How long does psychoanalytic psychotherapy take?
The kind of therapy we offer is open-ended unlike the kind of counselling you might receive at your local doctor's surgery. Normally their counselling is for a time-limited period of about 6 - 8 weeks.
Each individual is unique and, as problems may have been around for a number of years, it is difficult to predict how long a therapy may take, but normally weekly psychoanalytic psychotherapy takes 2-4 years. We want clients to feel safe in their therapy and secure in the knowledge that they have open-ended time to explore and resolve psychological problems. This means that when the therapy comes to an end both the client and the therapist feel that the time is right.
In nutshell there are three phases in psychoanalytic psychotherapy;
- The beginning period is where the working relationship is been built up, and the therapeutic space between the client and the therapist is being created. This is also a time where the trust is being built between the client and the therapist.
- The middle phase is where the psychoanalytic process is being worked through.
- The third phase is ending the psychotherapy which normally takes several months.