How Long Does Therapy Take? How Many Sessions Will I Need?

Short-Term vs. Long-Term Therapy: What the Difference Actually Means

Some therapeutic approaches are explicitly time-limited. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and its adaptations — including CaCBT, the culturally adapted approach Sukoon’s practitioners use — are typically structured around 8 to 20 sessions with a defined focus. This is not a limitation; it is by design. Short-term, structured therapy with a clear goal has strong evidence behind it for concerns like anxiety, depression, specific phobias, and certain relationship patterns.

Longer-term therapy tends to be relevant when the work involves: trauma with a significant developmental history, personality-level patterns that have been present for many years, grief or loss that is complex and layered, or situations where someone benefits from an ongoing therapeutic relationship as part of managing a long-term condition.

Neither is ‘more’ therapy than the other. They serve different purposes.

What ‘Enough Sessions’ Looks Like in Practice

Within structured approaches, progress tends to be tracked in terms of goals rather than time. At the beginning of therapy, a practitioner and client will usually identify what they are working toward, whether that is reducing anxiety symptoms, improving communication in a specific relationship, processing a particular experience, or developing greater emotional regulation. Progress against those goals is what determines when therapy is working and when it is complete.

For a practical reference: many insurance plans in Canada provide between $500 and $2,500 per year in mental health coverage. At Sukoon’s adult rate of $175 per session, that translates to roughly 3 to 14 sessions per year within a typical benefits plan. Knowing this number before starting can help with planning. See our full guide on therapy insurance coverage.

For South Asians: The Question Underneath the Question

When South Asians ask how long therapy takes, the underlying question is often something different: ‘How long until I am fixed?’ or ‘How long do I have to keep coming back?’ or ‘Will I need this forever?’ These questions carry a particular anxiety about dependency, about visibility, about what it means to be the kind of person who goes to therapy for an extended period.

It is worth naming directly: needing support over time is not weakness. A chronic physical condition would not be managed with one or two appointments and then abandoned. Patterns of thinking and relating that developed over decades do not dissolve in a few weeks. The timeline of meaningful psychological work is not a reflection of fragility; it is a reflection of complexity.

It is also worth noting that many people return to therapy in different chapters of their lives — not because the earlier work didn’t hold, but because life brings new situations that call for support. This is a healthy, thoughtful way to use the resource.

How to Evaluate Whether Therapy Is Working

These are useful markers:

• The specific concern that prompted starting therapy is reducing in intensity or frequency
• There is a growing capacity to notice patterns in real time, not just in retrospect
• The therapeutic relationship feels safe and productive
• New ways of responding to familiar triggers are becoming available
• Life outside sessions is shifting in ways that feel meaningful

If none of these are true after a reasonable number of sessions — and ‘reasonable’ is contextual, but say 6 to 8 sessions — it is worth raising this directly with the therapist. The work should be producing something. If it is not, that is important information and it may indicate that a different approach, or a different therapist, would be more useful. See: Can I Switch Therapists If It’s Not Working?.

Pausing or Ending Therapy

Therapy does not require a formal ending, though good endings are valuable when they are possible. A therapist will not push someone to continue beyond what is useful. A client can always pause and return. Sessions can shift from weekly to fortnightly to monthly as the acute need reduces — this is a normal part of how therapy unfolds over time, not a sign of failure or incompleteness.

Ready to begin?  Start with a free 15-minute connection call. Our practitioners can speak to what an appropriate timeline might look like given what someone is navigating — before committing to anything.