How Long Will Therapy Take?
Clients often ask how long therapy will take or how many sessions it takes to feel better or fully heal. While it’s a common and understandable question, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer. We can, however answer with the following: “It depends on how much work you are wanting to accomplish”, “It depends how deeply you’d like to heal”, “It is entirely up to you to decide”. Some people don’t like these answers, but we do. And here is why:
1. We Take an Individualized Approach to Your Care
Nobody other than you and your therapist will determine your therapeutic goals and the frequency duration of your care. The therapist and client get to decide on treatment plan and methods used to treat symptoms. Ultimate freedom in decision-making in therapeutic care. Sometimes clients want only a few sessions of therapy, take a few months off and then return for the duration of their care.
2. We Take a Comprehensive Approach to Your Care
We will review your life history and try and help you to heal in a thorough manner. We don’t just treat symptoms— we see each client as an individual who has a wide variety of life experiences and histories that create patterns. Then we work to heal the root cause of issues, for a more thorough healing, brain and body.
3. Healing Takes Time
There are some issues that clients face that take a long time to work through. Complex trauma, personality disorders, addictions etc., often take years to work through in a comprehensive way. Someone once said that healing can take as long as you’ve been impacted by the issue. That doesn’t mean therapy will take 20 years—but it does suggest the importance of committing to consistent work over time. Real change requires not only time, but also treatment that directly targets the root of the issue.
4. Integration of New Information Takes Time
While gaining new insight and perspective is a valuable part of therapy, real change happens when clients apply what they learn—through homework, consistent practice, and integrating new skills into daily life. Insight builds upon insight, requiring various levels of integration in order to create dynamic change.
5. Each Client Varies in Speed and Capability to Maneuver
Various disorders, levels of desire and capacities to confront the issues, additional life experiences while in therapy, attachment styles, levels of health at beginning of treatment etc. All of these factors and others contribute to the speed at which therapeutic progress is made.
6. Client Readiness for Change
Not all clients who begin the therapy process are ready to make changes in their lives. They may enter therapy, only to quickly terminate because they are intimidated by what therapy requires, or otherwise not ready to make the necessary changes in their lives. That is okay. Once clients are ready, there’s nothing stopping them.
In the meantime, it is not always a waste of time and resource to attend therapy, even if not actively working in. Sometimes clients are grateful that they have a bond with their therapist prior to something big happening in their lives. These clients do not have to try and find someone who has a last-minute opening when they are in crisis, because they already have rapport built with a therapist and can pick up and get to work once they are ready.
At Vibrant Life Therapy in American Fork, we have seen all of these reasons and more as to why we cannot give clients a clear estimate of how long therapy might take. Therapy isn’t one-size-fits-all—and that’s a good thing. Every client can work at their own pace, using methods that fit their unique needs. We take an individualized approach to every aspect of care, ensuring treatment aligns with each person’s goals and readiness.
