How Long Does Counselling Take?

I wish there was an easy answer to this one, but there really isn’t; it depends. What I’d recommend, and how I tend to work myself, is committing to a minimum of 6 weeks, so 4 sessions across 4 weeks, and then doing a mini review together to see where the client’s at from there.

I personally believe it’s really beneficial to work with a therapist super long term, like over a period of years, but obviously that isn’t financially viable for a lot of people, and some people can’t commit to that for various other reasons either, and that’s completely okay. The NHS typically offers a course of talking therapy in the region of 5 to 20 sessions depending on the type of treatment and how you were referred, with CBT often sitting towards the shorter end and other approaches like IPT usually running to around 16 to 20 sessions, and a lot of EAPs and counselling charities work within a similar range too. A huge amount of healing can happen in that short span of time, and for some people even 1 single session can be incredibly healing, though that’s a fairly rare circumstance rather than the norm.

Sometimes therapy comes to a natural end, where it feels like whatever brought someone to the room has actually been worked through, and there’s a real level of closure there. That number is completely ambiguous; it could be after 3 sessions, it could be after 20, it’s completely dependent on the person and what they’re bringing in. Are they delving into some really deep childhood content? Are they processing PTSD? Or is this a lighter thing that brought them to therapy- something that doesn’t need anywhere near that level of unpacking?

I wish I could give you a definitive number that could be tied up neatly in a bow, but in reality humans are so much more nuanced than that. Trauma can be complex.

If you’re weighing up whether to start, that’s a conversation we can have together (get in touch with me here), and there is no pressure to know the answer before you walk in.