I’ve Been to Therapy and I Still Don’t Feel Better — Why That Happens and What Can Help

If you’ve been to therapy and still don’t feel better, you’re not alone.

Many thoughtful, self-aware people come to me feeling confused and discouraged. They’ve done the work. They can name their patterns, understand their childhood, and articulate why they feel the way they do. And yet, something still feels stuck. The anxiety remains. The self-protection doesn’t soften. The reactivity is the same. The body still holds tension, fear, or exhaustion.

This experience is far more common than people talk about.

Why Talk Therapy Sometimes Isn’t Enough

Traditional talk therapy can be incredibly helpful, especially for insight, validation, and understanding relational dynamics. For many people, it’s an important and necessary part of healing.

But insight alone doesn’t always lead to deep, lasting change.

That’s because much of what drives our suffering isn’t stored in words or thoughts—it’s held in the nervous system and the body. Protective patterns often form early, before language. Trauma responses, attachment wounds, and unconscious beliefs live somatically, shaping how we breathe, hold ourselves, relate, and orient to the world.

When healing focuses primarily on talking about experiences, these deeper layers may never fully resolve.

This is often when people say:

• “I understand why I feel this way, but I still feel it.”

• “I know it’s not logical, but my body reacts anyway.”

• “I’ve talked about this for years and nothing has shifted.”

Healing Requires More Than Understanding

Lasting healing happens when the body is included in the process.

The nervous system needs direct support in order to release what it learned to hold. Without that, we may gain insight while remaining physiologically braced—alert, guarded, or collapsed beneath the surface.

When the body begins to feel safer, patterns that once felt rigid or inevitable can finally soften. This is where real change becomes possible.

When I Hit a Wall in My Own Therapy

This work is personal for me.

I, too, reached a point in my own therapy where it felt like I had hit a wall. I had insight. I understood my history. I could explain my patterns with clarity and compassion. And yet, my body was still braced. Certain emotional reactions remained automatic. There was a sense that I had gone as far as talking and understanding could take me.

That moment of frustration became a turning point.

It’s what led me to seek out mind-body approaches—modalities that worked directly with the nervous system and the body, not just the mind. As I began practicing somatic work, EMDR, and EFT Tapping, embodiment practices, hypnotherapy, The Realization Process, something fundamentally shifted.

Instead of trying to manage or override my reactions, I learned how to stay present with myself in a new way—one that allowed my system to settle and reorganize from within.

Healing began to feel like softening, grounding, and coming back into my body.

These practices didn’t just help me heal old patterns; they became an essential part of how I care for myself on an ongoing basis. I continue to incorporate them into my own self-care—not as techniques to “fix” myself, but as ways to remain connected, regulated, and embodied through whatever arises.

This lived experience deeply informs how I work with others. I don’t teach from theory alone—I guide from a place of having walked this path myself.

How My Approach Is Different

My approach integrates somatic therapy, EMDR, nervous system regulation, guided imagery, tapping, brainspotting, embodied Realization Process practices, a grounded, body-based practice that supports a stable, embodied sense of self.

Rather than focusing only on what happened in the past, we work with what is happening now—in your body, your breath, your posture, and your internal experience.

This work supports:

• The gentle unwinding of trauma responses at their root

• Softening protective parts without forcing change

• Regulation of the nervous system rather than managing symptoms

• A felt sense of safety and internal stability

• A deeper connection to yourself that doesn’t rely on coping strategies

Healing becomes less about fixing yourself and more about learning how to be with yourself in a way that allows natural integration to occur.

If Therapy Helped—but Didn’t Go Far Enough

If therapy helped you understand yourself but didn’t help you feel different, it may simply mean your system needs a different kind of support.

Healing is not one-size-fits-all. For many people, the missing piece is learning how to inhabit their body safely, regulate their nervous system, and experience themselves from the inside out.

If this resonates, I’d be honored to support you.

www.randicamirand.com

Check out my blog for more information on how I work.