Change in Therapy Starts Here.

When I was in graduate school, one of my professors, asked our class a question that has stayed with me ever since: Where does change happen? In therapy or outside of therapy?

It was one of those questions that immediately made the room pause. Everyone grew quiet. You could feel each of us turning inward, scanning our experiences with clients, and trying to locate the answer somewhere in what we’d seen or felt in the therapy room.

I thought about my own clients—about the moment when something finally clicks, and you see it in their face: the expression softens, their eyes widen just a bit, and they exhale deeply as if some internal knot has just loosened. That moment is undeniably powerful. But then I thought about the follow-up sessions. The clients who came back and said, “I tried what we talked about… and something shifted.” Maybe he showed up with more patience. Maybe she responded with less defensiveness. Maybe they both were willing to pause, breathe, and try again.

That’s when I realized—change doesn’t just live in the therapy room. Yes, it can begin there. But real, lasting change unfolds in the spaces in between. In the quiet moments at home. In the heat of a disagreement when someone decides not to yell but to lean in and ask, “What are you feeling right now?”

In my work as a couples therapist, I sometimes notice that partners come into therapy hoping the therapist will do the work for them. They imagine that simply showing up—checking the box—will be enough to transform the relationship. And while I can introduce tools, ask the right questions, and guide the process, I can’t walk the walk for them. True change happens when couples take those tools home, wrestle with them, and choose, again and again, to try something different.

One of the reasons I love using Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is because it gives couples a framework for safely turning toward one another. It creates space for vulnerability. It teaches partners to reach out, to respond, and to hold each other in moments of need. Yes, I’m there to guide those early steps. But healing happens when those steps continue at home—without me in the room.

Change, then, is a shared process. It begins in the therapy room, but it takes root outside of it—in the everyday moments, the arguments, the reconciliations, the quiet courage of trying again. We heal when we risk being vulnerable, and we grow when that vulnerability is met with care.

Interested in couples therapy?

Schedule a consultation today with Dallas-based Marriage and Family Therapist, Sileta Bell. Learn more about her work with couples and families at Bell Family Therapy.