25/08/2025
The “frog in boiling water” metaphor is often used in therapy to describe how people sometimes adapt to unhealthy or harmful situations without realizing it, because the change happens so gradually.
The story goes like this:
If you drop a frog into boiling water, it will immediately jump out.
But if you put a frog in cool water and slowly heat it, the frog won’t notice the danger and will stay until it boils.
In therapy, this is used as a metaphor for situations like:
Staying in toxic relationships or jobs because the stress or mistreatment escalates little by little.
Ignoring mental health struggles because the symptoms increase gradually over time.
Adapting to unhealthy coping mechanisms without recognizing how harmful they’ve become.
The lesson is that small, incremental negative changes can add up to something very harmful—unless you notice the pattern and take action. Therapy often helps people “notice the rising temperature” sooner, so they can step out of unhealthy environments or patterns before damage occurs
