I always get this question and I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re asking yourself the same thing: “I’m a busy person! How often am I going to have to go see my therapist?”
It depends.
Treatment plans often include consultations on a weekly basis to be most effective. When you first begin therapy, the intensity of your motivation to change will foster your progress. The keyword here is intensity.Building your relationship with me, the psychologist, from week to week, also greatly enhances your ability to get better.
Adaptations however may be preferable and should be discussed with me. For instance, imagine you come in to see me with your spouse in couples therapy. Meeting on a weekly basis does not necessarily give you and your spouse enough time to consider and practice what you’ve worked on in the therapy session.
On the other hand, imagine the course of your therapy would require ten sessions. It would probably be most beneficial for you to concentrate this effort over ten consecutive weeks. Spreading it out over ten months would probably be quite ineffective.
So in a word, naturally it depends on what your problem is. It’s unlikely you’ll be coming in once a month or twice a week. Once a week or once every two weeks is probably going to be an effective rhythm for therapy. We’ll have to talk about it!
Debra BERG, The Bilingual Psychologist in Paris