Why Therapy Takes Time: The Value of Being Seen

About twenty-five years ago, Consumer Reports did something unusual. Instead of asking academics or clinicians about the effectiveness of therapy, they went directly to over 4,000 people who had actually sought therapy for stress or emotional struggles. The results surprised the research world: therapy takes time.

People didn’t start reporting meaningful change until about the six-month mark. Those who stayed in therapy for a year did substantially better. And those who stayed for two years? Even better still.

This finding ran counter to a growing emphasis in the academic world on quick, manualized, "eight-to-twelve-session fixes." For researchers invested in brief therapies, the Consumer Reports study was a challenge to the narrative: real change doesn’t happen overnight.

What Seasoned Therapists Know

Years later, Emory University studied 270 highly experienced psychotherapists (average 18 years in practice). When asked to describe their most recent completed therapies for clients with significant depression and anxiety, the median number of sessions ranged from 52 to 75—roughly one year of weekly therapy.

Other large-scale research confirms this. The Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology looked at over 10,000 therapy clients tracked session by session with a tool that measured symptoms, relationships, and quality of life. About half of clients reported improvement after six months of weekly therapy, and more than 75% after a year.

In other words: the data keeps pointing in the same direction. Real, sustained growth in therapy mirrors what clinical theorists have been saying for over a century—lasting transformation is gradual.

Why Should Therapy Be Any Different?

Think of learning a language, playing an instrument, or becoming skilled in carpentry. In six months, you may just begin to find your footing, maybe enough to be a beginner. But mastery? That takes years.

If someone promised fluency in French or virtuosity on the violin in just a dozen lessons, you’d be skeptical. Why then should we expect the deep work of reshaping how we relate to ourselves, to others, and to our lives to take any less time?

The Problem with Quick Fixes

We live in a culture of “pop psychology,” where TikTok and Instagram feeds overflow with soundbites about trauma, narcissism, or anxiety. These quick takes oversimplify human complexity and promise shortcuts that rarely hold up in real life.

Academic research often reinforces the same message, focusing on brief, manualized therapies. Yet dropout rates tell another story. A 2010 study in the American Journal of Psychiatry found that of over 30,000 therapy clients, 40% dropped out after only two sessions and more than 80% before ten sessions.

One possible reason? Therapy wasn’t given enough time to build what matters most—the relationship.

Why Relationship Matters More Than Technique

I often tell clients: I am not a “quick fix” therapist. Change doesn’t happen because I hand you a set of tools. It happens because we build a relationship where you feel truly seen and understood.

If quick solutions were enough, Amazon’s endless shelves of self-help books would have put therapists out of business long ago. But people don’t come to therapy for information—they come to be witnessed.

Psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott put it beautifully: “It is a joy to be hidden, and a disaster not to be found.”

Therapy gives us a place to be found. To bring forward the hidden parts of ourselves and know they are safe in the presence of another.

The Slow Work of Being Found

When you encounter a therapist who doesn’t rush to fix, who allows your story to unfold at your pace, you begin to learn something profound: change is relational, and it takes time.

And maybe that’s the real gift of therapy. Not just symptom relief, but a space where being seen leads to becoming.

Consumer Reports. (1995, November). Mental health: Does therapy help? pp. 734-739.

Seligman, M.E. (1995). The effectiveness of psychotherapy. The Consumer Reports study. American Psychologist, 50, 12, 965-74.

Lambert, M.J., Hansen, N.B., Finch, A.E. (2001). Patient-Focused Research: Using Patient Outcome Data to Enhance Treatment Effects. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 69, 1590-172.

Olfson, M., & Marcus, S. C. (2010). National trends in outpatient psychotherapy. American Journal of Psychiatry, 167, 1456-1463. 

Shedler, J., Gnaulati, E. (2025). The Tyranny of Time: How Long Does Effective Therapy Really Take Psychotherapy Networker.

Yonatan‐Leus, R., Tishby, O., Abargil, M., & Wiseman, H. (2019). Therapist effects in yearlong psychodynamic therapy: An exploratory study. Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy, 26(6), 751-760