If you are considering taking counseling therapy for the first time, you would possibly have the following 2 questions:
Is Counseling really effective? How can talking to someone about a problem - fix it?
How long or how many sessions would it take to fix my problem or see any result?
If you are on Question 1, I recommend you read this post. If however, you are convinced that counseling does work but are not sure of how long it would for you to see positive results, spare 3 mins and read on.
To answer this question upfront - The American Psychological Association states that "on average 15 to 20 sessions are required for 50% of patients". Refer to this article.
But this question can be compared to going to a gym on Day 1 and asking the trainer "How long will it take more me to lose weight?". Naturally, the trainer would ask you you current weight, the weight goal you wish to achieve, the time frame in which you wish to achieve it in, the number of hours / days in a week you can work out and finally if you have any existing medical conditions.
So it is with counseling therapy. The number of sessions required for clients to experience improvement in their problems, primarily depends on three factors:
- the problem scenario,
- the clients attitude towards solving the problem, and
- the transparency during the counseling process.
Based on SPARSH client data, those with COVID anxiety improve in about 9 sessions (median) while young couples with relationship problems take about 17 sessions (median). Certain clients with chronic depression have taken over 30 sessions spread over a whole year to see genuine improvement.
So if you're wondering how long would it take YOU to overcome a specific challenge in your life through counseling therapy, you could ask yourself the following questions:
How long have you been facing the problem you have?
Is the problem caused by an event or by a person(s) behavior or both?
If it's in event, does it keep happening or is a one time thing?
If it's a persons behavior, how often does this person express such behavior?
Can you control the environment to prevent such an event or behavior from occurring?
Are you open to looking at the problem from another perspective and make changes to yourself?
While these questions are not definitive, they help shed some light on the severity of a problem & the level of control you have over it. This can directly co-relate to how many sessions it would take to start seeing positive results.
After all, a typical counseling therapy session at SPARSH lasts 45 minutes where we employ CBT & NLP techniques to uncover the root causes to a problem and help you create & use simple solutions overcome one hurdle at a time.
"Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer."- Romans 12:12