How long does therapy usually take?

Written by a licensed therapist in Long Beach.

Why can’t therapists give time frames for when therapy will be done?

When I get that question, I understand that the person is about to embark on a difficult journey of self-reflection and self-betterment. It’s an amazing thing to undertake and helps so many people live in their lives with less problems and more happiness. For many people, starting therapy is very uncomfortable (don’t worry, it gets better as you get to know your therapist) so they want to know how long they are going to have to do this uncomfortable thing (therapy) before they feel better. They might also be wondering about how much this whole thing is going to cost them.

This is the best way I know how to answer that question: It’s like running a mile. How long does it take to run a mile? 6 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes? What if there were road blocks along the way? Are there are people who are holding you back or are several people running right in front of you at a slow pace so you have to go around them? Are there walls you have to climb? How long would you estimate your mile run now? That estimate is much harder to gauge without knowing how tall the walls are, if there is any street construction (maybe it ends up being longer than a mile with street construction), how strong is the person who is holding your back, and other factors. You could come to therapy to work on having better communication with your spouse, and then your boss yells at you every day which causes you frustration which causes you to snap at your spouse which causes you to slide back on your progress on your original goal which was (do you remember what that goal was?) to improve your communication with your spouse. So unfortunately, there isn’t really an honest answer to the question.