Therapy Time: Understanding Sessions and Duration

It is time for therapy, time to uncover past traumas and current triggers and process them. Time to identify unhealthy coping mechanisms and learn new healthy skills. Time to reconcile and repair relationships. But how much time will this take? The answer therapists give to many questions, “It depends” applies here. Both the length of individual session time and the duration of treatment will vary depending both on the clients and on the therapists.

The length of a therapy “hour” is rarely an hour. Usually, a therapy hour is 45-50 minutes long (Guarnotta, 2023). Depending on the method of therapy, however, sessions may last longer. Practitioners using The Gottman Method, for example, may have 85-90 minute long sessions (The Counseling Hub, n.d.). Prolonged exposure sessions to treat PTSD are also 1.5 hours long (U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, n.d.). Clients will benefit from asking prospective therapists about the length of sessions for their practices. This will help clients make informed choices about therapy, and the time they will spend in it.

Duration of treatment time also varies with individual clients and therapists. Some therapists see clients for only six to eight sessions, just enough to equip them with the skills the clients want to better their lives (Myers, n.d.). Prolonged exposure, due to its intensive nature, runs a little longer, 8-15 sessions, or about three months (U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs). Other clients see therapists for years. The mean time for psychoanalysis for example, is three to seven years (Werbart & Lagerlof, 2022). Ultimately, length of time in therapy depends on client needs, resources, and wishes, as well as therapist availability.

Is time spent in therapy worth it? As long as it benefits the client, yes! When is it time to stop therapy? Well, that is an important question for clients and therapists to discuss, because the answer is, “It depends.”