How to Know If Therapy Is Working When You Doubt Everything

Does this sound familiar? You're in therapy, working hard on your healing, but you can't shake a nagging question: "Is this even working?"

You doubt whether you're doing therapy "right." You question if your feelings are valid. You second-guess every decision, from what to say in session to whether you should even be in therapy at all.

Here's what you need to know: This doubt isn't a sign that therapy isn't working. It's often a sign of the very trauma you're healing from.

Why Trauma Makes You Doubt Everything

When you've experienced trauma—whether it's childhood neglect, emotional abuse, a specific traumatic event, or ongoing stress—your brain learns to question itself as a survival mechanism.

Trauma doesn't just hurt in the moment. It changes how you process information and make decisions. Your nervous system becomes hypervigilant, constantly scanning for danger. This includes scanning your own thoughts and feelings for "mistakes."

The Self-Doubt Symptoms You Might Recognize

Self-doubt after trauma shows up in specific, exhausting ways:

Decision Paralysis
You spend twenty minutes choosing what to eat for lunch. You draft and redraft simple text messages. Every choice feels massive because you're terrified of choosing "wrong."

Questioning Your Own Feelings
"Should I be upset about this?" "Am I overreacting?" "Do I even have the right to feel this way?" You can't trust your emotional responses because trauma taught you that your feelings didn't matter or were "wrong."

Therapy-Specific Doubts
"Is my therapist actually helping me?" "Am I talking about the right things?" "What if I'm wasting time?" These questions loop endlessly, making it hard to fully engage in your own healing.

Constant Overthinking
Your brain won't turn off. You replay conversations, analyze every interaction, and search for hidden meanings. This mental exhaustion is a nervous system response, not a personality flaw.

Why This Happens: The Neuroscience of Self-Doubt

Your brain's threat detection system (the amygdala) becomes overactive after trauma. It allocates excessive resources toward finding danger—even in safe situations.

This creates a feedback loop. Doubt triggers anxiety. Anxiety intensifies doubt. Your body stays in a state of hypervigilance, making it nearly impossible to trust yourself.

Trauma also creates negative beliefs about yourself. These aren't conscious choices. They're automatic thoughts that sound like: "I can't trust my judgment." "Something's wrong with me." "I'm doing this wrong."

These negative cognitions become the lens through which you view everything—including therapy itself.

How This Shows Up in EMDR Therapy

If you're doing EMDR therapy (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), you might notice doubt showing up during sessions.

You might question whether the bilateral stimulation is "working." You might doubt the memories or feelings that come up during processing. You might worry you're not "doing it right."

This is completely normal. EMDR therapy directly targets the traumatic memories that created these doubt patterns. As those memories get processed, the doubt often surfaces before it resolves.

Your therapist expects this. The questioning, the uncertainty—it's part of the material being healed, not evidence that healing isn't happening.

Signs Therapy IS Working (Even When You Doubt It)

Here's how to know if therapy is working, even when your brain tells you it isn't:

You Notice Your Patterns
You catch yourself mid-spiral. You recognize "Oh, I'm overthinking again" or "This is my trauma talking." This awareness is huge progress.

You Recover Faster
You still get triggered, but you bounce back quicker. The emotional storms are shorter. This shows your nervous system is becoming more flexible.

Small Decisions Get Easier
You're not cured of decision paralysis, but choosing lunch takes ten minutes instead of thirty. Progress isn't perfection—it's incremental improvement.

You Feel Your Feelings More
Instead of numbing out or avoiding, you can sit with discomfort. You don't immediately doubt every emotion. You're building trust in your internal experience.

Others Notice Changes
Friends or family comment that you seem calmer, more confident, or more present. Sometimes others see our growth before we do.

The Doubt Might Never Fully Disappear (And That's Okay)

Here's something important: You might always have some doubt. That's not failure.

The goal isn't to eliminate all uncertainty. It's to build enough self-trust that the doubt doesn't paralyze you. You learn to act even when you're not 100% sure.

Healing means the doubt gets quieter. It takes up less space. It doesn't control your decisions anymore.

What About Neurodivergent Brains?

If you have ADHD, autism, or other neurodivergent traits, you might experience even more intense intolerance of uncertainty.

Neurodivergent brains often baseline higher on uncertainty discomfort. When you add trauma on top of neurodivergence, the compounding effect can make doubt feel unbearable.

This doesn't mean you can't heal. It means your healing path might need to account for both your neurodivergence and your trauma. A trauma-informed therapist who understands neurodiversity can adapt their approach to support both.

When to Trust That Therapy Is Working

Trust that therapy is working when:

• You're showing up consistently
• You're being honest with your therapist
• You notice even tiny shifts in awareness or behavior
• You're questioning yourself less often (even if it still happens)
• You can name your progress, even when your brain dismisses it

The doubt will try to convince you that nothing is changing. But if you look back three months, six months, a year—the changes are there.

Your Next Step in Healing

If constant self-doubt is interfering with your life and your healing, you don't have to navigate it alone.

Trauma-focused therapy like EMDR can help you process the experiences that created these doubt patterns. When the underlying trauma is addressed, the doubt naturally decreases.

You deserve to trust yourself again. Your doubt isn't permanent—it's a symptom. And symptoms can heal.