How often should I go to therapy?
Imagine you’ve got a lingering cough. For a while, you figure you’ll get over it, but it persists. You give in and see a doctor, only this doctor is pretty conservative and ends up giving you a half-dose of antibiotics. It’s enough to keep the cough from getting worse—you feel a little better, but the cough lingers.
This scenario cues up an interesting empirical puzzle. Is it the case that the cough lingers because the antibiotics don’t work? Or maybe this isn’t the right antibiotic? Or is it the case that the dosage isn’t enough for the medicine to do its job?
Good therapy is a lot of work and it often doesn’t feel good in the short term. It’s also frequently expensive. Many people take years of suffering to be open to even weekly therapy. For some, that’s enough. The dose works. But for many others, the task confronted in therapy is bigger than a weekly dose can manage.