What Does Progress in Therapy Look Like?

I have spent the past ten years working in forensic social work, specifically with criminal defense attorneys. When you are representing people who are facing years in prison or have already spent years in prison, successes and wins look very different. It can feel crushing to work so hard with a client and still face the same outcome. However, these experiences taught me a very important lesson: sometimes the successes and wins look smaller. It might be a few years off a sentence, a client who successfully attends a program every day, or a client who finds a sense of hope through a program or class. This work encouraged me to look at the smaller moments.

Through my own therapy journey, and now as a full-time psychotherapist, I have often wondered: in a world obsessed with measurable outcomes and data, how do we quantify progress?

My own healing has looked like asking for what I need, standing firm on something that is important to me, or learning to manage my anxiety in different ways. One of my biggest moments has been acceptance: accepting that I struggle with anxiety and have since I was eight years old. It probably won’t ever go away, and sometimes it is worse than others, but I accept that this is part of my journey, and I do my best to manage it.

In my therapy practice, I look for the little moments: a client who was really shy but now cracks jokes in session; a client who is more emotionally open and able to both laugh and cry in our sessions; a client who takes a moment before responding to a triggering person or event; or a client who has found a sense of meaning in life again after tremendous loss and is planning for the future. None of these would appear on a standardized measurement scale, but they are moments of progress. They are moments of healing and growth that make me believe, again and again, in the power of connection, empathy, and the therapeutic process.