Notes On… Too Much Therapy?

There’s a quiet truth many of us in the mental health field hesitate to say aloud, but I’ll say it: Sometimes, more therapy is not better. In our culture that prizes self-work and emotional insight, it sounds counterintuitive, right? But I’ve come to believe that therapy, when misused or over-relied upon, can quietly obstruct the very healing it seeks to support.

What often looks like dedication to growth may in fact be a sophisticated way of staying stuck. Insight can become a delay tactic. A clever substitute for change. The desire for ANOTHER session, ANOTHER group, ANOTHER modality may sound like motivation, but sometimes it reflects a deeper fear. Maybe a fear of stepping outside the structure of therapy and into the wildness of lived experience. When the process is overused, it becomes a cocoon. And while cocooning has its place, especially after trauma, there is a point at which staying in the work becomes a way of avoiding the work. Growth begins to feel like performance with introspection turning into a bizarre game of hide and seek with the Self. More does not mean readiness. Sometimes, it simply means retreat.

I’ve seen this in the room. A client whose sobriety is strong, whose sessions are bubbling with insight, consistent, and whose daily life is just beginning to take shape, suddenly expresses a desire to add ANOTHER therapist. To go deeper. On paper, it sounds wise. Thoughtful, even. But in practice, it feels like orbiting. When reflection replaces risk, when another hour of talking takes the place of one concrete act of living, something essential is lost. Integration. Movement. Embodiment.

I’ve also observed a quiet narcissism emerge, though not the grand kind. It’s the developmental kind, the kind that Heinz Kohut described, where the person feels fragmented and begins to rely on being witnessed to feel whole. Therapy becomes a mirror, and the mirror becomes addictive. The client is constantly processing, never practicing, thus making healing a performance of insight rather than a movement toward change. Interestingly enough, I see a defense at play: regression disguised as progress, where we analyze the fear instead of walking through it.

There is such a thing as too much therapy. Not because therapy is wrong, but because life is not meant to be endlessly discussed; it’s to live what we learn.