Healing Through Forgiveness

Recognizing When You Will Need Ongoing Therapy

23 February 2017 by Kurt Garrett

Most people who enter counseling and therapy do so because of a particularly rough event in their lives. Some may have experienced abuse or rape. Others may have just ended a long-term relationship or marriage and do not know how to cope with what they feel. Others may have different emotional or psychological needs. Whatever brings you to therapy, you should know that there are some situations and needs that may require more than six months or a year of therapy to get better and feel better.

Drug and/or Alcohol Dependency

An addiction to, or dependency on, drugs and/or alcohol is definitely a situation where you will need ongoing therapy. There is no point in time where you can honestly say that you will be absolutely cured, since you probably used drugs or alcohol as a means to cope or as a means to escape. Learning these things and putting them into practice takes a very long time, and the longer you waited to get help, the longer it takes to get to a point where you can see your therapist less. However, you may never have a point in your life where you do not need therapy, or need to stop seeing a therapist.

Diagnosed Mental Illness

Those with chronic and severe mental illnesses will never stop seeing a therapist either. The nature of disorders such as bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder are such that intensive, ongoing therapy is a must. People who have these mental illnesses and disorders need to discuss what they are experiencing on a day-to-day basis, while simultaneously treating issues in their disorders that make it difficult for others to interact with them.

Involvement with an Abusive Partner

People can be verbally, emotionally, psychologically/mentally, financially, physically and sexually abusive. None of these things exist inside a healthy relationship. Unfortunately, more often than not those seeking therapy because of relationship issues are either currently involved or have been involved in an abusive relationship of one type or another.

If you are still in the relationship, you need to figure out why and whether or not it is a good idea for you to leave the relationship. If you do leave (or you have already left), then you need work on yourself for quite some time to understand why you are drawn to abusive people or abusive people are drawn to you. This kind of therapy could take years, even after you have left the abusive person behind. For anyone that still has regular contact with the abuser because he/she shares custody of children with the abuser, then therapy may last several years beyond the divorce or the end of the relationship.

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