The Myth of the Quick Fix: Why Real Change Takes Time in Therapy
- Marrissa Rhodes
- Mar 17
- 5 min read
The Promise of a Shortcut
We live in a world that celebrates speed—instant gratification, overnight success, fast-tracked solutions. If something feels wrong, there’s always a quick fix available: a self-help book, a mindfulness app, a new routine promising radical transformation in just 30 days. Even in therapy, short-term models promise relief in 6–12 sessions, giving the impression that deep emotional struggles can be neatly resolved within a set timeline.
But if you’ve been in pain for years—if you’ve been carrying patterns, fears, and emotional wounds that have shaped your life since childhood—can they really be undone in a matter of weeks?
True change, the kind that fundamentally shifts how you see yourself and experience the world, doesn’t happen quickly. It happens slowly, layer by layer, over time. And while symptom relief is valuable, real transformation requires something more: a willingness to explore, to integrate the parts of yourself you’ve disowned, and to allow change to unfold at its own pace.
If you’ve been searching for the “one thing” that will finally fix everything, this post is for you.
Why We Crave Quick Fixes
Wanting a fast solution isn’t irrational—it’s human. When we feel pain, our instinct is to get rid of it as quickly as possible. Society reinforces this, offering short-term solutions that focus on symptom relief rather than deep healing.
🔹 Medication as the Only Solution – While psychiatric medication can be life-changing for many, it’s often presented as a stand-alone cure rather than a tool that works best alongside therapy and self-exploration.
🔹 Self-Help Hacks & Therapy “Tips” – Advice like “just set boundaries” or “practice gratitude” sounds good, but without understanding why certain patterns exist in the first place, these tips often don’t stick.
🔹 Short-Term Therapy as a Fix-All – Solution-focused therapy (like CBT) can help manage symptoms, but it often doesn’t touch the unconscious dynamics driving those symptoms.
But here’s the truth: Emotional pain isn’t just a set of symptoms to eliminate. It’s a message from within. And if we treat it only at the surface level, we miss the deeper opportunity for transformation.
True Psychological Change: A Process of Integration and Transformation
Real change isn’t about removing parts of ourselves—it’s about integrating the parts we’ve abandoned, feared, or disowned.
1. The Integration of Disowned Parts
Throughout life, we unconsciously split off or suppress certain parts of ourselves. Maybe as a child, you learned that being angry was unacceptable, so you buried your anger deep inside. Maybe you were taught to be the responsible one, so you suppressed your need for rest, play, or help.
These disowned parts don’t disappear—they live beneath the surface, shaping our relationships, choices, and emotional well-being. Therapy is the process of bringing them back into consciousness, integrating them, and allowing yourself to exist as a whole person.
2. Transforming Unconscious Patterns
Many of our struggles—anxiety, depression, relational difficulties—aren’t just random. They stem from deeply ingrained unconscious patterns that repeat themselves in different ways throughout our lives.
For example:
If you constantly attract emotionally unavailable partners, it’s not a coincidence—it may be an unconscious repetition of early attachment wounds.
If you find yourself overworking and unable to relax, it may be a defense against feeling unworthy unless you’re productive.
If you struggle with self-criticism, it may be an internalized voice from childhood that convinced you love was conditional.
Therapy isn’t just about becoming aware of these patterns—it’s about changing how they operate in real time. And this doesn’t happen overnight.
Why Real Change Takes Time
Unlike quick fixes that treat symptoms, depth-oriented therapy helps unravel the unconscious layers of your experience, which takes time for several reasons:
1. The Mind Resists Sudden Change
We don’t just wake up one day and completely rewrite the way we see ourselves. The mind protects what is familiar—even if what’s familiar is painful. Change requires gentle, repeated exploration rather than forceful restructuring.
2. Emotional Patterns Are Built Over a Lifetime
If you’ve spent decades believing that your worth is tied to achievement, a few weeks of positive affirmations won’t undo that belief. These patterns were learned over time, and they must be unlearned and replaced with new ways of being.
3. Change Requires Not Just Insight, but Experience
Many people in therapy intellectually understand their patterns long before they change them. True transformation comes not from just knowing what needs to change, but from experiencing relationships, emotions, and choices differently over time.
4. The Therapeutic Relationship Itself Is Healing
Psychoanalytic therapy isn’t just about talking—it’s about relating. The therapeutic relationship becomes a space where you can:
Experience trust and connection differently than you have in the past.
Recognize how you show up in relationships and how that might be shaped by old wounds.
Slowly change patterns by being in a safe, reflective space over time.
What If You’re Impatient for Change?
If you’re feeling frustrated that change isn’t happening as quickly as you’d like, that’s understandable. Here’s what can help:
✔ Trust the Process – Just because change is slow doesn’t mean it’s not happening. Often, the biggest shifts occur subtly over time. The saying that comes to mind here is "You'll need to slow down to speed up." When we trust the process rather that resisting it, we find that change happens more rapidly than we might imagine if we know what to look for.
✔ Notice Small Shifts – Instead of looking for drastic changes, notice the moments where you react differently, feel more connected, or experience less inner conflict.
✔ Reframe Progress – Healing isn’t about arriving at a final destination; it’s about expanding your capacity to feel, reflect, and integrate. It is a common saying in my practice that it's about the journey, not the destination. It's about the process, not the outcome. The outcome and/or destination are a by product of what intention is put in along the journey/process.
✔ Commit to Depth – Therapy is an investment in yourself. Short-term relief may feel good momentarily, but long-term transformation changes everything. That investment is worth it, and the ROI is massive.
Real Change Is Worth the Time It Takes
The fantasy of a quick fix is appealing—who wouldn’t want to feel better instantly? But the truth is, lasting change doesn’t happen through shortcuts. And truly, nothing built to last is created via shortcuts either. It happens through deep self-exploration, integration, and a commitment to uncovering the unconscious patterns that have shaped your life.
If you’re ready to step into a therapy process that doesn’t just promise quick symptom relief but offers real transformation, our team would love to help.
📞 Schedule a free consultation today to begin your journey toward deep and lasting change in Missouri or Kansas.
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