who's responsibility is it to make therapy effective?

There is a joke about how many psychologists it takes to change a light bulb. The punchline/answer is that it only takes one but the lightbulb has to want to change. Though it may be true that in some cases the bulb must at least want to change for therapy to be effective, many people think that the lightbulb needs to know what to change, how to change and how to make therapy effective. Many therapist has found it a tempting option to blame his or her lightbulb-patient for a lack of progress in therapy. Many a lightbulb has exited a therapy session feeling like a failure for not knowing how to make change happen.

If this seems to happen to you, be forgiving and explain to your therapist that you were hoping for more help than that. Explain that you are one of those lightbulbs who needs his or her therapist to take charge of making things work in the therapy session. Explain that you read an online article where it was explained that it is the therapist's job to make you comfortable enough to talk about what you need to talk about. Explain that you were hoping that your new therapist would be able to take responsibility for figuring out what and how you need to change.

Be forgiving and patient and if you do not get the answers you need, perhaps you could consider checking out a different therapist. It is natural for the lightbulb to fear changing - to not be 100% behind the idea of change. (See the articles on this website about why many lightbulbs normally have fears and resistance to change, no matter how burned out they are.)