How Long Should Therapy Last? Long-term therapy: not because something is wrong with me, but because life itself is an ongoing process of self-understanding.

There is an ongoing discussion in the fields of counselling and psychotherapy about the duration of the therapeutic process, or a counselling episode: how long should someone remain in therapy?

Sometimes people say that therapists and clients should be careful that the client does not become dependent on therapy. Another question is how long someone needs to attend therapy in order to achieve particular goals. In some contexts, there is a limit to the number of sessions offered, for example through the NHS or workplace counselling services.

All these factors, and many others, contribute to the discussion about the place and length of therapy in a person's life.

In my practice, I offer an open-ended number of sessions. It depends on the client and on how many sessions they want. Some of my clients have been with me for two years, while others have attended for a few months and, after a period of work together, decided that they can continue without therapy. Some choose to keep meeting occasionally, whenever they feel the need.

What I have often noticed is that conversations about how long someone needs therapy are based on the assumption that the more serious the issue, the more time is needed in therapy.

Recently, during a session with one long-term client, I realised that it is possible to see this in exactly the opposite way.

My client shared that they are beginning to appreciate not only the effects of therapy, but also the process itself. They said that they enjoy never knowing what a session will be like or where our conversations will lead. Often, the topic they bring at the beginning becomes irrelevant, yet it takes us to something much more profound and central to their experience of life.

Whether we begin by talking about childhood, a situation at work, or an irritation caused by someone in a shop last Tuesday, we somehow end up exploring something deeply personal and meaningful. The client may forget what the original topic was, but they remember the reflections about their core experience that emerged from it.

This client concluded that they would "never be finished with therapy".

As I listened, I found myself thinking: this does not mean that you believe you will never be okay because your problems are so serious or because there is something fundamentally wrong with you. Rather, it means that you are already accepting yourself as you are. You are saying: I am as okay now as I will ever need to be, and this is simply life.

Life shapes and conditions us in different ways as we move through it. There is nothing about us that needs to be fixed before we can be worthy or whole. We can continue working on ourselves not because we are failing to meet some standard, but because life itself is a journey, and we are always growing within it.

This, for me, is the essence of therapy, whether it is long-term or short-term.

There is no external standard that you are failing to meet and that therapy must help you achieve. Your experience is the only experience you have, moment by moment. Together, we can explore it, and through that exploration, perhaps you can come to understand yourself more deeply, feel more at ease with who you are, and embrace both yourself and whatever life brings.