Perhaps you want to spread the cost of therapy.
Perhaps you think that it would be good to have the therapist for a longer period of time.
So why do therapists recommend weekly sessions?
Weekly sessions:
- Build a strong relationship.
The relationship between us is incredibly important for this type of work. It’s tricky to build a solid relationship if too much time passes between sessions. - Ensure therapeutic work is relevant.
Life can be fast paced. CBT involves setting goals that you can work towards each week. Goals may lose their relevance if there are big gaps. - Build forward momentum.
It’s amazing what the accountability of weekly therapy can do. - Become your ‘own therapist’ sooner.
By having a strong relationship, doing work that’s relevant to you, and building forward momentum, you’ll probably find that you’ll be done with therapy quicker than you think and you’ll feel ready and able to ‘go it alone’. - Solidify the change.
Key features of CBT are learning strategies, tools, and techniques alongside meaningful conversation so regular contact is helpful for ingraining the learning and solidifying new neural pathways in the brain. - Effective time management.
In CBT, the therapist and client set an agenda at the start of the session which includes a mood check, any highlights or struggles of the week, and anything that stood out from the last session. So if it’s fortnightly or longer, that starting point can lose focus or become very time consuming which takes away from the session content.
If your main reason is cost:
Do a little research on prices and save some money BEFORE starting therapy.
Therapist prices may vary, mine are £20 for initial consultation and £50 for each session.
My clients currently average 15 sessions in total.
Budgeting and saving means the money is set aside for you to use for this purpose and doesn’t become a source of stress.
It should be noted that sometimes pushing out to fortnightly sessions towards the end of therapy can be nice for the client to feel like the therapist is still there while testing the water themselves for any ‘snagging issues’.
And there’s always a degree of flex around sessions as therapist and client collaborate throughout the therapeutic work and there are times such as client and therapist holidays that require sessions to be flexible.
Of course, if weekly sessions really won’t work for you, speak to the therapist to find a way forward.
Let’s get started!
Therapy with Kirsty 