Most of us hope that our experience of therapy is pleasant, empathetic and that our emotions feel supported and soothed. Accordingly, when our therapy brings up uncomfortable emotions such as fear, anxiety, sadness and anger, it is often interpreted that there is something about our therapy that is harmful or is going wrong. Therapy, after all, is a process that has the capacity not only to help clients feel better in the short term, but to enable them to make sense of distress, develop new ways of thinking, uncover behavioural patterns and develop more useful ways of relating and coping. It’s therefore unsurprising to find that there can be discomfort associated with therapy.
The question for us, therefore, is the following: Is it true that just because therapy is uncomfortable, it is harmful? Evidence suggests it’s not that simple. Curran et al. (2019) found that the common characteristics of therapeutic harm relate more to issues such as poor therapeutic relationships, misuse of therapist power, breaches of boundaries, and client experiences of feeling unheard or unsupported rather than directly related to emotional distress itself. Arora et al. (2022) found that therapy can become ineffective and even harmful where therapists don’t adequately recognise and validate a client’s identity and life experiences; conversely, validation and strong relationships enhance clients’ experience of therapy.
Therapeutic Discomfort: Why can therapy feel uncomfortable
Therapy does not always have to be a pleasant experience to be a successful one. In fact, discomfort can indicate the need to be there to explore difficult topics. Discomfort can also be indicative of sadness, anxiety, anger, embarrassment and emotional overwhelm as you confront your experiences. When people decide to tackle painful memories and topics, the emotions involved may need to be acknowledged and accepted.
In many cases, this can involve feelings that may normally be ignored or suppressed. As such, for example, someone who has long seen themselves as a capable, strong individual, when questioned about a time she was hurt and abandoned, may feel extremely uncomfortable and upset. When someone who generally averts painful family discussions chooses to tackle one which still niggles at them from decades before, she may react with upset. Some people may need to approach pain, fears, relationship conflict, guilty feelings or loneliness in therapy; this will sometimes lead to a feeling of depletion, heaviness or fatigue at the end of therapy, or indeed, during one session.
This does not necessarily suggest that the process itself is bad, or that the person should avoid confrontation of these topics within the safe environment in therapy as they are difficult (Bowie et al., 2016; Crenshaw, 2026; Emma, 2026).
Read More: The Fading Affect Bias: Why Time Makes Our Memories Less Painful
Productive Discomfort: When can discomfort be useful?
Therapy can sometimes bring people into a sense of feeling uncomfortable in order to achieve growth. For individuals seeking therapy, it is useful to acknowledge that while some of them come to therapy looking for comfort and ease, true therapeutic work often means entering difficult feelings. They might explore an emotion that we have been attempting to disavow or perhaps acknowledge an unwelcome vulnerability, or learn how to stand with uncomfortable ownership of our past rather than a felt sense of separation. The process of emotional maturation is an essential component of therapy (Foa, Huppert, & Cahill, 2006; Foa & Kozak, 1986). Diamond et al. (2016) found that Youths, when working within a more deeply personal and attentive approach that attends to vulnerability and needs, engaged in more productive emotion processing.
The process with which one explores one’s own experiences, voices one’s needs and cultivates new meaning is also being defined as productively processed and linked with positive change. For example, Priest et al. (2016) suggest that the idea of being asked to use “I statements” over “you statements” may feel intensely discomforting initially, but these phrases lead to greater clarity, recognition of one’s avoidance and personal take in a relationship: “I felt unwanted as compared to you made me feel unwanted”; this may draw someone closer to their individual emotional experience and thus to greater self-awareness and reflection.
Therapeutic Challenge: Why might therapy challenge us?
Sometimes therapy actually pushes and confronts people instead of feeling entirely comforting. Therapeutic challenge is defined as assistance in viewing the internal thoughts, feelings, and behaviour patterns a client presents through a different perspective; especially helpful for areas which the client has difficulty exploring or tends to distance. This can often occur through honest questions, challenging conversations, or providing some insight into previously undiscovered patterns in the client’s own behaviours and patterns.
For example, one’s therapist may ask a client who has previously stated that “everyone leaves me” if they are also prone to pushing away others when they feel betrayed. Such an approach may feel intensely uncomfortable. However, it may assist the client in gaining new awareness regarding their own behaviours. Therapeutic challenge does not occur through pushing, blaming, or confronting an individual negatively. But through the carefully crafted exploration of client behaviour, which is consistent with the relationship at hand, a client may have a difficult conversation that may dredge up unwanted emotions within their mind.
However, this emotion may additionally present as an opportunity to understand those emotions and react to others more effectively. Helpful challenges bring forth disquiet without being confrontational. Clients should receive support in analysing this behaviour. Challenges and discomfort can be vital to therapy, but become harmful when experienced as attacks. But beneficial and growth-oriented when delivered within the context of a relationship centred on the client’s health and growth toward awareness (Diamond et al., 2016; Priest et al., 2016).
Read More: You Don’t Have to Be Broken to Seek Therapy
Therapeutic Harm: When does discomfort become genuinely harmful?
- Uncomfortable experiences in therapy are not necessarily bad, but this does not mean therapy cannot be damaging or harmful. The distinction, in this context, is not between emotional discomfort and harmful therapy practices. A difficult discussion might induce feelings of grief, anger, or shame, whereas a therapist causing harm would be one in which the client does not feel safe, heard, valued, or validated.
- Studies indicate that therapeutic harm arises not merely from emotional discomfort, but rather from issues with the therapeutic relationship, abuse of power by therapists, boundary violations, and clients feeling unheard or unsupported (Curran et al., 2019).
- In a parallel manner, Arora et al. (2022) also emphasise the relevance of therapists being knowledgeable and understanding of clients’ experiences. The dismissal of clients’ life experiences can lead to ineffective therapy, where such dismissiveness then turns into damage to the client. These are reasons why it’s incorrect to assume that discomfort in therapy always equals harmful therapy. For example, dwelling on past negative memories will indeed cause negative discomfort. But it should be acceptable if handled appropriately within a respectful and supported space.
On the other hand, a consistent pattern of dismissing client feelings and/or violating professional boundaries should not simply be dismissed as “just discomfort” that can have a truly lasting detrimental impact regardless of how unpleasant or intense a therapy session appears.
Conclusion
Is It Possible for Therapy to Be Uncomfortable but Not Harmful? Yes. When therapy feels uncomfortable, it doesn’t mean that things are going wrong.
For many people, therapeutic work can involve emotions that are challenging to carry, honest talks, and the confronting of experiences they’ve avoided doing until this very point. These experiences can foster emotional healing, improved awareness of self, and profound, yet often uncomfortable, personal development. That being said, not all of that discomfort necessarily has value. Therapeutic harm is associated with experiences in which clients are rendered to feel invalid or unsafe within the context of a therapeutic professional relationship. Productive discomfort involves clients undergoing challenging emotions, which in some manner can provide beneficial insight. It can be helpful to distinguish between this and therefore come to see that discomfort and a healthy professional relationship can occur in conjunction.
References +
- Arora, S., Gonzalez, K. A., Abreu, R. L., & Gloster, C. (2022). “Therapy can be restorative, but can also be really harmful”: Therapy experiences of QTBIPOC clients. Psychotherapy, 59(4), 498–510. https://doi.org/10.1037/pst0000443
- Bowie, C., McLeod, J., & McLeod, J. (2016). ‘It was almost like the opposite of what I needed’: A qualitative exploration of client experiences of unhelpful therapy. Counselling and Psychotherapy Research, 16(2), 79–87. https://doi.org/10.1002/capr.12066
- Curran, J., Parry, G. D., Hardy, G. E., Darling, J., Mason, A., & Chambers, E. (2019). How does therapy harm? A model of adverse process using task analysis in the Meta-Synthesis of service users’ experience. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 347. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00347
- Crenshaw, A., PhD. (2026, June 5). Why do I feel worse before I feel better in therapy? Peachtree Psychology. https://peachtreepsychology.com/answers/feel-worse-before-better-therapy/
- Diamond, G. M., Shahar, B., Sabo, D., & Tsvieli, N. (2016). Attachment-based family therapy and emotion-focused therapy for unresolved anger: The role of productive emotional processing. Psychotherapy, 53(1), 34–44. https://doi.org/10.1037/pst0000025
- Emma, F. (2026, June 26). Why therapy feels so hard. Francesca Emma Mental Health Counselling. https://www.francescaemmalmhc.com/blog/why-therapy-feels-so-hard
- Foa, E. B., Huppert, J. D., & Cahill, S. P. (2006). Emotional processing theory: An update. In B. O. Rothbaum (Ed.), Pathological anxiety: Emotional processing in etiology and treatment (pp. 3–24). Guilford Press.
- Foa, E. B., & Kozak, M. J. (1986). Emotional processing of fear: Exposure to corrective information. Psychological Bulletin, 99(1), 20–35. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.99.1.20
- Priest, A., Martin, C. J. H., & Charleson, S. B. (2016). Exploring clients’ responses to changing pronoun use from second person (you) to first person ( I ) during therapy: A constructivist qualitative approach. Counselling and Psychotherapy Research, 16(3), 183–192. https://doi.org/10.1002/capr.12065
