Make the Hour Last the Week: How to Carry Therapy with You

A yoga teacher I know is fond of saying that the real yoga is off the mat. What he means is that coming to class each week is great for strength, flexibility, and stress reduction, but that its greatest value is in helping us move with greater ease for the other 167 hours of the week. That idea has stuck with me for a long time. It applies to therapy for depression, too. When therapy works, you carry it with you after session, through the week, and, most important, long after treatment has concluded.

But amidst the hurly-burly of a busy life, it can be hard to hang onto what happened in session. Here are steps you can take to ensure that the therapeutic hour stays with you until next time.

Five ways to support the work of therapy

Spoiler alert: You’re probably already doing at least one of the following.

1. Transition time.

The confidential confines of a therapy session are designed so that it’s safe to let your guard down and confront difficult emotions. It’s a different setting than the rest of life. Therapy to work through depression can be intense and at times exhausting. Allowing yourself quiet time after a session serves as a bridge from therapy to the responsibilities of the day. Taking a few minutes—to sit by yourself, walk around the block, drink some water—lets you gather yourself in before moving on to the next thing on your schedule. This is especially important if a session has left you feeling tender or vulnerable.

2. Trusting yourself.

Lasting and sustainable change takes time, and the results aren’t always visible right away. Know that by coming each week, saying what’s top of mind, and being real with your therapist, you’re doing what you need to do. The psyche has a remarkable ability to heal if we offer it the right conditions, which, in addition to good therapy, includes going about your life, and letting the therapy do its work, even when you’re not thinking about it.

Proof of treatment for depression doing its work can happen when you least expect it. A couple of years ago on a business trip to New York, a patient suffering from major depression was walking through Central Park on a fall day. She saw a maple tree lit up in the midday sun and was overcome by how lucky she was to see such a thing. It had been years since she felt that kind of joy over something so commonplace, and she recognized it as a turning point. She identified it as the moment she knew that therapy was working, and it’s a moment she long held onto.

3. Keeping track of your dreams.

Dreams can offer a helpful view of what you’re working on in therapy. They also offer a look at what has gone unsaid or unacknowledged. If you’re interested getting better connected to your dreams, it’s useful to keep a notebook next to your bed to jot down what happened in the dream. You can also speak into your phone to do this. While it’s tempting to assume you’ll remember the dream upon waking, details usually dissipate once we wake up. When working with patients on their dreams, I ask lots of questions yet feel strongly about not imposing my interpretation of a dream onto someone else—it’s their dream, not mine. I also feel strongly that if you’re interested in sharing a dream, bringing it to therapy can be a rich means of accessing your deeper self.

4. Related reading.

I don’t usually assign homework or books to read unless a patient asks. But reading about depression, grief, anxiety, the process of therapy, or trauma can be a good way of helping you further understand what you’re working on. Here’s a selected list (it’s an ever-evolving one) of good books on topics that tend to come up often in therapy.

5. Checking in.

If you were being treated for an infection and had side effects from the treatment, you’d call your doctor. So it is with therapy for depression. You’ve started treatment because you’ve made the commitment to work through emotional struggles. Your therapist is a also health care provider who is available to support you between sessions for questions, concerns, and in the event of a crisis.

Why Therapy?

Weekly therapy sessions will help you identify the roots of your suffering. You’ll gain increased awareness of conflicts that are causing you to be at war with yourself. You’ll claim a deeper sense of who you are, and when you do that, you’ll strengthen your connection to yourself and others.

If you’d like to find out more about my approach to depression treatment, let’s talk. Call me at 213-807-6021 to set up a free, 20-minute consultation.