Coaching practices for I Like My Therapist but I Feel Like Our Sessions Are Going Nowhere How Can I Tell If Therapy is Working

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For I Like My Therapist but I Feel Like Our Sessions Are Going Nowhere How Can I Tell If Therapy is Working, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• I finally tried something and it only half-worked, and my whole brain went "see, nothing I do ever works"
• I’ll have a breakthrough where I really feel the better version of my story, and then a few days later the old defeating account has quietly taken back over as if it never happened
• All day my attention goes straight to what went wrong
• When someone asks how I’m doing I just say "okay" or "overwhelmed" and it carries no real information
• I’ve got my go-to ways of coping that feel justified and even comforting in the moment, but when I’m honest nothing is actually getting better

Practices that may help

1. Evaluate the outcome and adjust
   After implementing, honestly assess what worked, what didn’t, and what to do next.
   Problem-Solving Therapy, Made Practical
2. Therapeutic Letters
   A therapist’s written letter to a client between sessions — documenting alternative-story gains before they fade.
   Narrative Therapy: Rewriting the Stories That Define You
3. The Formula First-Session Task and Between-Session Noticing
   Assign between-session observation tasks that direct attention toward what’s already working.
   Solution-Focused Brief Therapy: Building On What Works
4. Scaling Questions
   Use a 0–10 scale to make progress visible, identify what’s working, and define one small next step.
   Solution-Focused Brief Therapy: Building On What Works
5. Ask the workability question
   Ask "is what I am doing working?" — not "is it right?" but whether it is moving you toward the life you want.
   Emotional Agility, Made Practical
6. Track SUDs across sessions to see your own progress
   Record distress ratings before and after each session so progress is visible and motivating.
   Counter-Conditioning and Systematic Desensitization
7. Cognitive and Somatic Interweaves
   When processing stalls, a brief therapist-supplied statement or question can restart the chain.
   EMDR: Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing
8. Narrative Therapy: Rewriting the Stories That Define You
   Narrative therapy, developed by Michael White and David Epston, holds that people live by stories — about who they are, what they’re capable of, and what their experiences mean. By separating the person from the problem ("the person is not the problem; the problem is the problem") and finding "unique outcomes" that contradict a limiting story, therapy opens space to author a more empowering alternative. The evidence base is growing but smaller and less methodologically uniform than CBT.
9. Solution-Focused Brief Therapy: Building On What Works
   Solution-focused brief therapy (SFBT), developed by Steve de Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg, directs attention to what already works — client strengths, past successes, and desired futures — rather than to analyzing problems. Meta-analyses report small-to-moderate positive effects across a range of presenting issues, with particular strength in behavioral problems and depression in adult populations.
10. Set the Goal — establish what the conversation is for
    Begin every coaching conversation by clarifying what the person wants to achieve in this session.
    The GROW Model: Coaching Conversations That Actually Move People

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