I (23 F) have been seeing a therapist for anxiety and depression for a few months now and the only thing he seems to suggest is exposure therapy. He recently made me make a list of things I feel anxiety about (like driving, talking to strangers, applying for new jobs, etc) and his idea of a plan to help me with these things was for me to just do them? 

I get the point of starting small and tackling one anxiety at a time, but it’s frustrating to talk about the things I feel real anxiety and avoidance for and the only suggestion he has is for me to just... do them anyway. I don’t know if this is normal to feel but I personally don’t understand how a therapist telling me to try something is supposed to motivate and comfort me enough to start doing things I’m anxious about. Hopefully this makes sense? 

Another thing I don’t understand is the therapist (and the whole practice— I have another therapist in the same practice before she transferred l) wanting me to do social anxiety questionnaires every sessions to show my progress. It takes up half of our 45 minute session and my answers are usually the same. I tried to explain to him how I think it’s going to take a lot more time to see progress because I’ve struggled with anxiety since I was a child but he didn’t seem to understand why my score wasn’t getting any better each week. 


Is all therapy for anxiety like this or am I being too difficult? I definitely want help and don’t want to come across as stubborn, but it just seems like my therapist expects me to change my life long behaviors in only a matter of months. I feel so hopeless about therapy in general now.