10 Ways to Invite More Depth in Your Sessions

If It Feels Flat, It Probably Is.

This one is for you, fellow therapists! Yes you.

Let’s be honest.

We know when the session stays on the surface.
We feel it when it doesn’t quite land.
And sometimes, if we’re really honest, we leave the room and think: That didn’t touch anything real today.

We all have these sessions. They’re part of the work. The ups and downs. It’s ok.

But if “flat” becomes a pattern—if it starts to feel like holding space for someone’s weekly report instead of witnessing their internal world—it might be time to ask ourselves:

Am I unconsciously colluding with safety? With avoidance? With comfort over change?

Here are 10 ways we, as therapists and health/helping professionals, can shift out of “surface mode” and invite the kind of depth that actually creates movement:

1. Name the flatness. Gently. Transparently.

“I notice we’re staying in the realm of updates. I’m wondering if there’s something more tender that’s not being spoken yet?”

Naming what’s not happening can open the space for what might want to emerge.

2. Invite emotional honesty over polished storytelling.

“I hear what happened—but I’m curious how it felt in your body, in the moment. Can we go there together?”

People often default to narrative. It’s our job to help them re-enter the emotional layer beneath the facts.

3. Don’t be afraid to challenge—with warmth.

Challenging doesn’t mean confronting. It means being willing to lovingly hold up a mirror, even when what’s reflected might sting.

“I notice you tend to pivot away when we get close to something painful. Can we stay with it a bit longer today? I’m here with you while we traverse something new together.”

4. Track the avoidance patterns—yours and theirs.

Sessions that stay safe can sometimes be a mutual defense mechanism. Check your own body: Are you bracing? Disengaging? Playing it safe?

5. Use your countertransference as information.

Bored? Drifting? Rescuing? These are goldmines. Not failures. What you feel might be exactly what the client is defending against in other relationships, too. Stay with this, pay attention, take it to your own supervision. There is magic to uncover here.

6. Ask more present-moment questions.

“What’s it like to say that out loud right now?”
“What are you noticing in your body as we talk about this?”
“Do you feel connected to me as we’re talking?”

These bring the work into the here and now, where transformation actually happens. They also invite the client to learn how to enact their observer self and practice self attunement more. You may even gently encourage or prompt them at first while they get use to this practice, with something like, '“I noticed when we started talking about X, your legs kept bouncing around. Can we examine that a little more closely together perhaps?”

7. Reflect on who you feel most “surface-y” with—and why.

Is it with high-functioning clients? Avoidant ones? People who remind you of someone else? Your own patterns are part of the room. Stay curious. What’s going on here for you?

8. Interrupt the performance dynamic.

If you sense they’re trying to “do therapy right,” say so. It might sound like:

“You’re very self-aware, but I wonder if there’s something you’re not letting yourself feel in here.”

9. Normalize rupture and discomfort.

Let clients know it’s okay if things get awkward, intense, even confrontational. That means the real stuff is getting close. And in fact, it’s GREAT! Help them loosen up, be more comfortable with being real, model this (appropriately and professionally) in your own demeanour and find opportunities to be strategically implanting this from time to time.

10. Get supervision. Get reflective. Get honest.

If flatness is happening often, it may be a sign you’re emotionally fatigued, subtly disconnected, or playing it safe in the work. You’re human. You don’t have to muscle through it. But don’t ignore it, either.

Depth is a Risk—For Both of You.

Going deeper isn’t just about asking better questions.
It’s about being brave enough to stay present when things get uncomfortable—for your client and for you.

Therapy should never feel like a performance.
It should feel like a relationship with a pulse.

So if it’s been feeling a little flat lately, take it as an invitation.

To risk. To name. To stretch. To feel.

Your clients will thank you for it.
(And if they don’t? They’ll feel it—and that’s even better.)