Everyone knows that the whole point of therapy is to convince your therapist that you’re completely fine. Right? But we at the Heckler know that it can be hard to gauge how convincing you’ve been. If you’ve been saying all the right things, but you just can’t tell if you’re winning at therapy, here are some helpful tips on how to go about asking your therapist how you’ve been doing:

1. Ask her, hypothetically, what grade she would give you if this were the type of thing you got graded for. Oh no, She paused for a long time after you asked that question. This was a bad call. Stupid. Now she’s asking you about how you ascertain your self worth. Shit.

2. Tell her about that time you opened up to your parents about how you’ve been feeling. See what she says. Why isn’t she immediately praising you for this? Now she’s saying she hopes that you continue this pattern of emotional maturity. Is she mad at you? Or is she just suggesting you continue to make changes to your outlook?

3. Ask her if you’re her favorite patient. She’s laughing. Nice. She thinks you’re funny. Or she’s laughing because she’s uncomfortable. Now she’s telling you that that was an inappropriate question. Whoops. Yeah, no she definitely seems uncomfortable. But she’s probably just giving you a hard time on purpose because she likes you so much, right?- sort of a Good Will Hunting situation?

4. Try to peek at her notepad. See what she’s writing down. If you’re doing this virtually, you may need to hack into her computer webcam to get a better angle…. Aaaand she’s just writing down the stuff you’ve been telling her. None of her personal opinions. No “Geez, I love this patient” or “Wow, wish my kid was more like this patient.” Okay – wait why does it seem like she’s trying to end the conversation? She’s talking about scheduling for next session. She does hate you! Oh no, just kidding- your 50 minute session is just up. But you still don’t know if you’re winning!

 I guess you better try again next week.