Due to an upcoming business trip, I have to skip a session and can't reschedule for that entire week. I feel like I'm really starting to dig deep with my T and make some good insights. I've read that some of you have done longer sessions - mine are normally 45 minutes, so a double session would be 90 minutes. I'm planning to ask my T next week if she thinks it would be a good idea for me to schedule a double session when I'm back from my trip, but I'd love your feedback. What do you think are the pros and cons to having a double session, especially after skipping a week?

One of my sessions each week is 90 minutes. It does give us time to go deeper and still get grounded at the end.

T told me (and this has proven to be true) that we can't really have any expectations for the 90 minutes. Sometimes we could use MORE than 90 minutes, sometimes I am kind of "done" and we just end up chit chatting. It's impossible to predict how it will go.

I've never come away regretting it, though.

[emilyjeanne]

I also have a double session. I see my T twice per week. One session is for 45 minutes. The other one is 90 minutes. The double session has helped me feel safe enough to actually do the deep work.

The cons......It costs more (but worth it). It seems that I tend to have a hard time when my T goes on vacation. Because I'm seeing her so much. To rectify the situation I have a substitute T when she is gone.

[sunrise]

I think if there is enough material for 90 minutes, then go for it (if T is willing, of course). We used to schedule 90 minute sessions when we would do EMDR, as 50 minutes was too short to get through the protocol adequately. I have also had a few 2 hr sessions, especially couples. This is especially useful if you have certain things you MUST accomplish during the session (some sort of deadline you are trying to meet). My initial session with our child specialist was 4 hrs. But I was so glad to get so much out there on the table at once. It would have been really inefficient to come back 4 weeks in a row for 1 hr each time.

I will be interested to hear what your T says. Some Ts really like all the sessions to be the same length. I think the downside to a longer session is if you cover so much in the first half that you need processing time and you won't have that if you immediately go into the second half of the longer session. I know when I was doing trauma work, I often really needed processing time between sessions.

sunrise - 4 hours, whoa! I'm glad it worked out for you.

My T did mention in my first session that we'd later see if I should move to twice per week, she said sometimes that is beneficial - maybe now is a good time to bring that up again and discuss it further with her. Of course, the downside to going twice per week, or doing a double session, is definitely the cost. I could only afford to do twice per week as long as my insurance covers it, and then I'd have to go back to once per week.

T told me (and this has proven to be true) that we can't really have any expectations for the 90 minutes.

treehouse, I like this. I just feel like I'm going to be bursting at the seams after missing a session. Plus, I'm visiting my parents in about a month (I only see them twice a year, we don't live close to each other), and there are a number of things I want to work on with T before that visit happens.

The double session has helped me feel safe enough to actually do the deep work.

emilyjeanne, I think it may help me feel that way as well. I got into some deep issues during my last session, and I stopped myself from going deeper when I noticed we only had 10 minutes left. And then I must have looked at my watch 4 times in those last 10 minutes - they seemed to take forever, and that's never happened before!

I'll let you know what my T says next week!

Update - my T doesn't have any availability for double sessions, but I'm going to try 2 sessions a week for 2 weeks in a row, see how that feels. And they are very close together, too, as in less than 24 hours apart - this could be interesting!

[fallenangel337]

((((((((dreamseeker))))))))) I hope everything goes well for you! I would like to do a double session, because I feel like we don't really have enough time to go through everything, but I'm not sure if my T does them. It would be interesting to find out if she does, though.

[3velniai]

I always have longer appts because I'm just too slow and too timid to tell anything in 50mins. I had a full double session yesterday, it was after a month break, and it was very beneficial because i had time to get comfortable with t and talk about something urgent.