10 Ways to Spend a lot of Time (And Money) On Therapy

Therapy is a powerful tool for growth, but being a great client is a skill. In the last 15 years as a therapist and life coach in Salt Lake City, I’ve seen firsthand how well-trained clients make progress quickly, while others, who don’t understand how to engage effectively, struggle and stall. If you want to get the most out of therapy, consider this a lesson in how to be a great client — by avoiding these common pitfalls and embracing more productive approaches.

1. Spend All of Your Time Talking About the Problem

It’s easy to fall into the trap of endlessly rehashing what’s wrong — after all, pain demands attention. But focusing only on the problem can keep you stuck in it.

Early in my therapy career, I noticed something troubling: The more I talked with my clients about the causes of their pain, the more that story seemed to be ingrained in their worldview. I often heard, I am sad because my mother didn’t pay attention to me. Instead of easing the pain, this story became a defining identity: I am broken. It’s my mom’s fault. It makes sense that I keep sabotaging relationships. This is who I am.

Therapy should help you understand your past, but it should also empower you to take accountability and make changes that will move you forward, not keep you locked in your old narratives.

Alternative: Spend time talking about where you’re going, what you want in your life, and what you have to offer to the world. Language creates our reality. Make it a point to create a reality where you are empowered and whole.

2. Create an Identity Around Your Diagnosis

Mental health diagnoses can be helpful for understanding patterns and challenges, but they shouldn’t define who you are. Our identities are incredibly powerful predictors of our actions — we fight every day (both consciously and subconsciously) to be the person we say we are. If you see yourself as the star of the soccer team, it feels really weird not to go to practice and train hard. If you see yourself as depressed, it starts to feel strange to wear anything other than black or to smile in public.

In some strange way, especially for teenagers and younger adults, mental health diagnoses have begun to feel like a badge of distinction — something that makes them unique or different from the pack. If you’re skeptical, take a look at the growing number of t-shirts and merchandise that openly display mental health diagnoses like “I’m depressed.” Your symptoms are a part of you, of course, but therapy can become dangerous if it becomes a place to define yourself by your symptoms.

Alternative: Start with who you are at your core. A good therapist will help you identify many different qualities that make you who you are as well as qualities you’d like to build. Working through depression as a means to get closer to that version of you is a great way to get relief. Don’t shy away. Be sad. Scream if you need to. But always with the understanding that it’s not the whole story of YOU.

3. Decide You Can’t Be Happy Until X Goes Away

This is such a common trap. Because of course, how could anyone with depression be happy? It doesn’t make sense to most of us. I love ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) because the core tenet is that we all have the ability to live rich and meaningful lives even if we have really difficult things going on in our heads. Therapy isn’t just about managing symptoms; it’s about learning to increase confidence even if you have anxiety. A good therapist will help you hold both.

Alternative: A really great mark of Emotional Intelligence is the ability to hold many conflicting thoughts and feelings all at once. To be incredibly depressed and still let yourself laugh at a joke. To be anxious about the state of the world and still go outside to enjoy a beautiful day.

4. Stick it Out with a Therapist You Don’t Like

Unfortunately, many people stay with a therapist they don’t like because the therapist takes their insurance or they spent a long time on a wait list. This is a trap.

As someone who has been required to go through a lot of therapy to become a therapist, I can tell you confidently that all therapists are not created equal. Some are great at their jobs, and some are not. There are some you’ll really click with, and some you won’t. Some therapists are great at working with men and some are great for overcoming trauma. But they have weaknesses in other areas. The quality of your relationship with your therapist is a huge predictor of outcomes. So trust your gut and pivot quickly if something doesn’t feel right.

Alternative: If it doesn’t feel good after 2–3 sessions, move on. Find someone you trust, and once you do, commit to the work together. Consider investing your money in a person you really click with (even if it’s a bit more expensive) instead of wasting your time spinning in circles with someone who doesn’t give you what you need.

5. Keep Secrets

Therapists work hard to create a sense of psychological safety because the real work begins once we understand the full, honest story — the one people often don’t share in public. But this requires a willingness from the client to take risks. If you hold back key details, we may end up working on a version of events that isn’t entirely accurate, making progress much slower and less effective.

Alternative: Trust that your therapist has heard things you couldn’t imagine, and they haven’t told a soul. Your truth and your pain are safe with them. Share everything.

6. Strengthen Your Ego

In spiritual communities, people sometimes use mindfulness, meditation, or positive thinking to avoid dealing with their real emotional struggles. It’s called a spiritual bypass. The same thing happens in therapy. Some people get so wrapped up in the idea of being in therapy that they mistake it for actually doing the work. They tell themselves, I’m a person who goes to therapy. I’m getting better. I must be better than others because I’m actively working on myself.

When therapy becomes another ego-driven narrative, it keeps people stuck instead of helping them evolve. True progress comes from challenging old stories, engaging in discomfort, and applying what you learn outside of therapy sessions.

Alternative: Give yourself credit for going to therapy, but be mindful of using it as a bypass. A key sign is making judgmental statements about others, claiming they “haven’t done their work.” Similarly, watch your language around your own growth. I often notice a potential bypass when clients repeatedly emphasize their self-awareness or remind me how much work they’ve done. True self-awareness doesn’t need validation — it shows in actions, not words.

7. Quit as Soon as You Feel Better

Most people start therapy when they’re in crisis, and once they feel better, they stop. But true healing happens when you continue the work beyond the crisis point. Therapy is about learning and practicing skills, and this is especially valuable once you start feeling better. That’s when you can integrate what you’ve learned into your daily life and truly solidify positive changes.

Alternative: Stay the course. Often, we feel better when we say things out loud and get relief from being understood and that's wonderful. The problem is that saying things out loud isn't work. People can feel better before doing any real work on changing our perspective or behavior. Stick around to learn and practice skills — both to handle the issue when it resurfaces and to prevent it from coming back in the first place.

8. Go With the Cheapest Option

Therapy can be expensive, and it’s tempting to go with the lowest-cost option. But therapy is like anything else: you get what you pay for. Therapists who charge more often have more experience, better training, and fewer clients, allowing them to be more present with you.

Insurance pays a therapist who is freshly licensed the same amount as a therapist who has been practicing for 20 years. That means the only way to get a raise for excellence and experience in this field is to stop taking insurance and raise prices. I could go on a tangent about how therapy reimbursement is broken because of this but I'll save that for another article.

Of course, any therapist is going to do their best to help you and there are many wonderful therapists who take insurance. But generally, if you find a therapist who can stay in business while only taking cash and charging more than others, there’s probably a reason for it.

Alternative: Consider therapy an investment in your future. A skilled therapist can help you make meaningful changes more quickly, ultimately saving you time and money in the long run.

9. Wait for Your Therapist to Tell You What to Do

Therapy is a partnership, not an exorcism — it doesn’t work if you’re passive. Some people struggle because they have developed a pattern of being overly dependent on others. This pattern fits easily into therapy when a client won’t take action without their therapist telling them to do something. As you can probably imagine, this just reinforces the problem. Your job is to be the hero of your own story. Your therapist is a helpful guide, but nothing changes unless you change it.

Alternative: Show up to every session ready to talk about what worked or didn’t work since the last session. Have a topic prepared and be ready to answer, “What would you like to get out of our work today?”

Coming to therapy unprepared is similar to sleeping through your sessions. You have to be willing to do work.

10. Do All of Your Mental Health Work in Therapy

It is a fact that my clients who show up to therapy and tell me they haven’t done their homework or haven’t thought about our last session since our last meeting end up progressing much more slowly. If therapy is going to work for you, it has to be something you actively take part in. Therapy is an incredible tool for healing, but the real work happens outside of it. If you’re feeling stuck or dealing with burnout, taking proactive steps beyond therapy sessions is crucial. Your hour with your therapist is an opportunity to gain insight and develop strategies that you must then apply in your daily life.

Alternative: Set aside 3–5 hours per week for activities like journaling, completing therapy homework, reading relevant books, and practicing skills learned in therapy. Growth happens between sessions, not just during them.

Therapy Shouldn’t Be a Slog — Make It Work for You

Therapy is an investment of time, energy, and money, so it makes sense to get the most out of it. If you recognize yourself in any of these patterns, don’t worry — it’s never too late to shift your approach.

The best therapy is active, engaged, and goal-oriented. If you’re ready to get serious about your mental health and want guidance that actually moves the needle, it might be time to work with a coach in addition to therapy.

Looking for more support? Book an introductory call with Cottonwood Coaching today and start making real progress toward the life you want.