When Therapy Feels Flat: What Boredom Tells Me as a Therapist

When the Session Leaves Me Cold
What My Boredom in Therapy Tells Me About the Work We’re Not Doing

I left the session feeling flat. Not drained. Not frustrated. Just that subtle film of dissatisfaction that settles over me when something in the session never quite lands. A kind of energetic quiet where there should have been something else. Something that moves. I usually leave sessions feeling engaged, moved, a little electric. You can feel it when something shifts. And you can feel it when everything stays exactly where it was.

This was another session with Emily.

That’s not her real name, of course. Emily is intelligent, emotionally literate, reflective, articulate. She talks about her wounds with insight. She has language for her patterns, insight into her family history, and the ability to connect past and present with impressive clarity. She can describe the shape of her grief. She talks about the misattunement in her relationship, and the childhood echoes underneath it.

She is what most therapists would call a “good client.” She reflects. She takes responsibility. She doesn’t deflect or resist or lash out. But there’s something that happens in our work together: I always leave our sessions a little frustrated. A little bored. A little like I missed something important. Something that leaves me slightly dull inside. Not because I’m not invested, but because I can feel viscerally that something essential is being avoided. Not denied. Avoided.

Emily stays in her mind.

I’ve seen this pattern not just with Emily, but with a certain kind of client. And, if I’m honest, a certain part of myself too. There’s a way of leaning into the intellect so fully that it becomes its own kind of escape. A way to narrate pain without feeling it. To perform self-awareness while staying just outside the edges of emotional risk.

I sometimes call it going brainy. Or living in the mind instead of the body. When someone talks about horror with no tremble in their voice, no pause in their breath, something is off. If you describe betrayal, but your face doesn’t change and your body stays still, I know you’re disconnected. You may not know it, but I do. Something got left behind.

That’s what I kept feeling with Emily. She was talking about her pain, but she wasn’t in it. She wasn’t feeling it. She was circling it with language, expertly. And I was letting her.

There’s a moment in every session where I try to bring her into her body. I ask where she feels it. I ask what it’s like to sit in the grief rather than think about it. She nods. She describes what her body does. She talks about nervous system regulation. She references her somatic experience. But she hardly drops in. She talks about the sensations of pain instead of feeling the pain.

And the thing is, she’s so good at it, it almost works on me.

That’s the moment I have to track. Because if I don’t pay attention, I start aligning with her surface-level presence. I mirror her insight. I affirm her analysis. I let the current stay cerebral. And when I do that, I am no longer doing the work I believe in.

I don’t think this is just a mistake. I think it’s a pattern. A shared one.

In her, it’s a defense. A strategy. Stay smart. Stay sharp. Stay just far enough above the emotional current that you never get swept under. I understand that. But in me, it’s something more subtle. It’s about the window of tolerance.

That’s what I’m always tracking.

Therapy is not about breaking people open. It’s about pacing the opening so the person can actually come with you. That’s the art. Helping someone edge toward more capacity without slipping into overwhelm. And with someone like Emily, who presents as highly functional and composed, the risk is assuming she can go further than she can. Or assuming she can’t go further when in fact, she’s staying comfortable by design.

This is where it gets tricky.

Because the usual techniques don’t work. She already speaks the language of vulnerability. She already knows how to say “this is hard for me” without sounding raw. She describes rather than exposes. And when I try to reach for the body, she brings me language. When I reach for grief, she brings me cognition. The session moves, technically. But emotionally? Nothing.

That’s where my feelings come in.

The boredom. The slight irritation. The faint sense of futility. These are not distractions from the work. They are the work. They tell me something is off. That I’m in a trance. That we’re colluding in a smooth, sophisticated bypass of the real emotional material.

She’s not faking it. She just doesn’t trust that she can feel this much and survive it. And I, unconsciously, have been respecting that part of her more than I’ve been pushing it.

So I started asking myself some harder questions.

Why am I letting her convince me she’s fine when something in my body says otherwise?

What am I avoiding by staying polite and paced instead of disruptive and embodied?

Where am I afraid that pushing her toward the edge will break her open too far?

And where, possibly, am I afraid that it might break something open in me?

Because her narrative is one of resignation. She’s choosing a life that doesn’t meet her emotionally, and she tells herself that’s fine. That she can create a fulfilling life. That she’s evolved enough to accept a limited form of love. That this is just one chapter in a longer arc. And the more she says it, the more something in me wants to scream.

Not because I disagree.

But because there’s no grief in her voice when she says it.

And there should be.

Because choosing to live without emotional intimacy is a kind of loss. Choosing a partner who stays distant when you’re hurting. Who sidesteps conflict instead of standing beside you in it. Who doesn’t support your dreams. These are not neutral things. They are painful. And when a client talks about them like logistics, I know the rupture hasn’t been metabolized.

So I listen not just to what she says, but how she says it. The speed. The tone. The lack of tremble. And I track myself more carefully.

Do I feel tense? Disconnected? Slightly deadened?

That’s my cue. That’s when I know the session has slipped out of the body and into the polished theatre of insight.

That’s when I need to interrupt her.

I’ve started naming the dissonance more directly. Saying things like, “You just described giving up on being loved the way you want, but I didn’t hear it in your voice.” Or, “What you’re saying is important, but I don’t feel you in the room with me right now.”

Sometimes she pauses. Sometimes she tightens. But we stay there. We sit in the discomfort. Not because I want her to fall apart, but because I want her to come into contact with herself. With me. With the pain that’s waiting underneath the story.

And that’s what changes the system.

Not the perfect phrasing. Not the analysis. Not the well-framed insight. But the moment someone actually feels the cost of their own disconnection. The moment the smart part steps aside and something raw is allowed to speak.

For therapists reading this: boredom is never just boredom. It is often a sign that your client is emotionally absent and that you might be too.

For clients: if you find yourself talking about your pain with elegance and ease, ask yourself if you’re actually letting yourself feel it. Ask if you’re trying to stay in control. Ask what it would mean to let the emotion come through your body, not just your words.

Because therapy is about reaching the depths beyond our comfort and sitting there. Feeling it, Flinching and staying. It is about re-telling a story in an embodied way that sees more nuance and perspective. It is about learning to step in a different direction even when it is hard.

Are you interested in working on your personal development? Are you looking for a life coach or a life consultant? Are you feeling stagnant? Do you want to jumpstart change?

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*Awareness is knowing what you genuinely want and need.

*Alignment is the symmetry between our values and our actions. It means our inner and outer worlds match.

*Action is when you are conscious that what you say, do and think are in harmony with your values.

Together we build an understanding of what you want to accomplish, and delve deeply into building awareness around any thoughts and assumptions that you may already have. To truly transform your life, I will empower you to rethink what’s possible for you.

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