To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under Heaven*—including a time for therapy and time to move on from therapy. After your therapist has done a written evaluation, but most likely before you develop a written treatment plan together, he or she will discuss among other things, two very basic treatment parameters with you: length of treatment time and frequency of therapy sessions.

 Based on:

1. Your diagnosis
2. Your financial situation
3. Your work and personal lifestyles, obligations, and schedules,

The corresponding parameters you will decide on can vary widely.

Though I believe it is important to take all the above factors into account, a serious mental illness or addiction might necessitate more therapy than you would like. On the other hand, if your problem doesn’t require lengthy therapy, your therapist will let you know that as well.  A relationship with a therapist is usually not a life-long relationship–especially for people who do not have mental illness.

As a general rule: Therapy can and should help people develop strong interpersonal relationships, in part so that their relationship with their therapist doesn’t replace relationships with family, friends, and community. Also, in part because being involved in healthy relationships is one of the most rewarding bounties of human life and you deserve to experience and be part of this very rich joy. And, finally because it is the ethical thing to do— that’s why therapists are taught to avoid fostering gratuitous patient dependency during their training.

The details about the suggested length of therapy and frequency of therapy sessions are something important you and your therapist should talk about right from the very first or second session. Your discussion will naturally include why you are in therapy and what the recommended, optimal treatment timeframe is. I responded to questions about this in a previous comments post and I am printing my earlier response here:

“The optimal time-frame for therapy varies. Some people need brief therapy–a few, tightly focused sessions; some people with mental illness might need therapy over the course of a few or many years at regular or irregular intervals; but in my opinion, people without a mental illness but who are facing problems that they want to work out shouldn’t be in therapy for more than a year at the most. The end of therapy (discharge planning) must begin during the very first session. The treatment plan you and your therapist develop together MUST address the length of therapy right from the outset–otherwise patients get stuck in what I refer to as “endless therapy”.

By endless therapy I mean therapy that (even at reduced frequency), doesn’t have in mind as a goal eventually ending therapy. Therapy though must be stepped down in frequency as progress is made and this should also be addressed in the written treatment plan.

Also my response printed above was a general response—obviously there are exceptions. Marital and family therapy might take longer as more participants in therapy mean that there are more complex dynamics; treating addiction might require longer periods of therapy or more frequent sessions, even without a co-occurring mental illness; treating personality disorders might require greater frequency and longer treatment time frame; and sometimes serious problems might be masked during an initial evaluation and are detected later on in therapy in which case the treatment plan will have to be revisited, necessitating lengthening the time frame, and so on.

Whatever your therapist recommends and whatever you ultimately decide, I recommend having upfront discussions about these two essentials (length and frequency), near the beginning of treatment so the therapy process is and remains transparent.

*Turn, Turn, Turn was written by Pete Seeger, 1959; this line and almost all the lyrics are from Ecclesiastes.

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marital therapy (February 5, 2010)

    Last reviewed: 25 Jan 2010