2/22/2026
A client told me today that therapy feels like work.
I responded, “Good.”
They looked at me confused.
If therapy never feels like work, we might just be staying in our comfort zone. And comfort can do a lot of things but doesn’t usually create change.
Looking at yourself (for real) takes effort. Putting words to things out loud that you usually distract from takes effort. Learning how to catch your own patterns and the capacity to do something different takes effort. None of that is passive (even if the negative inner voice tells you otherwise).
If therapy felt easy all the time, imagine me just talking and nodding at you, I would start to wonder if we were actually moving anything. This space is not about surface level reassurance, it’s about actively taking part in working through the things that have not yet shifted on their own.
Sometimes it feels like work. Sometimes what gets labeled as “resistance” or “noncompliance” is really just the discomfort of growth, or unlearning behavior (and other systems get impacted by this). That prepositional phase is where part of you wants to stay the same (comfort) and part of you knows you cannot (the chance for growth and unlearning).
That’s usually where the real change begins, in my experience.
Elizabeth Travis, LCSW