When any approach to therapy is successful, it is in large measure because a client has strong personal motivation, a strong will. However, some approaches to therapy depend more heavily than others on a client's strength of determination. They include: M, O, E, P, I, N, H, A, X, T
§2 Commitment to the Process of Therapy
Do you believe you can commit yourself to therapy that spans many months and sometimes several years? If you hope to gain long-lasting benefits from your experience in therapy, you will need to commit yourself to certain practices and ways of thinking after formal therapy has ended. Do you feel that you have this kind of tenacity and ability to follow through?
These are both qualities related to self-discipline, but they have more to do with sustaining a process over a long period of time: in a word, commitment.
Do you feel you can develop a strong sense of commitment to long-term therapy? A
To a long-range plan for life improvement? H, M
§3 Patience
If you are suffering from incapacitating anxiety or depression, being patient about the process of therapy can be very demanding. Long-term therapies require more patience, endurance, and tolerance than do short-term therapies.
Are you able to put your trust in a process where results are noticed only very gradually? (If not, you may feel that what is most urgent now is to obtain prompt relief from symptoms—see the "Summary of Main Approaches to Psychotherapy," at the end of this chapter, to get some idea of the average durations of the different therapies.)