Therapy/counselling

[ColumboOnTheCase]

Hi how many sessions/hours of counselling did you receive before you felt the benefit of having them.

I feel I would benefit from some counselling for myself as I feel there is such a tangle of emotions in my head that I am unable to move forward in life.

But it is so costly I'm not sure I could afford it long term and would rather not start something I cannot see through.

It really does depend on you. What are you going for, what are you like, what is your therapist like, do you trust them? What kind of therapy are you having?

Someone going for trauma therapy because they lived in a war zone or was raped or abused in some way is going to be in therapy a lot longer than the person who is doing CBT for their anxiety.

I've been in therapy for two and a half years. I only really started addressing the deepest problems 6 months ago. It took me this long to get past my extensive trust and abandonment issues and talk about it. After a lot of sessions of testing my therapist to see if he would abandon me if I provoked him enough. He didn't.

My friend did a course of CBT for OCD and was much better after 4 months so stopped.

There are often ways to have low(er) cost counselling too - depends where you are based but charities and counselling/psychotherapy training organisations often offer free or low cost longer term therapy. A lot of therapists in private practice also offer a sliding scale to take your circumstances into account.

In terms of how long it takes, that depends on a lot of factors but I would aim to have at least a few months of sessions, if not a fair bit longer.

Thank you for your response@Notanotherwindow . It is nothing as serious as trauma or physical abuse. Just your average emotional abuse/negligence from my mother, which ramped up when I was at my lowest.

I made life decisions influenced by her which shaped the direction my life has moved and I feel so much anger towards her but mostly myself.

I was hoping a therapist could help me let go of this and move on. Try as might I can't seem to put it behind me.

I've helped people with family trauma similar to you've described and the issue is typically resolved in 3 hypnosis sessions. It's not right for everyone, but for people who know what caused their issues it can allow the subconscious to let go of past hurts that will never be resolved by trying to make sense of them.