Physician Burnout: How Long is Therapy

Jan 31

When I do free consultations to assess for fit, I get asked the question, "How long is this going to take?" The long story short, is the length of the sessions and how often we meet varies. I wish I had a crystal ball and could tell you how many visits it’ll take. But I can’t. No one can. How long therapy lasts depends on a lot of different factors.

How Long Therapy Takes Depends

There's two parts to determine session frequency and duration of therapy. The two factors are the therapeutic style or modality of the treating therapist and the individual client themselves. In today's blog I am going to dive into these two factors.

Therapeutic Style

I'm going to start with therapeutic style or modality and the therapist. What I mean is the style of therapy the therapist uses or theories guides the process of therapy. There are long-term therapies and there are short-term therapies. An example of long-term therapy would be psycho analytic which is what Freud used. There are shorter term therapies and more structured activities like CBT or cognitive behavioral therapy. Some therapists’ style go more into introspection while other therapists really focus on teaching specific skills to use. Difference therapists have different therapeutic styles and approaches. Therapeutic style plays a role in determining the frequency, as well as duration, of therapy.

The Individual

Smiling person by Ivana Cajina Upsplash 1/23/23- Therapy for Physicians

As for the individual, the specific issue, the severity of the issue, and the client’s temperament factor into how long therapy will take. In terms of specific issues, the length to treat anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress syndrome, relationship issues and other issues differ. The treatment for a person that has suicidal ideation is different than a person that is doing self-discovery work. For a person who identifies as suicidal may be seen two or three times per week until they no longer have thoughts of self harm. For a person doing self-discovery work, they may be seen weekly. For the severity of the issue, treatment for a mildly depressed client may take less time than treatment for a severely depressed client. The wild card with each client is temperament. A clinician can never exactly tell how treatment will affect a client. Therapy is a science as well as an art form. I tell all the clients I work with that's the interventions that I teach and use work with all clients and that they work with no clients. The one thing that I ask of my clients is that they give each intervention a solid try at it. This is because some interventions resonates better with others or with their temperament. Individual factors can determine how long therapy takes.

How long does therapy take? It depends on the therapist and it depends on the clients. With people that I work with, I check in on a regular basis to make sure we are headed in the direction that my clients want to go.