Navigating Post-Telehealth Therapy Emotional Dips

Why Do I Feel Down After My Telehealth Therapy Session?

Many people seek telehealth therapy sessions for various beneficial reasons. Virtual therapy can provide convenient access to mental health support, reduce barriers to care, and offer a sense of comfort in receiving treatment from familiar surroundings. Some individuals may also pursue telehealth therapy because it’s often associated with positive emotional outcomes.

However, some clients may experience the opposite effect after their virtual sessions, such as a temporary drop in their mood levels, potentially leading to feelings of sadness or thoughts of hopelessness commonly associated with depression. Understanding the range of possible emotional responses to telehealth therapy may help you better comprehend why your sessions might not immediately make you feel better and how to adjust your approach to gain more benefits from your mental health care.

Potential causes of post-therapy emotional dips

Note that post-therapy emotional dips are not a mental illness listed in the DSM-5. However, this term might be used to describe a sense of sadness, melancholy, or distress after engaging in a telehealth therapy session.

There can be various causes of sadness or depression after participating in virtual therapy. Mental health treatment and emotional responses are closely interconnected; what impacts your therapeutic experience may also affect your mind and mood. Below are a few of these potential causes.

Emotional exhaustion

Low mood after a therapy session could be due to the emotional energy expended during your session. If you’re discussing more difficult topics than usual or engaging in a different therapeutic approach, your emotional reserves may need time to recover. If you don’t provide yourself with adequate self-care or recovery time after an intense session, you may experience an emotional crash, causing fatigue and potentially sinking your mood.

Your first step in addressing a saddened state after a therapy session could be to plan for the next session and ensure you schedule some downtime afterward. However, avoid completely isolating yourself, as connection can be healing during vulnerable moments. Activities that promote emotional regulation, physical comfort, and gentle self-compassion may be helpful. In addition, ensure you communicate with your therapist about the intensity of your sessions and how you’re managing between appointments.

Unrealistic expectations

If you are feeling depressed or unhappy after telehealth therapy, it may help to ask yourself what you hope to accomplish through your sessions. Below is a list of reasons people may be pursuing therapy:

• To improve overall mental health
• To manage specific symptoms
• To process trauma
• To achieve better relationships
• To develop coping strategies
• To gain self-understanding
• To relieve stress
• To address specific mental health conditions
• To boost emotional resilience
• To fix sleep issues

If your primary motivation for therapy is a goal for which you are not seeing results or the results aren’t coming as quickly as you expected, you might feel down and discouraged. It may be helpful to note that therapeutic changes may not have tangible effects in days or weeks. Some therapeutic processes can take months to have an impact.

It could also be beneficial to look closely at the root motivation behind your goal. Is your goal of reducing anxiety about eliminating all uncomfortable feelings? Or is it about developing healthier ways to respond to those feelings? Reframing your goal may help with expectation misalignment.

Another way to reframe your efforts is to try focusing on what you have accomplished instead of what you haven’t. Can you manage emotions more effectively than before? Communicate more clearly in relationships? Recognize unhelpful thought patterns?

Emotional processing

People often engage in therapy to alleviate emotional distress, so some may be confused about how therapy could temporarily worsen it. Therapeutic conversations can be a healthy way to process difficult emotions or experiences. However, in situations involving deep-seated issues or trauma, your emotional capacity may be pushed to its limit, and a therapy session could temporarily tax your psychological resources.

Some people may believe emotional processing and depression are separate experiences, but intense emotional processing, especially of difficult material, can sometimes heighten depression risk and make the following symptoms worse:

• Changes in your sleep cycle, whether insomnia or hypersomnia
• Increased fatigue
• Heightened irritability
• Intensified negative emotions, like anxiety or sadness (can be triggered by processing difficult emotional content)

Some therapeutic approaches may be better than others at managing emotional intensity instead of heightening it. If you are going through a particularly difficult therapeutic process and notice that sessions seem to be making your emotional state worse instead of relieving it, you may want to temporarily shift toward a more stabilization-focused approach, like mindfulness techniques, grounding exercises, emotion regulation skills, or resource development.

Therapeutic overexertion

Pushing yourself excessively during therapy sessions can lead to what some therapists call “therapeutic fatigue.” Therapeutic fatigue may be more likely to occur in someone intensely focused on resolving a specific issue, particularly if they have markers they hope to achieve in pursuit of that goal. This challenge might be less common in people who are focusing more on general mental wellness with the intention of improving their overall psychological health. However, anyone can experience this condition.

Some of the symptoms of therapeutic fatigue can overlap with symptoms of depression, including:

• Tension
• Fatigue
• Confusion
• Loss of energy
• Decreased motivation
• A sense of hopelessness or sadness

Therapeutic fatigue can lead to a vicious cycle in which a person criticizes themselves for not making progress as quickly as they would like and pushes themselves harder in therapy, consequently often exacerbating their symptoms and potentially hindering their progress further as a result.

If you are worried you may be experiencing therapeutic fatigue, discussing your concerns with your therapist could be helpful. A mental health professional can help evaluate your current therapeutic approach and work with you to develop a pace that is maximally efficient and effective and guides you toward your goals without damaging your emotional well-being in the process.

Underlying mental health conditions

If you have adjusted other aspects of your therapeutic approach and your attitude toward therapy, but you are still not feeling great after sessions, it could be a sign of an underlying mental health condition that needs specific attention. However, note that depressive symptoms often have to be persistent for two weeks or more to be diagnosed.

Therapy sessions can help process emotions and develop coping strategies, which typically leads to improved well-being over time. If you consistently feel worse after therapy sessions, as opposed to feeling better (even with occasional difficult sessions), it could be an indication of a more significant mental health challenge, such as depression or anxiety.

If you are depressed after your telehealth therapy sessions, speak to your mental health professional to see if you could be experiencing one of the following depressive disorders:

• Major depressive disorder (the condition most people are referring to when they use the colloquial term “depression”)
• Disruptive mood dysregulation disorder
• Persistent depressive disorder (previously called dysthymia)
• Premenstrual dysphoric disorder
• Perinatal depression

Depressive disorders can be treated, and a change in your mental state is possible. Your therapist can help you assess whether you meet the criteria for a diagnosis and recommend an appropriate treatment plan. This might include adjustments to your current therapy approach, medication, or additional support services. Remember, addressing depression or any other mental health condition early can improve overall outcomes and your quality of life.

In conclusion, feeling down after a telehealth therapy session is a common experience with multiple potential causes, ranging from emotional exhaustion and unrealistic expectations to deeper processing of difficult emotions or underlying mental health conditions. Understanding these possibilities can help you approach therapy with patience, self-compassion, and clear communication.

It is essential to maintain open dialogue with your therapist about your emotional responses and work collaboratively to tailor your therapy to suit your unique needs. With time, persistence, and appropriate support, telehealth therapy can become a powerful tool in enhancing your emotional well-being and fostering lasting mental health improvements.