Over the years I have noticed a theme in therapy, particularly if I’ve been meeting with someone for a while. In fact, I’ve even uttered the same sort of words myself, numerous times in the course of my own personal counselling. It usually goes something like:

“I feel like I’m always talking about the same thing.”

or

“Do you get tired hearing the same thing over and over from me?”

I thought it would be worthwhile to talk about what could be behind clients’ perceptions that they are repeating themselves too often in therapy, while also seeing if there’s a role for adding a little self-compassion into the mix, to ultimately temper this. And spoiler alert: I don’t think that repetition is a bad thing—but I’ll get to that later.

The Backstory

Sentiments imbued in phrases like the ones above may may include frustration, embarrassment, self-judgement, self-consciousness, feeling judged, and more. But what is behind these statements and feelings? It’s different for each person but underlying concerns may include:

• The self-perception that we are not working through or resolving issues fast-enough in therapy
• The perception that we are boring our counsellor, annoying them or wasting their time
• A personal history of over-apologizing, which may keep us locked into a state of chronically feeling bad about ourselves and our apparent lack of progress in counselling
• Perfectionistic tendencies and expectations telling us that we should have resolved this problem(s) by now
• Having been shamed by others for talking too much or about the same problems (which may also be related to others’ beliefs that they need to fix them). Such shame may also be internalized and create expectations that a counsellor will react similarly too
• Possessing a productivity-based mindset which struggles to accept not being able to solve a problem, or problems
• Being a verbal processor that needs to talk through things repeatedly to make them make sense
• The issues being dealt with in counselling are complex and challenging and there is no quick fix
• Feeling stuck and frustrated, particularly if the issue of concern has been going on for some time
• Being tired of hearing ourselves talk about the same things—feeling annoyed by our own problems
• The fear that our counsellor is judging us
• A desire to be a “good client”; talking repeatedly about the same issue doesn’t fall into this view of ourselves.

Reimagining Repetition

But what if we looked at all this repetition differently. What if:

• Talking about things on repeat serves as a form of mental sifting or ‘goldpanning’ which ultimately reveals the important “nuggets”?
• Repeating helps us feel witnessed like we never were before?
• Repeating to a kind and understanding counsellor cultivates trust, knowing that we have a therapeutic partner who will see us through until we are done repeating, however long that takes?
• We have a brain that requires repeating to aid processing and ultimately helps us internalize change?
• Repeating allows us to honour the complexity of the issues, realizing that there is a lot to understand and grow from?
• Repeating our successes solidifies them, cements change and ultimately increases our confidence?
• Repeating, in the presence of a counsellor, diminishes our shame associated with those memories, actions or problems?
• We want to highlight the importance of something to our therapist and repeating seems like a logical form of emphasis?
• In the process of repeating, this alerts your therapist so that these issue(s) can be zoned in on and prioritized in your therapy?
• Our narrative(s), on repeat, also show growth and change and this is all part of the change process?

In Conclusion

Despite the many positives that can come from repeating, you may still feel that repeating is not what you want to do. I encourage you to bring up these concerns with your therapist! Additionally, you may meet a therapist who has a different agenda in mind: they may take a more directive approach to therapy or they may specifically recommend a particular therapy structure; some clients like this, and that may be you!

But regardless, I encourage you to embrace your repetition with openness and trust: there is a reason, or reasons, that this is happening and finding these reasons can be an important part of the journey.