Why Seek Weekly Counseling?
Photo courtesy of Magnific
From time to time, I will get asked by a client or a prospective client: can we do biweekly sessions? When asked this, I will always push for weekly therapy. And it’s not just to line my pocket. Why counseling once a week? The best answer to this question is the shortest one: Because it works. Of course, we therapists can back up this claim with data (for example, this study) and with our own pet theories, but I would wager that the real reason therapists do weekly sessions is because it tends to work well, and seeing clients less often than that doesn’t tend to work well. It’s a reason borne out of paying attention to our clients, to the work of therapy, and to human nature.
Why weekly counseling works: practically speaking
First, the boring answer. Weekly therapy just works more practically for both therapist and client. If I see some clients every week, some every two weeks, some every three weeks, some once a month…this quickly turns into a logistical nightmare. How will the therapist make sure he actually has time set aside for each of his clients? For clients, too, if they have a standing weekly appointment on their calendar, it’s easier for them to protect that time; scheduling becomes much more straightforward.
Weekly is natural
Christians believe that the week is not an arbitrary creation of mankind. It is a rhythm created by God Himself (see Genesis 1-2). In our modern world, we have made it very easy to forget that time and rhythms matter; after all, we can have heat in the winter, A/C in the summer, electric lighting in the middle of the night, and blackout curtains in the middle of the day. Yet, the rhythms of day, week, season, and year are so ingrained into nature—including human nature—that we cannot escape them. But when we align ourselves with the natural rhythms that God created, we can flourish.
For example, there is a reason why we go to church every Sunday, not every other Sunday or once a month. The people that I talk to daily or weekly are the ones who I really “do life with,” the ones for whom I actually know what’s going on in their day-to-day lives. Similarly, weekly therapy works with, not against, this natural rhythm.
Growth requires sacrifice
Imagine there are two people who both want to start waking up earlier in the morning. They both currently get up at 8am. The first one decides he’s going to start getting up at 7am. The other one decides he’s going to make a gradual shift and start by waking up at 7:55am. Which one do you think will be waking up early a month from now?
The correct answer is the one who starts getting up at 7am. Why? Because he acknowledges that this new habit is going to be difficult. There’s going to be a sacrifice. If I want to start getting up earlier, I need to start by facing the facts: this is going to sting. Jesus reminds us that, “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21). If we are willing to sacrifice our treasure—our time, our money, our energy—for something, then our heart will be in it. If you come to therapy knowing that it will require a sacrifice, your heart will be in it. You’ll have skin in the game.
Weekly commitment builds trust
As any parent knows, it isn’t just quality time that matters. Quantity of time matters just as much, if not more. When the only time you spend with your kid is at Six Flags twice a year, sure it will be a fun memory, but your kid isn’t going to open up to you. But if you consistently ask them how their day is, that allows for trust and safety to be created, and when they’re ready, they’ll come to you.
We need the safety of a committed and consistent relationship in order to take risks. If I’m doing weekly therapy with a client, they can feel safe to bring up something really difficult and painful, knowing that I will be there again with them a week later to continue to care for them. Having a guaranteed time set aside for a client every week enables trust and safety to build more quickly, allowing clients to take more risks, get out of their comfort zones, and experience more change.
But some counseling is better than no counseling, right?
Not necessarily. Going to the gym can be a good thing if you want to lose weight, but consider a man who signs up for a gym, only goes a few times, and then says that gyms are a scam and that they don’t actually work. It would be better for him if he had never signed up at all! Then he might at least have hope that there is actual help out there once he’s ready to make that commitment. Just like that man will get much more out of going to the gym consistently for 6 months than he will by going sporadically for a year, so a therapy client will get much more out of 6 months of weekly therapy than he will out of 12 months of biweekly therapy.
The humility to do counseling well
One of the core ingredients to successful counseling is humility: humility on the part of the therapist to be quick to listen, to be slow to rush to judgements, to not assume we have all the right answers, and humility on the part of the client to be open to new perspectives and trust the process and the therapist’s guidance and direction. I have to have the humility to think, “If other therapists don’t get the same results from less than weekly therapy, neither will I,” and the client must have the humility to think, “I might not totally get it, but my therapist says weekly will be more helpful, so I’ll give it a shot.”
If you’re not ready to make the commitment to weekly therapy, there is nothing wrong with that. It is good and wise to take time to count the costs before trying something new. But when you are ready, there will be a therapist prepared to set apart time for you each week to help you effect change and healing that will last.
