How many sessions does somatic therapy take?
Most people notice something shifting within the first three to five sessions, such as a bit more space around a reaction that used to be instant. For deeper work with complex or long-held trauma, expect six months to a year of regular sessions.
How long it takes depends on a few specific things, set out below.
A rough sequence looks like this.
Sessions 1 to 3
Settling in. We map what's going on while your body starts to learn the room is safe. Often the first shift is feeling less alone with it.
Sessions 3 to 8
Building capacity. Reactions that used to be automatic start to have a gap in them, and you begin catching yourself mid-pattern.
Three to twelve months
Deeper change. For long-held or developmental patterns, the nervous system slowly rebuilds its baseline, and insight starts to show up in how you live.
What affects how long it takes
Several things set the pace. A single recent event tends to resolve faster than patterns laid down early or carried for years, and something braced into the body over decades takes longer to unwind than a recent shock. Your starting point counts too, including your current support and stress load. What you're after also matters, since relief from one specific symptom is a shorter road than a deeper reorganisation of how you meet the world. Regular sessions build on each other, and long gaps mean re-establishing ground each time.
What a session looks like
Your first session runs 90 minutes, which leaves time to understand your history and what you're hoping for without rushing. Later sessions are 60 or 90 minutes. Most people start weekly or fortnightly and space sessions out as capacity grows.
There's no fixed package or minimum commitment. We work to what your system needs, and we keep checking whether it's still serving you.
Most of the work happens between sessions
Most people don't expect this part. A session is where something shifts, and the integration happens in the days afterwards, in how you sleep and how your body meets the next stressor.
A change has to be felt as well as understood, and a feeling becomes familiar through repetition. I use a rough rule of thirty repetitions for something to feel familiar, three hundred for it to become muscle memory, and three thousand for it to become who you are. Those numbers count days, and sessions are a small part of them. The work is teaching your system a new default, and most of that teaching happens in your ordinary days.
Want to talk through what your situation might need?
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