By which I mean, as a client, coming to therapy on alternate weeks, for example. People ask me about this not infrequently, and over the years I've experimented with seeing people less than weekly, almost always because of the client's stated concern about cost. You might already guess just from the title of this post that my opinion of such an arrangement is less than a enthusiastic one.
Really, I think this "part time" approach to therapy is based in an essential misunderstanding of the nature of therapy, and of what one might hope to gain from undertaking a "course of treatment". I suppose there might be exceptional circumstances under which, for example, it might be appropriate to take only a partial course of say, antibiotics, rather than the usually prescribed full course. Three days rather than seven or ten, say.
Similarly, I suppose there might be what I'd consider exceptional circumstances under which a partial experience of psychotherapy could be acceptable. But let's put these exceptions aside, for the sake of this discussion. Under ordinary circumstances, why would a diminished approach to therapy be problematic?
Let me list some possible, or even likely, reasons:
avoidance; inefficiency; power/control issues; loss of focus; self sabotage.
It seems to me to be a no brainer to understand how coming to therapy less than weekly could be easily used by a client to simply avoid the real reasons for coming to therapy at all. More time between sessions, more time to become distracted, more time to "forget" to do assignments, more time to lose focus, more time to avoid. Which includes all the other reasons listed as well. Such an approach is simply an inefficient use of therapeutic time and resources; not that I think efficiency is a value unto itself. It so happens that I do not. However, a failure to consider efficiency at all, is also a mistake.
And then there are the over arching themes of momentum and consistency in therapy. These qualities of a therapeutic experience seem to me to be important and desirable; perhaps necessary for effective therapy to take place.
My conclusion: nah. Not worth the time or effort, as a rule. Save your money and go have a lovely night out or a weekend away instead. It would probably do you about as much good.
My Website: mdavid-lpcc.com
