
Therapy - how many sessions?
by Terence Watts
Many people avoid seeking help for their psychological problems, believing that you get ‘stuck in therapy’ for months, even years, and it’s far too expensive a commitment to even think about.
Well, that might be true for some types of therapy but it's certalinly NOT so for modern methodologies. And they don't just 'paste over the problem' either, as some of the old-school afficianados still claim. Gone are the days when you had to find the orginating cause of the problem and resolve it, which is how I worked originally.
Modern therapy uses an entirely different process that is not only faster but kinder and longer-lasting with a much lower 'fail' rate.
The older schools say things like: "About 50% of people will start to feel better after about 15-20 sessions of therapy" and "Certain short-term therapy types can produce results in as few as 12-16 sessions." That's a direct quote from verywellmind.com
FIFTEEN TO TWENTY SESSIONS!!! By modern standards, that's a LONG therapy!
The American Psycholgical Association (apa.org) that says of PTSD: "Recent research indicates that on average 15 to 20 sessions are required for 50 percent of patients to recover as indicated by self-reported symptom measures. There are a growing number of specific psychological treatments of moderate duration (e.g., 12 to 16 weekly sessions) that have been scientifically shown to result in clinically significant improvements."
That's as outdated as dial telephones and wind-up car windows!
Modern methods can resolve a problem - meaning completely get rid of it for good, not just provide a coping mechanism such as meditation, mindfulness, or breath work - in a mere fraction of those times.
Now, I have to declare a personal interest here, since I teach one of those modern therapies, BWRT - BrainWorking Recursive Therapy. Since its first outing in 2013 it has become the therapy of choice for many practitioners around the world.
Even profound issues like Complex PTSD can be quitckly resolved (sometimes in just a single session, not fifteen!) And this is NOT just hype, but experiential fact. It's used by psychiatrists, clinical psychologists and other therapists to get complete results faster than they have ever managed before. This is even the case in South Africa where violence and subsequent PTSD is common - BWRT sorts it out fast.
BWRT gets great results for almost all other psychological conditions as well, no matter how severe, again in far fewer sessions than the older style of working. Sometimes, in fact, just one single session.
So nobody ever needs to be 'stuck in therapy for years'!