Why Do I Still Feel Stuck Even though I've Tried Therapy?

It can be frustrating. You’ve invested time, energy, and money in therapy. You’ve talked through your struggles, gained insights, maybe even felt some temporary relief. Yet deep down, the core issues remain.

Why does this happen?

Insight without change

Understanding why you feel or behave in certain ways can bring clarity. Many people leave sessions with new insights into their history, patterns, or relationships. But insight doesn’t automatically create change.

You might recognise, for example, that your anger hides deeper feelings of sadness, or that your perfectionism is driven by fear of disapproval. Still, the same reactions play out in daily life. Unless therapy helps you experience and work through those deeper feelings in real time, the knowledge stays intellectual.

Coping instead of resolving

A lot of therapy approaches focus on coping strategies; breathing exercises, thought reframing, or distraction techniques. These can be useful tools when anxiety or stress spikes, and sometimes they’re necessary just to get through the day.

But if the underlying conflicts are never faced, the same difficulties return. Coping skills can start to feel like managing symptoms rather than healing the cause. For many people, this leads to a cycle of temporary relief followed by familiar struggles.

Avoidance in the room

Therapy can sometimes become another place where avoidance plays out. You may talk about emotions rather than feel them. You may analyse problems instead of confronting the pain behind them. Even with the best of intentions, both therapist and client can get caught in these avoidance patterns.

When this happens, progress stalls. Talking about feelings isn’t the same as experiencing them fully and moving through them. Effective therapy slows down and notices when avoidance or anxiety is happening in the moment, so it can be worked with rather than reinforced.

The role of unconscious processes

Much of what keeps people stuck operates outside of conscious awareness. Old patterns, automatic defences, and anxiety responses play out before you even notice them.

For example, you might dismiss your own needs, change the subject when feelings come up, or suddenly feel tired when a painful memory surfaces. These are unconscious protective processes, defences, that developed long ago. Unless therapy helps you recognise and work with them as they happen, they continue to run the show.

What helps therapy move forward?

Therapy that creates lasting change usually shares a few key features:

• A focus on what happens between you and the therapist in real time

• Slowing down to notice when avoidance or anxiety gets in the way

• Actively working through, not around, the defended-against emotions and needs

• A structured approach that targets the root cause rather than just the surface symptoms

This is the kind of work that allows people not only to understand their struggles but to move beyond them.

Online and Nottingham-based psychotherapy

If you’ve had therapy before but still feel stuck, it doesn’t mean therapy can’t help you. It may simply mean a different approach is needed.

I offer specialist psychotherapy in Nottingham and online across the UK and Europe. My focus is on going beyond coping, resolving the root of difficulties, and helping clients create real and lasting change.

Learn more about my therapy services and fees.