Therapy grounded in real inner work and genuine human connection.
If your child is having consistent emotional, behavioral, or social challenges that interfere with their daily life, well-being, or development then it may be time to look into getting some professional help for them. As a concerned parent you will want to do some research …
If your kid is angry, more than likely there is something deeper going on. Anger is usually a reaction to other feelings, what you see may look like anger, but in reality, that emotion is secondary to what is really happening inside of them. So …
If you find yourself being long winded, can’t fit your written response into the allotted space, you use lots of parentheses when you write, you find the need to explain every no or if someone double texts or emails you because you didn’t respond… this blog is for you.
Over-explaining can be used to cope; it’s a strategy that some find effective to alleviate stress or uncomfortable feelings in a situation. There are lots of reasons why one may develop this coping strategy but first let’s talk about what it means to over-explain.
Over-explaining is when a person is unable to state things without going into great detail or giving reasons to support their statement. It’s true that some statements need more detail or explanation, but if you cannot share simple things or basic answers without giving in to the urge to support your case, then you may be over-explaining.
Maybe you’re late to an event or to meet up with a friend and instead of just saying, “I’m sorry I was late” or “Thank you for being patient” you feel obligated to list all the things that happened that morning to contribute to you getting off your schedule.
Or maybe something upsets you and instead of just walking away from the situation, kindly communicating a boundary or simply stating your needs , you apologize for being upset and give the circumstances behind why it was upsetting to you, hoping that someone will understand and forgive you for being upset.
Feeling like you have to over-explain to make sure someone believes you or accepts you is a learned behavior. It can come from your childhood where “You learned that love + acceptance is conditional upon being understood” (Peters, J [@jenpeters_soulguide_healer]. (2022, December 11). Did you know that over-explaining is a coping mechanism? Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/p/CmDOetzyw93/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y%3D)
Over-explaining is usually done unconsciously as a way to control anxiety.
Most people want the approval of others and don’t want to let people down, so they attempt to avoid judgment and/or disappointing people by explaining things in great detail to make them understand why they did or said something.
If you tend to over-explain, you’ll usually feel less anxious about sharing things that may be uncomfortable or may trigger a negative response if you can share details that will explain the reasons behind something, which can then lead to oversharing.
You may over-explain things because you want to justify your decision or response to something, because you want to keep peace between you and another person, because you feel like you have to defend yourself or your actions, or because you just want to make sure you are being honest and don’t leave room for someone to interpret your words or feelings in the wrong way.
Dr. Caroline Leaf explains, “Perhaps you tend to over-explain because someone in your past made you feel everything is your fault, no matter what, and you feel the need to defend yourself, or it may bother you if you disappoint someone in your life and you use over-explaining to compensate.” (Dr.Leaf.com | How Over-Explaining is Linked to Trauma + Strategies to Find the Root & Heal | Dr. Caroline Leaf; September 05, 2021)
Over-explaining can be considered a fawn trauma response. Fawning is when a person engages in people-pleasing behaviors in order to avoid conflict. Learn more about the fawn response in a past blog we shared HERE.
You can break the cycle of over-explaining but it will take time and effort to develop new ways to cope.
Recognizing that you over-explain is the first step to changing the behavior. It may take time and reflection to determine whether you do this, but once you do, you can take steps to move forward and use other coping strategies.
It’s important to determine why you feel the need to over-explain so that you can take the proper steps to heal from the past trauma that may have led to this response. If over-explaining helped ease your uncomfortable feelings and anxiety, you can’t just stop over-explaining without having a new coping strategy to replace it or awareness of the root as it’ll find expression elsewhere.
Practicing mindfulness can be a good way to reduce anxiety in situations when you feel the need to over-explain yourself. Mindfulness can help you manage strong emotions by focusing on your breathing, your body and your senses. (Learn More HERE). Instead of over-explaining you can focus on breathing techniques when you start to feel uneasy or compelled to keep talking.
Take your time when you are sharing information or responding to people. Pause and think through what you want to say so that your brain doesn’t get ahead of you which leads to you saying things that are not thoughtfully planned.
Plan ahead for situations that you know will be stressful or trigger feelings that cause you to want to over-explain. Get to know yourself and when you tend to over explain. Is it to your boss when they ask about a project or task? Is it to friends when you need to cancel or reschedule?
Practice how you’ll answer questions or what information you’ll share with others so that you are comfortable with what you want to share. If you find yourself wanting to share more, remind yourself that you don’t have to give more information than what you practiced when you were alone.
Social media, whether we like it or not, has an impact on the therapy world. In therapy, we often educate our clients about mental health, family dynamics, and emotional wellness. We normalize and validate experiences to create a platform for the work you come to …
This is a big parenting technique that has been taught for decades about how to deal with tantrums and big feelings: just ignore them. And, if we’re being honest, it makes sense coming from a behavioral perspective – reinforce behaviors you want to see more …
So I wanted to take a minute to answer them in case you have that question too.
Like most things, the answer is “it depends”. But, I can tell you what factors come into play so you can get an idea for yourself and your own situation.
If you are coming to therapy because you are being proactive, you are probably not as concerned with this question.
One of the reasons you might start therapy proactively is to establish a working relationship with a therapist so you can get some support in looking at and improving some important aspects of your life. The other goal here is to have that relationship established and ready for when challenges do arise. You know this could be a long term relationship and it is an investment.
You might or might not go to therapy as frequently (I’ll talk about that next week), but it is an ongoing process to support your emotional and mental well being.
This is the same for children or adolescents. Sometimes parents will initiate therapy just to start a therapeutic relationship and get in some basic learning around emotional fluency and coping skills for their child or teen. Then their child or teen has a relationship with a therapist so they can access that relationship when developmental challenges come up around friend issues, academic stress, transition to adolescence or launching into adult life.
If you are starting therapy because there is a challenge coming up that you know really needs attention, I would expect at least six months.
The first part of therapy (4-6 weeks of weekly sessions), you are building trust with your therapist and your therapist is getting as full a picture as possible of what is going on. This cannot be skipped. Your therapist needs to know as much as possible to know how to best help you. AND you need to know that you trust your therapist. You are paying for their skill set that will support you in getting where you want to go. If you don’t have that trust, you will not be utilizing all they have to offer you.
From there, you are working on de-programming old beliefs, healing, developing insight into yourself, learning communication and coping skills and developing new habits and ways of dealing with things in your life that will support your growth so you can get through the challenge and be a better, healthier person.
I’ve seen people make it through challenges in as little as six months. Here’s the thing: these are people that are ready to take action on recommendations, who take notes either during session or right after to make sure they get as much as they can out of the time, who are willing to be open to reflections and humble to hard questions. They do the work in and outside of session. It’s the willingness that makes their sessions super effective (read more about that here).
Sometimes, when people make it through a challenge, they like to stay in therapy because they see how much they are able to get out of that support. The frequency of sessions might change over time depending on what is going on. Sometimes people will stop sessions due to the main goal for therapy being met and then they will just come back the next time something comes up. But the effort they put in not only helps them grow through their challenge, it builds their confidence in knowing that they can take on challenges successfully.
The same goes for older school age kids and adolescent clients: being open to and wanting to go to therapy makes a big difference in the process. See these posts here and here about kids and teens who are resistant to therapy.
If you are dealing with a crisis, meaning you are concerned about your own safety and daily functioning or your child’s, there are two distinct parts of your treatment. The first is stabilizing, the second is addressing the underlying dynamics and issues that brought things to a head.
People cannot sustain a crisis level situation for very long, but the work to address what created the crisis can take some time to unravel. There is a lot of variability in situations like this. Especially given that people can go in and out of a crisis state until they stabilize. The best thing to do is buckle up and be receptive to your therapist’s and your team’s (you might have a psychiatrist or multiple therapists working with different members of your family or school therapists working together) recommendations. That will be your fastest way through.
How much stress you have going on in your life does factor in to how long it will take to reach your goals in therapy.
If you have a number of stressors that take away from you being able to dedicate attention to your work in therapy, it might mean that you will need a little bit more time in therapy. That is not a bad thing.
If you have a high level of stress, therapy will address that so you can work to bring things to a more manageable level. This is a good thing for your overall health and well being.
If it is your child or teen who is in therapy, you want to take life circumstances into consideration: do they have a school transition (going to middle school or high school) or family transition (divorce, remarriage, move) going on? Is there a person in the family who is ill? Are there some difficult sibling dynamics? These things may add to the time it takes to make progress toward goals.
Do people in your life support you going to therapy? Are there people in your life you can share with about your experiences in therapy who can reinforce the work you are doing?
This can just be someone who asks “what did your therapist say about that” to help you bring back the perspective and guidance you received. Or this person might just be a great listener and someone who is safe to talk to in between sessions while you are working through your stuff. That kind of support helps your progress in therapy.
If your child is in therapy, if you are participating in sessions and help implement the skills your child is learning in daily life, that makes a HUGE difference.
There are lots of first phone calls that start with “my child [or teenager] needs therapy, but I don’t know what is going to work”. Some parents will say: “maybe I’m the one who needs help!”. Or they say: “we’ve tried therapy before, but it …