Why Does Therapy Sometimes Feel Awkward at First?
You sit down. Someone you met twenty minutes ago asks you a question about the hardest thing in your life. And then they just wait.
You answer. They don't jump in with a story about their cousin who went through the same thing. They don't tell you what to do. They ask another question, and it's a question you're not totally sure how to answer.
If that has felt strange to you, you're not doing therapy wrong. Therapy is a genuinely odd social situation, and most people feel that in the first few weeks.
If you're wondering what actually happens during a first appointment, we wrote a separate guide on what to expect in your first counseling session. But here? I just want to acknowledge that the therapeutic relationship is different.
You may come to therapy first thinking it’s like talking to your friend, your hairdresser or even your physician. But a therapeutic relationship is different. Different in a way that can feel weird or awkward when you’re first starting. And I don’t think we talk about that often enough.
Is it normal for therapy to feel awkward at first?
Yes. Awkwardness at the start of therapy is common and expected. You're talking about personal things with someone you don't know yet, in a conversation that doesn't follow the usual social rules. Most people start to feel more settled over the first several sessions, though it rarely disappears all at once.
Why is talking to a therapist so different from talking to a friend?
Therapy is a different kind of relationship. It's not like seeing your doctor. It's not like talking to a close friend. You might share personal things in both of those relationships, but the setup is different.
With a friend, the conversation goes both ways. You tell them about your week, they tell you about theirs. They reassure you. They take your side. You feel a little lighter afterward.
That relief is real. It's just usually temporary.
Therapy is intentionally uneven. Your therapist ends up knowing a lot about you while you know comparatively little about them. That isn't coldness. It's because the whole hour is organized around your goals instead of around mutual sharing.
So if part of you keeps thinking "this is a strange way to talk to a person," you're right. It is.
If you’ve been talking to a friend about these issues for awhile, maybe even joked that the friend is “your therapist,” and now are surprised therapy feels different, you may find this article one of our therapists wrote years ago helpful: https://aspirecounselingmo.com/blog/when-you-use-a-relative-or-friend-as-your-therapist
Why doesn't my therapist just tell me what to do?
This one frustrates a lot of people early on.
You came in with a problem. Your therapist clearly has expertise. So why aren't they just handing you the answer?
When life gets stressful, my husband has occassionally asked me, “What would you tell a client to do?” And I’m constnatly reiterating that the answer is nothing. And that’s the truth. I wouldn’t hand a client a ready made answer. Because the answers to what we “should” do are slightly different for everyone. I’d instead help my client figure out what they should do based on their own values, experiences, priorities, circumstances, resources, etc.
In other words, as therapists we're trained to help you find answers that actually fit your life, not to hand you ours. Advice from a near stranger rarely sticks. What sticks is when you work something out and it becomes yours.
The other part is that most of what we do isn't advice at all. At Aspire Counseling, people usually come to us because trauma has gotten in the way of living fully, or because OCD has taken over hours of the day with compulsions that feel necessary, or because anxiety has quietly shrunk their life. Avoiding driving. Avoiding people. Rechecking work until a one hour task takes four. Constantly scanning their body for signs something is wrong.
Advice doesn't move that. Specific interventions do.
Why is my therapist asking me to try something new when we barely know each other?
This is the part that catches people off guard. Two very different things are happening at the same time in those early sessions.
Jill Hasso, LPC, who sees KC metro area clients in our Lee's Summit office and online across Missouri, put it this way:
"For me, therapy can feel awkward at first because I'm just getting to know you while also starting to notice a pattern in the way you're thinking about or responding to something that is keeping you stuck. Then, while we're still developing trust, I'm asking you to try something that probably doesn't come naturally."
That's an odd position to be in. You're still deciding how much you trust this person, and they're already asking you to do something unfamiliar.
It isn't rushing. It's that the pattern often shows up early, and waiting three months to name it doesn't make it easier to change.
Why would a worksheet help with something this painful?
Not every therapist here uses worksheets, and plenty of sessions don't involve one. But structured tools are common in evidence-based treatment, and when one shows up, it can feel jarring next to what you're actually going through.
Jill described one she uses often:
"One tool I use frequently is an ABC worksheet, which helps us slow down and look at what happened, what you told yourself about it, and how that belief influenced what you felt and did next. No one finds themselves in the middle of a crisis and naturally thinks, 'I should do a worksheet on this!' Your distress is real, your thoughts feel true in that moment, and now I'm asking you to stop and examine them.
Sometimes that can even feel invalidating, like you're telling me about something painful and my response is, 'Just think about it differently.' But that isn't what we're doing. The very same beliefs that made sense when they developed during a time of intense stress may now be the thoughts keeping you in distress. You might not even recognize that's happening, because those beliefs rarely get challenged. Instead of simply replacing them with positive thoughts, we're slowing down and asking, 'Is this actually fully realistic, or does it feel true because of what I'm feeling right now?'"
Whether it's a worksheet, a log, a breathing practice, or a small step you agreed to try between sessions, the principle is the same. We're not asking you to think positive. We're asking you to check whether something that feels completely true right now actually holds up.
Why do the questions and skills seem so simple?
Sometimes we'll ask a question that feels obvious. Sometimes we'll ask you to practice something that seems too basic to matter.
There's a reason behind it. We'll explain the basics of that reason up front, but the honest truth is that the explanation often doesn't fully land until you've been doing the thing for a few weeks. Some of it you have to feel to understand.
Here's how Jill described what that turn looks like:
"Like learning to walk or talk, new skills feel clunky at first. You may question whether the worksheet is helping, especially when you're investing time and money in therapy and still experiencing distress. But with practice, the worksheet starts becoming less of a worksheet and more of a skill you can use in the moment."
And that’s the thing….The clunky version comes first before the deep healing or really feeling better part. Then it turns into something you can do in your head, in the car, in the middle of a hard conversation.
So sometimes you have to do therapy a little awkwardly at first.
Why do I feel like I'm doing therapy wrong?
A lot of people spend early sessions quietly grading themselves.
Am I talking too much? Not enough? Was that story important enough to bring up? Should I have cried? Why didn't I cry? Did I explain that right? Does she think I'm dramatic? Am I a good client?
If you're someone who reads a room carefully, who tends to manage other people's comfort, or who has high standards for yourself in everything else you do, therapy will pull that forward fast. It's one of the few places where there's no script and no clear performance metric, which can feel worse than a hard task.
There's no grade. You don't have to be good at therapy for therapy to work.
If that pattern sounds familiar outside the therapy room too, you might find why people pleasing feels so hard to stop useful.
What if I don't know what to say?
That happens to almost everyone at some point, and it's not a problem you have to solve on your own. Say the true thing: "I don't know where to start today." Your therapist can take it from there.
We wrote more about that in what to do when you have nothing to talk about in therapy.
The crying question comes up just as often, in both directions. Does everyone cry in therapy covers that one.
I like my therapist. So why does this still feel uncomfortable?
Comfortable and safe aren't the same thing.
You can trust your therapist, feel respected by them, believe they know what they're doing, and still really not want to talk about the thing you came in to talk about. Those can all be true at once.
Effective trauma and anxiety treatment involves moving toward things you've been avoiding. That's not a side effect. It's often the mechanism. So some discomfort in therapy isn't a sign something's wrong.
But we want to be careful here, because a lot of mental health content jumps straight to "if it's uncomfortable, it's working." That's not true either.
Discomfort by itself isn't evidence of good therapy. Purposeful discomfort is. If we're asking you to sit with anxiety during an exposure, we should be able to tell you why. If we're examining a stuck point, there's a reason for it. You should be able to ask what we're doing and get a clear answer.
How do I know if it's normal awkwardness or a bad fit?
Here's a rough way to sort it.
Probably normal early awkwardness:
You're not sure what to say
Silence feels strange
You're self-conscious about how you're coming across
You wonder whether your therapist likes you
Telling your story out loud feels clunky
Probably purposeful discomfort:
Your therapist named a pattern you'd rather not look at
You're talking about something you've worked hard to avoid
You're practicing a skill that feels unnatural
You disagree with something, and you can say so out loud
Worth paying attention to:
You feel judged, more than once
You bring up a concern and it gets brushed past
You ask what you're working toward and can't get a clear answer
You consistently leave sessions confused about the point of what you did
If you're in that third column, that's information worth really thinking about. We wrote about how we match you with a therapist and what to do if it isn't a good fit, and switching is a normal thing to do.
How long does it take before therapy stops feeling awkward?
There usually isn't one session where it flips. For most people, the therapist just starts feeling less like a stranger over the first several weeks.
We generally ask people to give it at least 8 to 10 sessions before deciding whether therapy is working. That's not us stalling. It's that we genuinely expect you to hit a point in those first couple of months where it feels pointless. Almost everyone does. That moment isn't a verdict on the treatment.
This is also why we recommend weekly sessions at the start. When sessions are spread out, you spend a chunk of each one re-establishing where you left off, and the relationship keeps restarting.
Therapy doesn't have to be long term. Certainly, it doesn't happen overnight either. But if you can lean into the awkward part for a couple of months, we'll do what it takes to help you make real progress.
Can I tell my therapist that therapy feels awkward?
Please do.
"This still feels awkward and I don't really know what I'm supposed to be doing" is useful information, not a complaint. It tells us something about how you're experiencing the work, and we can adjust.
If saying that out loud feels hard, how to tell your therapist what you need has some practical language you can borrow.
Begin Therapy in Lee's Summit or Online in Missouri
If you've been putting off therapy because you're not sure you'd be any good at it, that's a reason to come in, not a reason to wait. You don't have to feel ready. You don't have to know what to say.
Our therapists see clients in person in Lee's Summit and Columbia, and online throughout Missouri. Call us at 816-287-1116 for Lee's Summit or 573-328-2288 for Columbia, and we'll talk through what you're dealing with and who on our team would be the right fit.
Whenever you're ready for effective care and lasting change, we're here.
About the Author
Jessica Oliver, MSW, LCSW is the founder and Clinical Director of Aspire Counseling. She has more than fifteen years of clinical experience specializing in trauma and anxiety, with advanced training in EMDR, Cognitive Processing Therapy, Prolonged Exposure, ACT, and Exposure and Response Prevention. She built Aspire Counseling around a simple idea: people dealing with trauma, OCD, and anxiety deserve treatment that actually moves the needle, delivered by clinicians who keep sharpening their skills.
Parts of this post grew out of recent conversations with Jill Hasso, LPC, a therapist in our Lee's Summit office who regularly treats anxiety, depression, and trauma.
