Three times a week

Really glad going more often is helping you so much. I'm just curious - are you attached to your T or does this come under the ambivalence about therapy? Going more than once a week isn't an option for me, but I'm wondering off the bat if going more often would ease the intense attachment or intensify it. I find the neediness/longing is worse for two days after therapy, then I seem to settle a bit, but it worsens again on the day before I see her.

I went 1 a week for about a year and I would go through a similar cycle and by the time for my next session, I didn't need to talk about any of it because I was "fine" and I didn't "trust" her any more. We upped to 2x a week and my transference intensified. So much more came up and was talked about. At the same time, the longing and missing was almost unbearable at times. After a year or so on 2x a week and after much discussion, we increased to 3x a week. I'm now at a little over a year at 3x week (Mon, Tues, Thur). My obsessing about her changed, the longing is not nearly as painful, I feel more secure that she is there. I still miss and want her between sessions, especially on our long weekend, I can often set it aside and do whatever it is life needs of me. I still write her between sessions both in a journal and through email. Since our big rupture this spring, I've been emailing her every day that I do not have session. I am getting closer to dropping the daily contact, I'm not sure yet if we've completely repaired the rupture. I don't tend to repair ruptures so I'm not sure what it looks like.

As to some of the other comments, yes in my part of the world, going 1 x week is the norm. I too feel that this type of therapy can be extremely helpful for some and wish there wasn't so much stigma around it and wished that insurance didn't have as much say in someone's treatment plans. I am lucky that my insurance has and does cover all my sessions. I too am fearful that they will at some point review my case and decide not to cover the additional sessions.

Hi thanks for replying, it's really interesting to read your experiences with this. I've only ever had once a week therapy because it is all that has ever been offered. I could have more with my current T but I don't have insurance being in the UK and I pay for it myself, so I simply can't afford it. With past Ts the intense attachment has come up but it wasn't really resolved. With Ts 2 and 3 contact between sessions was frowned upon and they rarely replied when I did contact them, which led to greater anxiety and I never felt safe enough to work through some deep stuff. Plus T2 didn't really do the whole transference thing, even though she helped me a lot in other ways. This T I see now is completely different, she is the safest T I've ever known and the attachment to her has developed very quickly. I miss her massively between sessions. She is okay with contact and is very attachment-focussed, which is what I need but the transference is so intense right now it is agonising. I'm more open with her than I have been with past Ts though, which I hope will help in time. It's great that your T is so okay with contact - I do think that these issues have the potential to work themselves out, if given space to. My T makes a lot of things safe that never were with other Ts (hugs etc) and as a result I feel as though it's simply okay, and some of the desperation has eased off. I don't know if that would be everyone's experience but it's mine.

I wouldn't describe myself as attached. But I certainly have complex feelings about and towards my therapist. I would say that going 2 or 3 times a week has helped make those feelings usable in therapy, at a manageable intensity.

At once a week those feelings were usually either inaccessible or seemed too overwhelming and threatening to discuss. Often they would flare right after the session and be gone by the next day, let alone the following week. Or sometimes, it seemed like how could I possibly tell my therapist I hated him (or whatever complex amalgam of feelings was shorthanding as hatred) knowing that we'd run out of time when we were in the middle of the conversation and I'd be stuck stewing in the unfinished aftermath for 7 days or more?

At twice a week those feelings became much more accessible and I felt much more able to bring them up and talk about them some of the time. They were a major focus on and off for a while, mostly because I was constantly having an especially difficult time getting started at the beginning of the session in a way that amplified some of that material.

At three times a week those feelings are still present and still get talked about but there's more room for them to exist alongside other topics, which feels like it makes them more complex and interconnected to other material in useful ways. Focusing on those feelings no longer has to mean excluding the other things on my mind because there's generally time for both. And it all feels much more cohesive than it used to.

I don't think going more frequently is the only way for all of that to happen, but given my extremely intense hesitation about trusting my therapist I can only imagine how long it would have taken for me at once a week. I would imagine some other people might have an easier time accessing the same material going less frequently than I do.