Then, unexpectedly, the nights become heavier. Old memories surface during meetings.
Emotions you thought were long buried begin to interrupt your workday, your sleep, even your prayers.
You start wondering if therapy is making things worse instead of better. This experience is more common than most people expect.
Healing rarely begins with relief; it often begins with disruption. Therapy doesn’t create new pain, it reveals what has been quietly shaping your thoughts, reactions, and relationships all along.
Before restoration comes understanding, and before understanding, things can feel uncomfortably raw.
To make sense of this unsettling phase, it helps to understand why therapy often feels harder before real healing begins. Let’s jump right into it.
Buried Pain Must Surface Before It Can Heal
Therapy often feels worse at the beginning because it interrupts emotional avoidance.
For many years, you may have learned to push painful memories, disappointments, or grief aside in order to function.
Therapy reverses that pattern. It creates a safe environment where what was buried begins to surface.
Psychiatrist Dr. Bessel van der Kolk explains, “Trauma is not the story of something that happened back then; it’s the imprint left on the body and mind.”
When therapy brings these imprints into awareness, emotional intensity increases, not because therapy is harmful, but because healing requires exposure. You may notice:
- Strong emotions appearing without warning
- Memories resurfacing during quiet moments
- Heightened sensitivity at work or home
- Temporary drops in concentration or motivation
A 2019 study in Journal of Anxiety Disorders found that clients who experienced early response discomfort showed greater symptom reduction later. Avoidance feels easier, but it keeps wounds unexamined.
Therapy invites you to face pain gradually, with guidance, so it can finally be processed rather than carried.
What feels overwhelming now is often the first sign that healing has actually begun.
Therapy doesn’t just address pain; it examines how you learned to survive it.
Many coping strategies were formed during stressful seasons, such as:
- Emotional shutdown
- People-pleasing
- Overworking
- Humor
- Constant self-control
In therapy, they begin to notice exhaustion, resentment, and emotional distance from loved ones.
As therapy encourages rest and reflection, anxiety spikes. Productivity drops temporarily.
They feel worse until healthier coping skills replace overwork.
Cognitive behavioral therapy shows that symptoms often fluctuate when unhealthy coping habits are challenged.
This stage is uncomfortable but necessary.
You’re not regressing, you’re relearning how to respond to life without relying on habits that once helped you survive but now hold you back.
Increased Self-Awareness Intensifies Emotional Discomfort
As therapy progresses, self-awareness increases.
You begin noticing your thoughts, emotional triggers, and behavioral patterns in real time.
While insight is essential for growth, it can temporarily increase discomfort.
Psychologist Carl Rogers famously said, “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”
Before acceptance comes awareness, and awareness can feel heavy.
The following table shows how emotional discomfort may present due to increased self-awareness:
| Emotional Experience | How It Often Shows Up |
| Guilt | Overthinking past decisions |
| Shame | Harsh self-criticism |
| Anxiety | Heightened bodily tension |
| Sadness | Fatigue or withdrawal |
| Anger | Irritability or frustration |
Neuroscience research shows that naming and observing emotions activates the brain’s regulatory systems, reducing impulsive reactions over time.
The discomfort you feel now often precedes improved emotional control, healthier boundaries, and wiser decision-making.
Change Challenges the Comfort of Familiar Dysfunction
Therapy often feels worse because it disrupts patterns that, while unhealthy, were familiar and predictable.
Familiar dysfunction gives a sense of control. You may know exactly how to respond, how to shut down, how to avoid conflict, or how to keep peace, even if it costs you emotionally.
Therapy invites you to do something different, and different feels unsafe at first. You may notice resistance showing up in subtle ways:
- Feeling anxious when you stop people-pleasing
- Feeling guilty for resting instead of overworking
- Feeling exposed when you express emotions honestly
- Wanting to return to old habits simply because they feel easier
When long-standing emotional routines are challenged, your mind and body react as if stability is being threatened.
In reality, what’s being threatened is dysfunction not safety. Change requires letting go of patterns that once protected you but now limit growth.
Before healthier responses feel natural, unfamiliar choices can feel uncomfortable, awkward, or even wrong.
Therapy sits with you in that tension, helping you stay present long enough for new, healthier patterns to take root instead of retreating back into what merely feels safe.
Therapy can feel discouraging when you expect quick relief but instead encounter emotional ups and downs.
Healing doesn’t move in a straight line. It unfolds in layers, and each layer reveals something different about how you’ve learned to think, feel, and respond to life.
The healing process often looks like this:
First, recognition. You begin noticing patterns, wounds, and emotional responses you once ignored. This alone can feel overwhelming.
Next, disruption. Old ways of coping stop working, but new ones don’t feel natural yet. This is often the most uncomfortable stage.
Then comes understanding. You start connecting past experiences to present reactions. Insight grows, even if emotions remain intense.
After that, practice. You intentionally respond differently, setting boundaries, regulating emotions, and communicating honestly. This takes effort and patience.
Finally, integration. Over time, new responses become familiar. Emotional stability increases, and reactions feel less forced.
Spiritually and psychologically, perseverance matters. Growth requires patience, humility, and endurance. You may not feel better right away, but consistency allows healing to take root.
What feels slow or discouraging now is often the groundwork for resilience, emotional maturity, and lasting restoration, at work, in relationships, and within yourself.
Keep Going you are Making Progress
Healing is rarely comfortable, but it is always purposeful. If therapy feels harder right now, it may be because meaningful change is taking place beneath the surface.
What feels unsettling today can become the foundation for clarity, resilience, and renewed emotional strength tomorrow.
You do not have to walk this process alone or wonder whether what you’re experiencing is normal.
At Mental Health Wellness Kenya (MHWK), our therapists walk with you through every stage of healing, at a pace that is safe, respectful, and grounded.
If you’re ready to begin or continue your healing journey with professional support, book a therapy session with MHWK today and take the next step toward lasting restoration.
