It was largely driven by the insurance companies.

The notion was that in the beginning their was Freudian psychoanalysis. We are talking 4-7 days a week and I'm not sure how long the sessions used to be for.

Then there was this big push for 'therapist accountability'. It was a great deal cheaper to offer sessions once per week and it was possible to see a great deal more clients (important when people are on wait lists) if they had only one session per week.

I'm not sure that studies have been done on the 'effectiveness' of different numbers of times per week / different lengths of sessions. I'm fairly wary of the 'effectiveness' studies anyrate because oftentimes whatever it is that they are measuring was not at all what the patient wanted help with.

I'm fairly sure that the following has been found, however.

- People with anxiety, depression, OCD (and the like) can benefit quite well (and quite quickly) with cognitive behaviour therapies. Therapies that are too indepth lead to deterioration, however. The analytic theorists would say that you need to get worse in order to get better... But the person presents for treatment for their anxiety and ends up being treated for their failure to develop secure attachment in early childhood - whats going on here??? Accountability (was the argument)

- Increasing the frequency of sessions tends to result in increased transference. All well and good for theorists who think transference neurosis is required for a successful working through but undesirable and complicating for people who aren't trained in dealing with (and understanding) transference responses / feelings.

- Some people do require more time to 'warm up' at the start and 'cool off' at the end. For those people it might be profitable to have longer session lengths. Sometimes therapists will increase session lengths while people work through trauma. The majority of my clinicians have spent 90 minutes with me because I find things hard. My present therapist is very rigerous with keeping to the hour. The notion behind 50 minute sessions is a 10 minute bathroom, stretch, coffee break (maybe to write some brief notes) before the next session. Its about the number of clients you can fit into your day.

Those are the origins anyway. There is a lot that goes on that is largely due to contingent matters of history rather than any clear rationale.

If you want more sessions with your t...

COuld you ask... And list some of the benefits you think you will get out of it?