Nope. Not at all. Maybe I look like I’ll bolt if they do.

My psychology textbook claims the greatest benefits of all types of therapy are felt within the first two dozen sessions or so. I would largely agree from my own experience—I made the most advances within that timeframe in terms of tangible life benefits (leaving 2-ex, mostly). Since then, eh, it’s been more about survival and the relationship thing, which, meh, just seems like a way to guarantee continued income to me.

I have heard from a therapist (DBC) that the longer a client stays in therapy the more self-absorbed they become. She didn’t mean selfish so much as navel-gazing—like, oh, look, this happened when I was 3, so it explains X I do now, but then no follow-up action on changing it. Or they talk a lot about how much they’ve changed but in fact they’ve stopped changing and just want to talk about how they’ve changed, like a victory lap.

Of course, this was DBC.