Have you ever felt drained after therapy?

I'll bet you have.

I'll share my thoughts on why that is, and also how to avoid

feeling drained from therapy.

Hi, I am Justin Sunseri.

I'm a therapist and coach who helps you live more calmly, confidently, and

connected without psychobabble or woohoo.

Welcome to Stuck Not Broken.

This podcast is of course not therapy.

Nor is it intended to replace therapy.

So don't expect this to be therapy.

I don't like social media, I don't like using it.

I don't like going on it.

But every now and then I will dabble in it because, well, you know, I'm

running a business and you know, it's a business thing I, I guess.

And so when I dabble in social media, I am instantly reminded why

I dislike social media so much.

Regardless, I saw a great question from somebody, uh, about

therapy and about feeling drained when I was perusing threads.

So I don't doubt, actually, I'm pretty sure that many people

feel drained from therapy.

That's not my goal as a therapist or as a coach even.

I prefer my clients to leave my office or a virtual session

feeling uplifted and energized.

I consistently ask clients how the session impacted them, and I ask for feedback

at the end, and usually they say they feel some level of relief or listened

to, motivated or clarity or unstuck.

Every time?

No, probably not.

I can really only recall one session where the client left with probably

feeling, uh, something like drained.

And I'll tell you more about that, uh, later on in our episode here.

That's all I can recall.

I'm sure there's more, but that, that's what came to mind as I was writing this.

While it's possible to feel drained after therapy and many

people do, it's less than ideal.

In fact, that feeling of being completely wiped out could be a really

important signal from your body.

It's likely telling you that you've gone beyond your body's capacity,

that you've pushed too far or too fast without a clear and intentional path

back to a state of calm and connection.

Even though you may just be sitting there and talking in

therapy, your body's doing a lot.

As you talk about maybe that traumatic event from the past or your relationship

dysfunction, or how your parent doesn't connect with you currently, or all

the above, your body is shifting into and out of various states like safety,

flight, fight, shutdown, and freeze.

The more you talk about things that activate a defensive state like flight,

fight, shutdown, or freeze, the more time that your body is spending in that state.

And the less time it's spending in its safety state, when it's in its

safety state, it feels more grounded and calm and present, playful,

hopeful, all the wonderful positive things that you probably want more of.

Yeah, in therapy, you are likely going to discuss difficult things.

That's normal.

Hopefully your therapist is not pushing you into talking about difficult

things or shaming you when you don't.

I've heard horror stories.

We should approach difficult topics only when ready, and we will know that we're

ready because we're anchored in our safety state and we feel open or curious

about approaching those difficult things.

So what does this look like in session you, you're asking, I'm

glad you asked because I like talking about this stuff a lot.

In a real session, a client can anchor into safety through a

whole bunch of different means.

Uh, potentially easy one is just to mindfully extend your exhale

and connect with the sense of settling that comes with it.

And one breath is typically enough though, uh, this is more challenging for someone

who's maybe in a really severe free state.

Another option is to connect with something like a fidget mindfully.

Um, you can also remember a moment of safety and then describe the

experience that might be helpful.

Or use your imagination and imagine a place that you would go to that

feels safe, and again, mindfully connect with the experience of that.

There's a bunch of choices.

So regardless of the choice though, the key is to pay attention to the

felt sense of safety mindfully.

So instead of just remembering a moment of safety and then like telling the

narrative, the client needs to feel that safety in their body to notice where it

lives in the body and even describe what that safety in their body feels like.

We have to embody; you gotta mindfully connect with that experience.

Once a client is connected with safety, they can then choose to spend time

with uncomfortable emotions... or not.

If they choose to, then we tiptoe into the discomfort, noticing how it

feels in the body while discussing it.

We don't push too far.

That would lead to dysregulation, which would show up as increased

defensive activation, like panic attack or fear or rage, maybe.

Instead, we touch the edge of what the client can tolerate and then

come back to the safety state.

We mindfully check on our breathing and the felt sense of safety that

we established earlier in the session or even in previous sessions

and, and that we're building on.

And we spend as much time in that safety state as needed to recover.

Co-regulation cues from the therapist and the safe environment of the therapy

room also add to the client's anchoring in safety, kinda like layers of safety.

The edge of what one can tolerate might be really small and, and that is okay.

You anchor into safety, you tiptoe into what you can tolerate, and

then you come back to safety.

Some clients need that quick return to safety, like really quick, only after

maybe a few seconds, and that's okay.

And then they approach that defensive activation again with

more confidence the next time.

Some clients can approach defense further and faster because they have

a strong enough safety baseline.

Other clients need to work their way up and that again, that is okay.

As you listen to what you can mindfully handle in therapy, and ideally as your

therapist is attuned to what you can handle, you will gradually approach

uncomfy things and then recover from it.

This, this tiptoeing in the recovering build your safety baseline and allows

you to approach more un uncomfy things.

So to my therapeers, we need to be attuned to what our client can

handle and respect that while gently challenging it and helping them grow.

At the same time as individuals navigating our own healing or self-development, we

need to be incredibly attuned to what our nervous system can truly handle.

We gently challenge it as we are ready to, building resilience through gently

touching the edges of what we can handle and then recovering from it.

This method of touching and then recovering is empowering, not depleting.

It is collaborative happening between therapist and client,

not from therapist to client.

When therapy is approached with this kind of client therapist,

attunements and intentionality, the outcome's a lot different.

You won't leave feeling utterly depleted like you've run a, a marathon

that you weren't prepared for.

Instead, you'll feel a sense of accomplishment, perhaps, uh, perhaps a

bit tired, yeah, from the genuine effort.

But also really proud of yourself.

Uh, proud of what you've accomplished, proud of what you've explored, and

genuinely relieved that you have the tools or the skill level to manage what

came up and the trust in your therapist.

You're building internal resources through this method, not burning them out.

The expectation of being drained from therapy needs to change.

You should ideally expect to feel proud of yourself, to feel accomplished,

to feel like there's a path that you can follow to make a change.

And yeah, you'll, you should probably expect to give yourself some downtime

and to recover from the session as well.

You've, you've earned it.

Therapy is not a passive process.

It is active.

Oh, and I told you there was one session where my client left feeling drained.

It may not have been drained, but something like that.

Um, there was a coaching client, so there was this coaching client who

had a really strong safety baseline.

She likes doing the somatic stuff and is always eager to embrace whatever

the heck is happening within her.

Um, she had been experiencing a lot of, uh, freeze activation recently,

which she identified as muscle tension in her shoulders and her neck.

During our somatic mindfulness practices, she successfully felt into and came

out of that tension a couple of times.

She noticed the tension easing in these pleasurable little discharges and

increased movements and playfulness.

So I asked her if she wanted to do it again with some hesitation on my end,

wondering if she was near her capacity.

She of course, said yes, um, since she likes to do the somatic work.

I asked her if she genuinely wanted to and if she was genuinely

curious, and she said yes.

So we did it again.

Um, she felt into it, into the tension, but this time on my end, um, I felt

a distinct sense of alarm, which I feel was empathy, and I said her name.

She didn't respond, and I told her, let it go, meaning let go of the

exercise, like stop doing the practice.

But she remained in it and I again said, "Let it go. Stop doing the

practice. Open your eyes and come back," or, or something like that.

This time she opened her eyes and said she felt the tension too

intensely and had gotten lost in it.

I asked her why she didn't respond when I first said her name, and she said that

she thought I was telling her to let the emotion go or to release the tension,

not to stop the practice when I said "Let it go." So, a little miscommunication.

Another thing that came up as we were processing what had happened

was that she acknowledged that even though she wanted to practice again

and said yes, she wanted to, she also had a feeling of apprehension.

That feeling is very, very important.

Instead of feeling into the tension, we needed to focus on the apprehension

a little and probably not try to push into the tension again.

Anyway, the point being both the therapists or coach and the client need

to be aware of a client's limitations of what their nervous system can handle.

We should be very reluctant to go too far as it may result in dysregulation

just like it did with my client.

To sum it all up- feeling drained from therapy or other professional

services like coaching is common, but I don't think it needs to be common.

I think we can do better in the wellness profession no matter what that looks like.

Find safety in session.

Listen to what your body can handle as you gently touch the

edges of your body's capacity.

Then recover in safety before going too far into the felt

sense and into dysregulation.

Thank you so much for joining me on Stuck Not Broken.

I hope this episode has helped you build some compassion for what you can handle,

maybe some curiosity, and I hope that you are more open to what that feels like.

Um, I also hope you're more willing to be honest with yourself and open to

your therapist or your coach about what you can and are willing to approach.

Here's a little bit of homework if you're into reflecting or journaling.

The question is, or the prompt is- how can you tell that you've

reached your system's capacity?

If you like this episode and you wanna learn more about the Polyvagal theory

for free and in a streamlined manner, of course I have a free course called Your

Next Steps Inside the Unstucking Academy.

Just follow the link in the description and you'll get a streamlined way of

approaching the polyvagal theory.

You'll have a checklist to learn everything one by one by one, and get

some follow up steps from that as well.

Otherwise, thank you so much for listening.

Bye.