Implementation Is Hard: Why Insight Isn’t Enough
Looking Through the Windshield
A collection of practical thoughts on anxiety, trauma, grief, depression, and creating meaningful change.
My brother-in-law used to say "the windshield is so much larger than the rearview mirror for a reason”. I think therapists and clients alike can sometimes become so focused on understanding old wounds that we unintentionally lose sight of something equally important: learning how to move forward.
One of the phrases clients hear me say fairly often is, “just because you know why you’re effed up doesn’t mean you’re not effed up.“ Over a decade of providing trauma therapy has shown me that we often spend the vast majority of our time in session talking about current struggles and very little time talking about past trauma. This isn’t to say that we don’t discuss trauma, or that we repress it, or that we ignore it, but that we work towards creating a scenario where the trauma becomes a part of your personal narrative versus the identifying component of it.
This is where implementation comes in. As a beginning therapist, I believe I was quite good at empathizing with people. Saying to someone, “I’m really sorry that that happened to you“, and showing genuine and authentic care for that person. What I didn’t realize until later in my career was the comedy premise for improv, “yes and…“, can actually be quite useful in a therapeutic setting. “YES, I’m really sorry that that happened to you, AND what are we going to do to try to help you move forward?"
Again, it’s important to point out that this does not mean that we ignore past trauma or that we minimize it. Instead we try to reconcile it in a way that allows us to live a meaningful life, while also understanding that traumatic experiences often times increase our resiliency and provide living examples of how much we can overcome and have overcome.
This idea is based on a central, if not the central, premise in trauma therapy: instead of allowing the traumatic experience or experiences to hold you back, how can we find practical and useful ways to have those traumatic experiences propel you forward? This idea may seem odd to some people, as our culture tends to program us to want to turn a blind eye to, or run away from, painful experiences. I believe good trauma therapy does something different… It allows us to understand that just because traumatic experiences have shaped our lives, they don’t need to be the central focus of our lives. In fact, we can use those trying times to move us forward in meaningful ways.
Think about the origin stories of most superheroes. Very few begin with comfort. Most begin with loss, fear, rejection…trauma. Those experiences don’t become the whole story. They’re simply where the story begins.
Simply put, often times in therapy the answers themselves are not difficult. It’s the implementation of the answers that is so hard. Doing something you don’t want to do, doing it over and over again, so that it becomes something that you know you can withstand. This is one of the hallmarks of anxiety and depression treatment. Lean into the anxiety. Get out and be physically or socially active when you are feeling depressed. More often than we’d like, the thing we least want to do is exactly the thing that helps us move forward.
Obviously this isn’t a message that people like to hear, but one that is necessary for them to hear. I believe that once somebody has sought out a therapist, jumped through all the hoops to get to the first appointment, walked through the door and sat down for that first time, on some level they have already committed to doing the hard work of implementation.
At that point it becomes a pretty basic recipe for relative success: utilize intentionality and repetition, know why you’re doing the thing, commit to doing the thing, and do it over and over again. Doing this over time can help one to feel confident engaging in an activity that once seemed impossible. This is how one can effectively change, long-standing, maladaptive thought patterns, and/or behavioral patterns. This is where real change happens. This is where confidence grows. Insight helps to open the door, but implementation is what helps to walk through the door.
About the Author
Michael Davidson, MSW, LICSW, is a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker who provides therapy for adults experiencing anxiety, depression, trauma, grief, and other life challenges. He offers in-person therapy in Vancouver, Washington, and telehealth throughout Washington.
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