How Often Should You Go to Therapy?
A Florida Therapist Explains What Frequency Actually Works
By the end of the first therapy session, or at a random party once someone learns I’m a therapist, I hear “How often should therapy be?” or some variation.
I understand the premise behind the question: “You should know better than me, you’re the expert.” But the nuance behind the question gets lost in this thinking.
I see you as a unique individual: complexities and overlapping traits and experiences that make up who you are.
There are no completely right or wrong answers with therapy. I am simply a to-the-point guide that can help you get where you want to go through collaborative, down-to-earth talk therapy.
So, let’s take some time to truly understand this question and how you can create your own answer as the foundation for your own growth.
Key Takeaways
How often should you go to therapy? The answer depends on your goals, emotional capacity, and where you are in your personal growth journey.
Many people begin therapy weekly to build a strong foundation, then transition to bi-weekly or monthly sessions as progress develops.
Therapy works best as a collaborative process between you and your therapist, not a rigid schedule or obligation.
The first few sessions focus on understanding your story, goals, and emotional patterns so your therapist can guide you effectively.
Regular therapy for maintenance can help prevent emotional overwhelm, burnout, and recurring stress patterns before they become crises.
Consistent sessions allow you to process guilt, shame, overthinking, and everyday frustrations in a supportive environment.
If you’re unsure where to start, a free therapy consultation in Florida can help determine the right approach and session frequency for you.
Many therapists now offer online therapy in Florida, making it easier to maintain consistent mental health support from home.
Growth Vs Obligation
Coming into therapy requires dedication. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about that.
You need to show up, ready to dive into all your behind the scenes stuff, and we don’t need an extra layer of obligation added to the mix.
With obligation, comes resistance; and with resistance, you’ll find that growth doesn’t happen very easily.
Instead, I don’t tell patients exactly how many times they should see me or how many times per month is required of them.
Requirements = Obligation. And we want to avoid that.
Therapy focuses more on introspection than me telling you what to think.
With that being said, we do come to an understanding. I will hold you accountable to what you say you want and will point out things that you may not have seen yourself.
Think of therapy as a collaborative effort toward better understanding yourself.
Building a Foundation
In your first several sessions, we are learning your story.
You have to remember that your therapist doesn’t know your experiences yet: they don’t know your narrative and they don’t know how those experiences have affected you.
These initial sessions allow us to build a foundation for future work.
We need this foundation to really understand what your goals are and how we can work toward them. We figure out what it means to be you and how you navigate this chaotic world.
That is why at the end of your first session, I don’t really know exactly how many sessions you may need. I don’t know the full context yet.
Based on that first session, I can begin to understand and may be able to help you come to a starting frequency; but that may also change as future sessions continue.
This usually means beginning with more sessions to build that story framework faster and then tapering off into a more maintenance level of sessions.
The key is that we meet enough times to create a strong foundation so we can move forward with ease.
What to Expect from therapy
When you come to your first therapy session, we will begin with the broad strokes of what you want to cover. We will clarify your goals and we will better understand the big picture of your story.
As we continue, we’ll dive into specific moments that still hold an impact on your identity and how you process emotions and experiences.
In any session, you will be guided and pushed to meet your goals. This may be difficult at times, but you always have your therapist there to help you through the process.
In your first session, you can discuss exactly what you feel works for you right now and how you would like to proceed.
Choose an amount of sessions that best fits within your daily life and capacity that you have to do the inner work.
Focus on consistent maintenance over crisis
Therapy is often associated with crisis. And though a therapist can help with a crisis, regular maintenance is far more impactful for your overall mental health.
Crises are not usually planned and your therapist can help you through, but you want to be able to discover who you are outside of crises to better understand yourself in a crisis as well.
Use your therapy sessions to unpack guilt, shame, and overthinking that impacts your everyday life.
You may know that getting overly frustrated because a chocolate square won’t come out of its packaging and end up yelling at it with a variety of expletives is probably not the most effective response.
Through therapy you can accept those feelings of frustration and make sure that you are not just building up those micro-frustrations until you blow up at random chocolate.
Because I have to tell you, the chocolate didn’t do anything wrong…
Regular maintenance therapy makes it so that you have the therapy tools to help yourself even outside of session. And those are the things that will impact your overall lifestyle and happiness most.
How Consultations Can Help
Picking a therapist can often feel as daunting as getting back on the dating market.
You don’t know if you are going to vibe until you are paying for your first session. But Therapy Hour & Co is different from other places.
With us, you can schedule your free 15-minute vibe check consultation to discuss your therapy goals and how best to move forward with remote therapy.
This no pressure atmosphere means that you can just grab a coffee and chat instead of feeling on the spot. Plus, it means that in your first session, you don’t feel that “Oh my gosh, what am I doing? I don’t even know this person and I’m gonna divulge my whole life story,” first day of school feeling that sometimes comes with a first therapy session.
Your first therapy session shouldn’t be more stressful than what you are dealing with day-to-day.
So let’s break down that extra barrier and set up a consultation call today.