Why We Recommend Weekly Therapy Sessions (And What the Research Says)
Written by Aspire Counseling | Jessica Oliver, MSW, LCSW, Clinical Director
If your therapist at Aspire Counseling recommended meeting weekly—especially during the first couple of months—you might be wondering why.
Maybe you were hoping to save money by meeting every other week. Maybe your schedule feels packed. Or maybe you’ve done therapy before and it was always biweekly, so weekly feels like a lot.
Those feelings make complete sense. Therapy is an investment of your time, energy, and money. You want to make sure it’s worth it.
We get that. And that’s exactly why we recommend starting with weekly sessions. Not because we want to fill our calendars—but because the research is clear that this is what actually helps you feel better, faster. (For a broader look at therapy scheduling, check out our post on how often the average person should go to therapy.)
Let’s walk through why.
Why Does Session Frequency Matter?
How often you attend therapy—especially in the beginning—has a big impact on how quickly you start feeling better. Research shows that weekly sessions lead to faster improvement, stronger connection with your therapist, and better results overall, even when compared to the same total number of sessions spread further apart.
Think of it this way. If you were learning a new skill—like playing piano or training for a 5K—you’d expect to practice regularly, not once every couple of weeks. Therapy works the same way.
Between sessions, you’ll be trying out new strategies and paying attention to patterns in your thoughts and feelings. When your next session is just a few days away, your therapist can help you fine-tune what’s working (and troubleshoot what isn’t) while it’s still fresh.
When sessions are two weeks apart, it’s easy to forget what you practiced. Or to stop practicing altogether. That makes progress slower and harder. Researchers have found that higher session frequency improves the learning process because clients can better recall session content and apply new skills in their everyday lives.
How Do Weekly Sessions Help Me Build Trust With My Therapist?
The relationship between you and your therapist is one of the strongest predictors of good therapy outcomes. Research shows that this connection—called the therapeutic alliance—forms mostly in the first few sessions and then stays fairly stable throughout treatment.
That means we have a short window to build that foundation of trust and rapport together.
When sessions happen weekly, that trust builds naturally. You and your therapist get to know each other. You start to feel safe enough to open up. Your therapist learns what helps you and what doesn’t.
When sessions are spread to every other week, that process takes twice as long. And here’s the problem: many people stop coming to therapy before that connection ever really takes hold. Not because therapy doesn’t work—but because they didn’t get enough momentum early on to see the benefit. If you’re wondering whether biweekly therapy is enough, that post digs deeper into when every-other-week scheduling can work—and when it can’t.
What Does the Research Say About Weekly vs. Biweekly Therapy?
Multiple studies have compared weekly and biweekly therapy schedules. The findings are consistent: weekly sessions lead to faster symptom improvement and a greater chance of experiencing early progress in therapy.
A large randomized controlled trial published in The British Journal of Psychiatry found that more frequent sessions led to a quicker and larger decrease in depressive symptoms, along with less dropout, compared to less frequent sessions.
Another study of over 21,000 therapy clients found that those attending weekly sessions achieved meaningful improvement faster and were less likely to get worse over the course of treatment compared to those attending biweekly.
A review in the journal Administration and Policy in Mental Health found that session frequency—not the total number of sessions or the length of therapy—was the factor most strongly tied to better outcomes for depression across 70 psychotherapy trials.
The takeaway? Spacing matters just as much as showing up.
Why Do So Many People Drop Out of Therapy Early?
Studies estimate that between 30–50% of therapy clients stop attending before completing treatment. And the majority of those who leave early do so in the first few sessions—often before they’ve had a chance to experience meaningful progress.
That’s one of the biggest reasons we emphasize weekly sessions in those first 8 weeks. It’s not about being rigid. It’s about protecting your investment and giving therapy the best chance to actually work for you.
When you start to feel even a little bit better early on, you’re much more likely to stick with the process long enough to reach your real goals. Weekly sessions make that early progress more likely. Research has also shown that educating clients about how therapy works before treatment begins significantly reduces dropout—which is part of why we’re sharing this information with you now.
What If I Can’t Afford Weekly Sessions?
This is one of the most common concerns we hear, and it’s completely valid. Therapy is a real financial commitment, especially when you’re paying out of pocket.
Here’s what we’ve noticed, though: clients who start with biweekly sessions “to save money” often end up attending 6–8 sessions over several months without ever building real momentum. They spend roughly the same amount overall but don’t see the results they were hoping for.
Before you reduce session frequency, let’s explore other options together:
Can you use an HSA or FSA to help cover the cost?
Could we commit to just 8 weekly sessions to start, work hard during that time, and then reassess?
Are there other barriers (scheduling, childcare, commute) that we could problem-solve?
We also partner with Thrizer to help clients who have out-of-network insurance benefits get reimbursed for a significant portion of their session costs. Our team can help you figure out what your plan covers.
What If My Schedule Doesn’t Allow Weekly Sessions?
Life is busy. Between work, family, and everything else, finding an hour every week can feel hard. We understand that.
Here’s what helps: most of our therapists offer evening and some weekend availability. We also offer telehealth sessions throughout Missouri, so you can attend from home, your office, or even your car during a lunch break.
If you’re a busy professional who truly can’t carve out time for weekly sessions over several months, you might also consider our trauma therapy intensive program. In that format, you meet with a therapist twice a day for one to two weeks and complete an entire course of evidence-based trauma treatment in a concentrated timeframe.
What Happens After the First 8 Weeks?
Weekly sessions aren’t forever. Once you’ve built a strong foundation with your therapist—usually around 8 sessions—we’ll work together to figure out the best frequency going forward based on your progress and goals.
Some clients continue meeting weekly while they’re actively working through a specific concern. Others move to every-other-week sessions, sometimes with longer 90-minute appointments to allow for deeper work. And some are ready to start spacing sessions out further as they move into a maintenance phase. If you’re curious about whether more frequent therapy might be right for you, we’ve written about that too.
The key is that these decisions happen collaboratively. Your therapist will talk with you about what makes sense based on how you’re doing—not just default to a one-size-fits-all schedule.
How Do I Know If Therapy Is Working?
At Aspire Counseling, we don’t leave this to guesswork. We use a system called Blueprint to send you brief check-in surveys throughout your treatment. These track things like anxiety levels, mood, and how you’re feeling about your progress. For more on what progress looks like, see our post on how to know if therapy is working.
This means you and your therapist can see—in real numbers—whether therapy is helping. If something isn’t working, we adjust. If you’re making great progress, we can talk about when it might make sense to meet less often.
Measurement-based care like this is one of the ways we make sure therapy is actually doing what it’s supposed to do for you.
What’s the Bottom Line?
We know that asking you to commit to weekly sessions for 8 weeks is a real ask. It takes time, energy, and money.
But here’s why we ask: because we’ve seen—and the research backs this up—that it gives you the best possible chance of actually feeling better. Faster improvement. Stronger connection with your therapist. Better skill-building. Less risk of stopping before you get where you want to be.
We’re not interested in keeping you in therapy longer than you need to be. Our goal is to help you build the skills, process what needs processing, and move forward with your life. Starting with weekly sessions is how we set you up to do exactly that.
About the Author
Jessica Oliver, MSW, LCSW, is the founder and Clinical Director of Aspire Counseling, a trauma and anxiety-focused therapy practice with offices in Lee’s Summit and Columbia, Missouri. She founded Aspire Counseling in 2017 to create a practice where evidence-based treatment and genuine human connection go hand in hand.
Jessica specializes in trauma therapy primarily using EMDR and Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT). She is especially passionate about helping high-functioning professionals—doctors, lawyers, business owners—who look like they have it all together on the outside but are quietly struggling with the weight of past experiences or anxiety that won’t let up.
In addition to overseeing the clinical team at Aspire, Jessica offers one- and two-week trauma therapy intensives using CPT, where clients meet twice daily for concentrated, focused healing. She believes everyone deserves therapy that actually works—not just someone to talk to, but a therapist with real expertise, a clear plan, and the compassion to walk alongside you through the hard parts.
Ready to Start Therapy?
If you’re considering therapy—or you’ve already been referred to us and want to know more—we’d love to talk. We offer free consultations so you can ask questions and make sure we’re the right fit before committing.
Call our Lee’s Summit office at (816) 287-1116 or our Columbia office at (573) 328-2288. You can also reach out through our website to schedule a consultation.
No pressure, no judgment—just compassionate support when you’re ready.
