Seven phrases therapists should avoid
No. 2: Everything will be fine
It never fails: the police detective on TV tells the witness he can protect her, she’ll be safe. The next time you see her she’s lying in a pool of blood, dead on the floor.
Or the individual is agitated and fearful of the future. Then someone nearby (perhaps a therapist) pats them on the back murmuring the words “Don’t worry. Everything will be fine.”
At that point, I pretty much lose it. I want to throw something at the screen and scream “How the hell can you possibly know that?”
And I do this because I think of the illustration here or similar scenarios I’ve seen played out over the years. The patient is sitting, thinking about the terrible things he just did.

His conscience didn’t bother him enough to keep him from setting the building on fire.
And loving it.
But now he is painfully aware that there may be a price to pay.
And we just told him things were okay. This is why "everything will be fine" is one of the phrases therapists should avoid in therapy.
Leaping before listening
Just as with a poorly timed “congratulations,” jumping to “everything will be fine” or “it will all work out” can backfire.
Badly.
When most of us see people in distress, we want to help comfort them.
Even toddlers, when they see another tot crying, will sometimes pat and kiss the hurting child. Sometimes they’ll start crying with them, something that has been interpreted by adults many ways, but is often thought to show the little one is developing empathy.
There’s no question that when we jump in and try to give reassurances, it helps us feel better. We may even convince ourselves that we’ve done something positive for the client as well.
But it’s quite possible this rings hollow when we haven’t taken the time to find out exactly what the individual is going through.
Reassurance vs. Minimization
We’re human. And if we’re in the counseling biz, there’s a good change we’re caring, empathic people. We want our client to stop hurting, to feel better as fast as they can.
When we jump in with the knee jerk “it’ll be okay” to whatever hurt the client is experiencing, we may be trying to be reassuring.
To the client who feels that something earth shattering has occurred, though, it may feel as though their concerns are being trivialized. In essence, are we telling them their worries are overblown?
If this is his perception, he may feel ashamed to be so focused and concerned about himself, or about the job he just lost.
On the other hand, he may feel, justifiably, that the therapist doesn’t understand him, that somehow having your 30 year old spouse in hospice is no big deal. And instead of being reassuring, it damages the trust that’s necessary for a therapeutic relationship.
Possibly irrevocably.
Reassurance vs False hope
As noted above, some people will feel that their concerns have been trivialized when the therapist jumps in with reassurances too soon.
Another, but equally undesirable effect, is to give the individual false hope. Take the example of the spouse with cancer. It gives the wrong message to compare her with someone you know who also had cancer but overcame it and is now cancer free.

If the spouse has stage IV (typically considered the terminal stage) breast cancer and the person you’re talking about had superficial skin cancer, the two are not at all the same.

You’ve compared apples to oranges and just made squash.
In other words, the comparison trivializes the fact that the prognosis is quite guarded in the one, and will result in little change for the other.
False hope can be as devastating to the client as feeling as though you think they’re making a mountain out of a molehill.
What exactly does “things will get better” mean?
Your client’s mother has been diagnosed with cancer. Their own house is in foreclosure and their son just got arrested for murder. What does it mean if I say “things will work out?”
Obviously such an example is over the top, but people do experience multiple traumas simultaneously. What does it mean that everything will be fine or that things will get better?
When you’re juggling multiple crises, even well-meaning reassurances can feel empty and, perhaps, insensitive.
In the case of the client’s terminally ill mother, “things will work out” is right up there with “she’ll be in a better place.” The latter does very little for a large swatch of the grieving population. It doesn’t relieve their pain and may simply make the individual feel guilty for wanting to prolong his mother’s agony.
Do we know immediately that the best thing for the patient is for them to get back together with their spouse who threw them out? Do we know just by looking that the person SHOULDN’T have a guilty conscience? Just like with the first picture, there may be some very good reasons why they should feel apprehensive and on edge.
And if that is the case, often the only thing we can do is try to help the individual get through whatever comes.
The importance of timing
It’s not just what we say to our clients—it’s also when we say it. Timing can make the difference between a comment being helpful or hurtful, supportive or dismissive.
Sometimes, what feels like the right thing to say can land wrong because the client simply isn’t ready to hear it. For example, when someone is in the thick of grief, saying, “You’ll feel better with time,” might technically be true, but it’s also likely to feel hollow and even dismissive in the moment. They’re not thinking about time—they’re thinking about the crushing pain they’re feeling right now.
Or consider a client who has just poured their heart out about how terrified they are that they’ll lose their home. If we rush to reassure them with something like, “I’m sure it won’t come to that,” it can shut the conversation down. They might feel that we’re brushing off their fears, even if that wasn’t our intention.
The truth is, we have no way of knowing if it will come to that, and the client knows we don’t know.
It’s natural to want to help, to want to soothe the people sitting in front of us who are hurting. But when we rush to fix, to reassure, or to minimize their pain, we miss something vital: listening to understand where they are right now. Sometimes the best thing we can say is nothing at all and instead let the silence invite them to keep talking.
Good timing is about meeting the client where they are in the moment. Before we offer comfort or solutions, we need to take their emotional temperature.

Are they ready to talk about what’s next? Or are they barely holding on and just need someone to acknowledge their pain without trying to move past it too quickly?
If a client says, “I don’t think I can take much more of this,” the timing isn’t right for, “You’re stronger than you think.”
Instead, you might say something like, “This sounds devastating right now. Tell me a little more about what's happening.” Then, when they’ve had a chance to feel heard, you can gently shift to helping them identify small steps forward.
In therapy, timing is everything. If we move too fast to reassure, encourage, or solve, we risk leaving our clients behind, still sitting with their pain while we’ve marched ahead.
By slowing down and staying present with them in the moment, we’re able to offer the kind of support that may truly help them heal.
So, what can we say?
Here are some examples of how a client might be approached in a more productive way, a way that is empowering, not trivializing. We can help them find ways to cope with bad situations.
Client one is anxious about having lost a job and getting nowhere with their job search.
Instead of “I’m sure you’ll find something soon” consider validating their concern with “This sounds incredibly stressful. Have you found ways to relieve some of your anxiety?”
Validation helps the client feel that they’ve been heard and understood.
Instead of trying to guess that a marriage in trouble is going to resolve itself in the way your client says she wants it to go and thus giving false hope, consider “This sounds very difficult. Let’s discuss some things you can do to help yourself if he isn’t willing to discuss it.”
This approach demonstrates empathy, while avoiding making promises we simply can’t back up.
A brief review:
Listen before you leap. Before finding out how the client feels, congratulations may be the exact wrong response. Likewise, attempting reassurances before truly comprehending the issues can be damaging or even devastating to the therapeutic relationship.
When we offer the client hope, it must be rooted in reality. Many times the only thing we can honestly offer is support for finding a way forward
The only assurance we can give our clients is that we will try to help them through whatever is bothering them, if in fact that is something we feel confident we can do.

Now that I’ve talked about avoiding congratulating a client before finding out the facts and the need to avoid giving empty reassurances, we’re ready for another common myth or mistake. Next up: you have to talk about it.
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