

If your therapy isn’t helping you notice and work through these patterns, they’ll likely show up in the therapy room just like they do in the rest of your life.

And if those defences aren’t being addressed, they may be quietly keeping the deeper emotional work out of reach.

Your therapy isn’t getting to the root

You might be working on symptoms like anxiety, low self-esteem, or difficulties in relationships. But the emotional roots underneath those symptoms could be going untouched.

If the real issues involve unresolved grief, guilt, anger, or unmet emotional needs, then strategies and coping tools might only take you so far.

Until your therapy helps you access and work through those deeper feelings, you may find yourself stuck in the same emotional loop — even if you understand it on an intellectual level.

You’ve outgrown the approach you started with

Maybe your therapy was exactly what you needed at the start. It helped you feel safe, heard, and supported. But now you’re looking for something more active, more focused, more capable of creating change.

If the approach hasn’t shifted to match your growth, it might no longer be meeting your needs.

So what helps?

In Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP), the focus is on helping you get to the emotional core of your difficulties. The aim isn’t just symptom relief but true internal change.

This means:

• Helping you notice anxiety and emotional defences in real time

• Slowing down to connect with the feelings underneath, even when that feels hard

• Working through internal blocks instead of avoiding them

• Supporting you to fully experience and process emotions, so they no longer need to be suppressed or acted out

When this happens, symptoms often reduce — not because you’ve learned to manage them better, but because the emotional system driving them has actually shifted.

If this sounds familiar…

Feeling stuck in therapy can be frustrating, especially when you’ve already put in time, energy, and effort. But it doesn’t mean you’ve failed. And it doesn’t mean you’re beyond help.

It may just mean that the kind of support you need has changed and now it’s time for a different approach.

If you’re looking for a more active, focused form of therapy that helps you get to the root of what’s keeping you stuck, I offer ISTDP therapy online across the UK and Europe, as well as in-person sessions in Nottingham. You can explore more about how I work, or get in touch if you’d like to talk further.