How Often Should I Go To Therapy?
The question around the frequency of sessions is one I get a lot as a therapist, both from clients and from people in my personal life who want to understand therapy better. The answer to this question is complicated and quite simple at the same time, so I thought I would take this opportunity to detail all the factors I feel are important when considering this question.
My normal response to clients, when asked this question is something along the lines of “The literature, suggests that weekly sessions are most effective, but I am aware that not everybody has the time and/or money to do so, so come as often as you feel you need”. Whilst this response seems very simple, there are a few factors to consider.
Firstly, when starting therapy there is the initial getting to know your therapist, and letting them get to know you phase which is best done on a weekly basis to help the therapeutic relationship form. Think about the formation of any relationship, if it is formed weekly, it will likely form a stronger bond more quickly than it would if formed in monthly sessions. Arranging weekly sessions during this period will enable a stronger, more supportive relationship to form more quickly, helping you to get the most out of your sessions going forward. So even if you feel that fortnightly or monthly sessions might meet your needs overall, it may be a good idea to consider having the first few sessions weekly until you feel comfortable.
Secondly, you have to consider what therapy is helping you to manage. For some people, it is a means of managing their stress, having less frequent sessions where they can come along and talk about what's been happening and offload that stress from their shoulders. For others, their lives might be a bit more complicated, be that simply more stressful or dealing with more complex issues that are impacting their lives. For people in this second category, I would suggest more frequent sessions, as this allows the opportunity for the client to explore and understand what is going on for them without long periods of no support. This is especially true with trauma-based work, as it can be unsafe to open up and explore traumatic events if there is a big time gap between sessions. This latter point is what I am talking about when I say that the literature suggests weekly sessions, as most literature is looking at therapy being used to support clients who are struggling with more complex issues.
Thirdly, we all have to consider the cost of therapy. Therapy has time, energy, and financial costs. It takes time, both out of your week and in the longer-term the time spanning from session one to your final session. This is different for everybody and can change as you change, so like any other commitment you have to factor in these times into your week for the session, potential travel, and any time you might need to manage what may be coming up in sessions.
Therapy also can be very tiring, especially the first few sessions if you are not used to opening up, and feeling big feelings. So we have to think about the energy cost as well. For this reason, I often suggest people not use their lunch breaks at work for therapy which might leave them feeling tired afterwards.
As mentioned there is also a financial cost to therapy, for this reason, I always suggest if you feel comfortable doing so look for charities that support the issues you are seeking therapy for, there's a good chance there will be a charity offering counselling for it, either for free or at a reduced rate. If you find yourself wanting a private therapist but are worried about not being able to afford an unknown number of sessions then it is okay to explore this with the therapist. What I would personally do in this situation is suggest a number of sessions, for example, six sessions or more depending on budget, focused on the issue you want explored. Having an agreed number of sessions means that both parties can keep focused on a single issue and can scale their pace to that time frame, not opening up certain topics if it is felt that they cannot be managed safely in the time frame. This means that you are less likely to find yourself out of budget but in the middle of something important.
Therapy falls into a similar category as many other activities that help improve your well-being, such as meditation, exercise, and so on. This means it is something that takes both practice and regularity for maximum benefits to be seen. You will find yourself changing with therapy as time goes on, but as with any other well-being activity you get out what you put in, but you also cannot rush the process. All these factors are important to consider when working out what frequency is best for you, if in doubt I would suggest starting weekly and then reviewing the frequency at which you have sessions to see if that is still working for you.
At the end of the day the frequency of your therapy sessions will vary as life is never simple, so seek therapy as frequently, or infrequently, as you feel that you need. The hard bit is understanding what you need. For some people therapy is a multiple times-a-week activity, for others, there are gaps of months or longer, what is right for you is unique to you. If in doubt, talk to your therapist, or make it a question when enquiring with a new one.