Just started therapy yesterday

I get five free sessions through my insurance and then move on to a permanent therapist. I'm being seen for social anxiety and anxiety in general. Does anyone know what to expect in my next four sessions? How long does therapy usually take to help someone or how many sessions ? How long have you guys been in therapy?

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The length of time varies for everyone, but the issues that you're dealing with play a big part of that. 5 sessions may give you some insight to what is going on and some tools to help ease your anxiety. But it also can give you some information to see if you want to go to therapy on a long term basis.
i've been going on and off for years, with not-so-good therapists until I found my current T. I've been seeing her for 4 years

I thought therapy was short term stuff. Why are people going for years?

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Different service users will have different requirements. Short term contracts exist for as little as 5 or 6 sessions if appropriate, or therapy can be open-ended, lasting for months and even years. When you move to a permanent therapist, they should be able to discuss your therapy in detail and help you to ascertain what type of therapy is right for you.
There are a lot of people on this board in long-term therapy (myself included) but that's not necessarily representative of the general population, and there are many different uses for therapy across the board.

There isn't an answer to how long.

People go for all sorts of reasons and some people only need short term, others long term.

For instance I have PTSD and this stems from a long list of childhood trauma. Not easily dealt with in 6 sessions (although here in the UK the NHS kept only giving me 6 sessions a year because they are useless). Now I pay privately and we haven't discussed how long it will be as we have only really just started.

The main thing is that he therapy works for you and is long enough to meet your needs

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I've been going on and off for years and the reason is things keep popping up that are causing me trouble. This time I've been going about two years and alternate between my pdoc and my therapist. Due to deep depression it's a matter of keeping their eyes on me so I don't get to far down that I need hospitalization. So for me it's a matter of preventative care.

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Everyone's situation is different and everyone responds to therapy differently. Two people may enter therapy at the same time for the same reason, and one person may only go for three months where the other person goes for three years. You get out of therapy what you put into it.

My sister went for trauma-related anxiety (doesn't meet the criteria for PTSD) and was done in 5 sessions.

I have been going for about 5 months and have only just started to feel comfortable there. I never knew there could be so much to work through and so much to talk about. When I first started I thought I would be well finished by now but in fact I'm only just getting started with the difficult stuff. And I still have no idea how much longer it will take.

I think the time depends not only on the person but also on the type of therapy. Some approaches (e.g. CBT) work in a way that it's focused, specific goal oriented, and is designed to give the patient a specific set of tools then let them go. Others (e.g. psychodynamic or psychoanalytical therapies) are usually less focused on one area and attempt to deal with a broader range of issues including figuring out the underlying mechanisms -- these will obviously take longer.

I think some people also remain in therapy long term for maintenance, much like having a gym membership and exercising for the maintenance and open-ended improvement of health. Some also try a few different approaches and therapists before truly experiencing benefits and that takes time as well.

It's hard to predict what you will likely experience in the next few sessions but 5 sessions should definitely be enough for you to get a feeling.

Has anyone tried emdr therapy? Have you found that beneficial

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Yes , I've done EMDR and found it very beneficial.

There are many variables when it comes to length of treatment. It depends on the type of therapy, ability to trust, and to some degree the diagnosis. I have depression caused by ptsd and years of child abuse. My therapist and I have discussed possibly trying emdr however due to my extreme trust issues and inability to go into details about the abuse it would likely not work for me. Sometimes just bringing up the topic in session can cause a downward spiral. So we take it very slow.

[quote=dwfieldjr;4800679]Has anyone tried emdr therapy? Have you found that beneficial

Yes to both

[quote=dwfieldjr;4768526]I get five free sessions through my insurance and then move on to a permanent therapist. I'm being seen for social anxiety and anxiety in general. Does anyone know what to expect in my next four sessions? How long does therapy usually take to help someone or how many sessions ? How long have you guys been in therapy?

8 years and counting for me. Diagnosis is DID, which from what I understand takes a looooong time.

[QUOTE=kecanoe;4804689]What's did

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My t wants me to have goals. She talks about things I could do but doesn't really offer insight on how to do these things. Such as learning to take up for my self more often. Then she mentions some kind of roleplay, but then says she doesn't know how I could do roleplay or something. I'm getting the feeling like she wants me to find these things but I thought that's what Ts were for.

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[quote=dwfieldjr;4805014]Sorry. Dissociative Identity Disorder

I think it's pretty normal to be initially disappointed in therapy because the T can't/won't/doesn't do enough. I know I felt that way, at first. It might be that this is just what therapy is, or it might be that your T is a bad fit. I wish I could answer that definitively for you, but I can't. I feel confident you'll figure it out in time, though.

How do you know if there not a right fit for you. How far am I suppose to get in 5 sessions. We talk a lot but I don't know how far along I'm suppose to be, I dont feel like I've gotten that far. I know its a job for Ts. Not to say they don't care.

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I wish I had more definitive answers for you. I can tell you that five sessions isn't a lot at all, and if you don't feel much improvement after five sessions that wouldn't surprise me. If you don't feel any improvement AT ALL--like, even a little bit--I'd be more concerned and talk to your T about it.

I think it would be helpful to try and stop thinking about it in terms of "how far along" you're supposed to be on some objective scale and just try to compare how you are now to how you were before you started therapy/ "normally" are.

How do you measure that? Well, it sort of depends on what your issues are and what goals you and your T set (and there should be goals). For me, though I was extremely disappointed not to find myself "all better" after a few months, the changes were subtle and, as they added up, made all the difference.

Example: The very first time I knew therapy was working--and not just in the cathartic way that you can feel unburdened by confession--was I was driving along, saw some flowers by the side of the road, and thought, "Wow. Those are so pretty. I wonder what kind they are. I'm going to look them up in my wildflower guide. I think I'll stop here later in the season and collect seeds to plant in my garden next year." Subtle, not life changing on it's own, but here was a thought that 1) assumed I would be alive and gardening six months from now 2) showed the promise of taking pleasure in SOMETHING 3) illustrated that I could be 'out of my own head' long enough to appreciate something beautiful 4) piqued a pleasant curiosity.

I couldn't remember the last time I'd had a thought like that prior to therapy. Every single thought I used to have was negative, fatalistic, self-hating, etc. etc. Every. Single. One.

As for whether or not you know if the T is a good fit? I'm not really the best person to ask. A lot of people shop a lot for a therapist they just 'click' with. One who makes them feel good about themselves, who they like as a person, and so on. As if finding a therapist is like finding a soul mate. I'm not one of them. For me, the alliance took time (like, ten sessions? Fifteen?) I guess just ask yourself if you think someone else would be better?

Sorry for the novel. Good luck and I hope something in there helped.

When do you see your T again?

Tuesday

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Why do you ask

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Just curious to see how it goes. Mostly I was putting off a bike ride.