Cost of therapy

Psychoanalytic therapy is famous for expecting frequent sessions and for running over long periods of time.

As a tradition it descends directly from Freudian therapy where originally it was 5 sessions a week for long periods of time.

Some of the original Freudian school talked about how everyone needed therapy to understand their own mind and that eventually everyone would have their own therapist that they would see regularly for their whole life.

So the therapist isn't sus in the sense that he is fraudster, he is operating within an established tradition (one of the oldest traditions) of therapy and will be accredited etc.

Psychoanalysis is often criticised for the intensiveness and expense but it does have some good research evidence.

www.verywellmind.com/what-is-psychoanalytic-therapy-2795467

These days most people understand therapy as more akin to a short hospital stay if you are ill - you go in, get some input and get heaved out pretty quickly to cope or not on your own.

The psychoanalytic community see it as more like having regular health check ups with your GP - many healthcare systems will do a yearly bloods/activity/smear test etc.

The relationship that you establish with the therapist is crucial to the success of therapy - in general if you don't have the kind of relationship where you can open up then the therapy is unlikely to be successful.

Having said that, this is a really long term therapy situation even for psychoanalysis. You've said he has a stressful job and some health conditions - could the health conditions be driving this?

I have some (quite bad) health conditions and what the doctors call secondary depression and anxiety, ie I am depressed because I'm in constant pain and anxious because I don't know when the pain will flare.

If he has this then in my experience the nhs will not provide therapy but it is very very helpful in building coping strategies.

Totally agree

Hes addicted and the therapist likes the regular income

His therapist is now a very expensive emotional crutch - one I’m sure he is getting to be.

Twice a week and still no improvement? I’d be looking at changing ‘therapists’ tbh.

And yet it would probably him a lot of good to get out of his head and more in to his body. It's a shame he won't try other forms of therapy, but also worth remembering that even if we can see what we think is a clear answer for someone else we can't force others to change or impose our views.

I'm not surprised you're starting to lose sympathy, and I think you are probably right about a lot of this. I do think it would be very reasonable to redraw financial boundaries together. But you also need to accept the path he's on - it's not yours to fix.

Sounds like dependency has formed with the therapist.

Which dependency is hard to guess.

Could be a 'figure parent' as another poster has suggested. Could be a stand in friend.

Either way it's not something that can go on forever. He needs to manage the input, what is he putting into his own therapy? Also what is the output? What is he getting from the therapy and what's the plan to move forward.

It's like a physical ailment..... rehab will only get you so far, someone needs to put the effort in outside of the sessions, the stretches and exercises, a good diet, the right amount of physical activity.

I replaced my expensive therapist with exercise, going to the theatre, weekend travel and a cleaner. Worked better for me. Obviously that is not the case for everyone and won't work for people with trauma.

I don't buy into this Gen Z idea that everyone needs therapy. In my case my therapist was turning me into a moany navel gazing cow who blamed everyone else but myself for my circumstances.

That's so much therapy! He should definitely try to wean himself off it soon, it's not healthy to be that dependent on it. It should be a stepping stone not a permanent fixture in someone's life.

I suffered horrific trauma in my past life and was in a really bad way and had therapy for only one year.

With all your updates about his attitude and unwillingness to make other life adjustments, frankly I’d be going for an ultimatum with a view to ending the marriage if he wasn’t prepared to engage with you on putting a hard stop on the therapy unless he can demonstrate it’s doing more than “soothing” him. I think therapy and “looking after your mental health” have morphed into these sacred cows which nobody should ever dare question for fear of being called unsupportive or contributing to trauma. If this was a man insisting that he needed a £500-a-month personal trainer and gym membership to look after his health - which quite honestly would probably do a lot more for his overall health, wellbeing, motivation and sense of pride and achievement in himself than all this talking - he wouldn’t be receiving the same level of defence.

This therapist appears sus, as my DD would say!

"I just feel like it should be working towards him coping on his own and not needing it but he says his therapist never talks to him about goals of therapy or reviews or anything. It's just long term talking."

I'd also question the long-term dependancy and whether it's serving your partner's ability to build resilience and self-awareness. I say that as someone who has hugely benefitted from therapy over the years and done some training in this area as well/worked in the community mental health field.

In my household we use our personal budgets to pay for therapies (couples therapy would come our of the joint budget) - this is an equal amount of money we both have to spend on whatever we want each month. This works for us as it allows us to meet our different needs and ever-changing priorities. If you chose to do something like this, your husband's choice of 2 sessions a week would be his financial compromise to work out.

I might take a different approach if a partner had experienced Eg a recent trauma, but for something long-term I don't think it's reasonable that the compromise on other lifestyle aspects is both of yours.

He's not in love with his therapist is he? Just throwing it out there! There was a thread about it recently.

@lanya as you said up thread, your DH is very attached to the therapy and the therapist so it seems reasonable to conclude that the sessions are feeding an addiction of sorts. I suspect your DH can't see past his own needs because of this and that is why he won't consider any other type of therapy or taking a break.

My other thought is, if psychoanalysis is usually carried out over several sessions per week, why is it that your DH is only now (after ten years) increasing to two sessions?

It doesn't matter how he sees therapy, he is not in charge of how everyone in the household should feel. It seems to me that therapy and treats have the same benefits. His happiness is not more important than yours, regardless of how he has framed it to you.

I'd be losing sympathy too.

He's taking the piss. If he's had 10 years of therapy and still just wants to sit around watching TV, and complains about his stressful job but won't change anything, it isn't helping.

It's like you said, just 'talking' and navel-gazing.

Is he on any medication?

I saw an interesting interview with Professor David Nutt about his research into psychedelic use for treatment-resistant depression. Which has astonishing results but there was a group in the research cohort who just reverted back relatively quickly because their entire identity and existence was wrapped up in "being a depressive" and they couldn't tolerate being not depressed and what it meant to their lives and relationships.

For me personally, if he requires (in his mind) £7000 a year worth of therapy to function, still needed after 10 years, isn't willing to make normal healthy changes to his life but expects you to go without things that make you happy it would be time to end the marriage.

2 sessions of therapy a week is alot to fit in with normal life, I presume you don't have DC? At the least I'd be asking him to find a new therapist.

Could he try something such as CBT for example where he’s learns ways to help himself?