Why the “therapeutic hour” lasts less than
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usual-only 45-50 minutes? Why is the therapist himself and how the client benefits from this? Experts explain.
People who decided to seek therapeutic help for the first time, the news of how much one session lasts is often discouraged. And really – that you can have time in less than an hour? How did it happen that the “therapeutic hour” does not last long?
“There are several theories, and some even send us to Freud,” explains the psychologist, specialist in working with families Bekki Stumfig. -There is no consensus on this subject, but the fact remains: 45-50 minutes-the standard time that the therapist spends with the client “. For this there are a number of reasons for both practical and psychological.
Logistics
This is really more convenient from the point of view of logistics, and for everyone: for a client who can have time to get a specialist both before work and immediately after (and some even at lunchtime), and for the therapist who needs 10-15-minute breaks between sessions to make records of the just ended session, call back to those who called during the session, answer messages and, finally, just drink water and rest for a breath.
“The session can turn out to be psychologically very difficult for the specialist himself, and the break is the only opportunity to exhale and recover,” explains the psychotherapist Tammer Malati. “This is the only chance to reboot,“ move ”from the previous client and morally tune in to a meeting with the following,” Stemphig agrees.
Some therapists even reduce sessions to 45 minutes or plan half an hour between patients.
The content of meetings
The shorter the session, the more substantial and “essentially” a conversation is obtained. Understanding that his disposal is less than an hour, the client, as a rule, does not go into long explanations. In addition, he does not have to return to the experienced experience for a long time. “Otherwise, customers would have experienced a second trauma and hardly have come to the next meeting”.
“An hour or more alone with your emotions, mostly negative – for most it is too much. After that, it is difficult for them to return to everyday matters and even more so to work, ”explains the psychotherapist Brittani Bufar.
This duration contributes to the formation of borders between the therapist and the client. Stumfig notes that a 45- or 50-minute session will allow a specialist to remain objective, unbiased, without plunging too deeply into the problems of the client and not taking them close to heart.
Effective use of time
During short meetings, both parties try to use the time available at their disposal to the maximum. “So the client and the therapist are faster selected to the essence of the problem. Any secular conversation will be an unreasonable use of time, which, as you know, is expensive, ”explains Stumfig.
If the client understands that his problem is global and is unlikely to be allowed to resolve it for a session, it motivates him together with the therapist to look for local practical solutions, techniques that can be “taken away with you” and use it until the next session.
“The more time we have, the more long we usually go to the essence of the problem,” said Lori Gottlib, psychotherapist and author of the book “Maybe you should talk to someone”. In addition, at the end of a longer session, both the client and the therapist may experience fatigue or even burnout. The format of half-hour sessions is generally suitable for children: to focus even 45-50 minutes for most of them is too complicated.
The assimilation of information
Family Psychotherapist Saniya Mayo compares therapeutic sessions with lessons in high school. During the lesson, the student receives a certain amount of information about a particular subject. This information still needs to have time to “digest” and remember the main points in order to be able to do homework.
“You can stretch the session for four hours – the only question is what the client will endure and remember,” Mayo explains. “To digest” too much amount of information, and therefore, and to bear some practical benefit from it is difficult. ”. Therefore, when customers say that one session per week is not enough, the therapist usually offers to increase the frequency of meetings, and not the duration of each of them.
“It seems to me that the effect of two short sessions will be greater than one long. It’s like two small portions of food at different times instead of one hearty dinner, Gottlib comments. – Too plentiful dinner will not be learned normally: the body needs time, breaks between “meals”.
Application of knowledge gained
In therapy, it is important not only what we learned at the sessions with which insights left her, but also what we did in the break between meetings with the therapist, how we used the acquired knowledge and skills.
“This is important, not the length of the sessions,” I am confident. – The client should work not only at meetings with the therapist, but also between them: reflect, track his behavior, try to apply new psychological skills that his specialist taught him. It takes time for the information received to learn and positive changes begin “.
Can the session last longer?
Although the reception lasting 45-50 minutes is considered the standard, each psychotherapist is free to determine the duration of meetings. Moreover: working with pairs and families usually takes at least an hour and a half. “Everyone should have time to speak out and reflect the heard,” explains the family therapist Nicole Ward. An individual meeting may also need more time, especially if the client is in a state of acute crisis.
Some therapists also allocate more time for the first meeting to collect the maximum information, correctly determine the problem and help the patient formulate a request.
In any case, if you feel that, despite the above arguments, you need more time, do not hesitate to talk about this to a specialist. Together you will probably find an option that will suit both.