Why Weekly Therapy Supports Deeper Healing – Especially for Mums in Midlife
- Dr. Jenny Turner
- Sep 25
- 6 min read
When it comes to accessing therapy, one of the most important — and yet often overlooked — questions to consider is how often you’ll be meeting with your therapist.
The answer might seem like a purely practical one at first (time, money, diary space) — but in reality, the frequency of your therapy sessions plays a huge role in how deeply and effectively you’re able to heal.
For some clients, fortnightly sessions can work well. But for others — especially those navigating childhood emotional neglect, attachment wounds, or any form of trauma (including birth, breastfeeding, fertility or perinatal trauma) — a weekly therapy rhythm is not only recommended, it’s essential - especially for the kind of lasting, embodied healing that I offer.
In this blog, I'll explore why, and I'll touch on all the various aspects to this debate, that I believe you will want to consider, when choosing between weekly and fortnightly therapy.
The Case for Weekly Therapy
Emotional healing needs consistency and containment:
If your therapy is beginning to explore themes such as:
Feeling unseen or unsupported in childhood
Relational trauma or emotional neglect
Anxious or avoidant attachment patterns
The grief and trauma of birth experiences, breastfeeding difficulties, fertility struggles or perinatal loss…
…then weekly therapy offers you and you therapist the safety and consistency needed to hold these experiences with the compassion and care they deserve.
When we begin to unpack old pain — especially pain you may have spent years (or even decades) suppressing — you need a steady and reliable therapeutic space that holds you gently, and doesn’t let you drop.
In my clinical experience, trauma processing is simply not as effective, nor is it experienced as feeling very 'safe' for the client, when I've tried to offer it in an every-other-week schedule. Weekly therapy helps us stay with your emotions in a way for real change to happen — without too much of life’s busyness pulling you away again, and again, and again.
You might have some trauma to process, even though you're not aware of that yet:
For many of the mothers I work with, in midlife, the challenges that first bring them into therapy can seem, on the surface, like everyday struggles — chronic anxiety, low self-worth, perfectionism, difficulty saying “no,” constantly keeping busy, and the resulting overwhelm and burnout.
These patterns are often seen as just part of being a modern mum, trying to keep everything together. But in truth, these are often subtle signs of early life emotional wounds — particularly childhood emotional neglect, attachment disruptions, or developmental trauma that have never been fully seen or processed.
The feelings of never being quite “enough,” of needing to earn your worth through doing or caregiving, or of never feeling safe to rest — these are not personality flaws. They are very often signposts towards deeper emotional wounds that deserve gentle, compassionate exploration — and weekly therapy gives us the consistent space to do that in a way that truly supports healing.
Weekly sessions create more momentum, which means faster progress:
A common concern I hear is: “But I don’t want to feel like I’m in therapy forever.” That’s a completely valid desire — yet there is an interesting paradox here:
Weekly therapy is often the fastest and most cost-effective way to experience long-term change.
Fortnightly therapy might seem more manageable financially or logistically, but over time, it often results in slower progress — which can stretch out the healing process significantly.
This is especially true when we are busy Mums - Because with work-pressures, unexpectedly sick children and holidays, sessions can sometimes need to be cancelled - When this occurs in a fortnightly schedule, it can regularly mean that a whole month passes without a session being held.
Weekly sessions mean:
More consistency over time, even with some inevitable and unexpected cancellations
Less time spent updating on current stressors, recapping or re-anchoring in the therapy work
More time in the “deep work” that creates transformation
A stronger therapeutic relationship (which is the biggest predictor of healing in therapy)
Greater emotional regulation between sessions, as we stay in close contact with your inner world
So while weekly therapy is absolutely more of a commitment upfront, it’s a commitment that often results in more meaningful, quicker, and longer-lasting change.
Weekly therapy provides more emotional holding in the midst of a busy life:
For many of the Mums I work with — especially those in midlife, juggling work, cycle-breaking parenting, ageing parents, hormonal shifts and often unresolved trauma — life is already overloaded. Emotions are often very understandably pushed aside, suppressed or minimised because “there’s just no time to feel all that.”
Weekly therapy can be the one space each week where you are held, seen, and emotionally supported — without needing to hold anything together. You don’t have to be the strong one in your therapy sessions.
When our therapeutic rhythm is weekly, it’s easier to stay in emotional contact with those younger parts of you who are finally being heard and validated — whether that’s the inner child who felt invisible, or the new mother who never got to grieve what she went through during birth.
Prioritising time for you to receive some TLC is part of the exact healing we're hoping to do:
I know how easy it is — especially as a mother in midlife — to feel like there’s just no time for you. That your needs have to come last, after the children, the partner, the job, the household, the endless to-do list.
And therapy? That can feel like yet another thing you "should" fit in, even though it’s for you. But the truth is, the belief that you don’t have time for your own care is often the very wound we’re here to work on.
So, in many ways, starting with weekly therapy isn’t just a practical, scheduling decision — it’s also often my clients' first radical act of self-compassion and self-honouring.
It’s about walking the walk of valuing yourself, and the care you need too, not just talking the talk of "self-care."
When you commit to showing up for yourself weekly, you’re gently but powerfully breaking that unconscious cycle that says everyone else’s needs matter more than yours - I believe wholeheartedly that you are just as deserving of care as the people you care for, and my hope is to help you believe that too.
When Might Fortnightly Therapy Be Appropriate?
Of course, there are times when a fortnightly rhythm might be right for you too — especially if:
You are accessing therapy for a short-term issue, such as coaching-style support around a specific decision or challenge - I wrote about the therapeutic coaching I offer here.
You’re already quite far along in your healing and you're using therapy for ongoing maintenance or reflection
Your capacity (emotionally, financially, or practically) means that weekly therapy would be too overwhelming right now
In these cases, fortnightly work can still be valuable and supportive. However, it’s important to know that you will likely spend more time “catching up” and “reconnecting” with your therapist, which can slow the deeper healing process.
If you’re accessing therapy to explore the deeper roots of your struggles, or to process trauma in any form — I believe that weekly therapy will serve you better, and feel emotionally safer too.
In Summary: I wholeheartedly believe that weekly therapy is deeper, safer, more transformative, and therefore more cost-effective.
Weekly therapy offers you the safety, consistency and relational depth that trauma healing truly requires.
If you are beginning to explore difficult experiences from your past… if you're carrying the pain of a traumatic birth or fertility journey… if you are realising how childhood emotional neglect may still be shaping how you show up as a mother now… then weekly therapy is a gentle gift you can give yourself.
It’s a space for sustainable healing. For emotional integration. For breaking cycles.And for finally being seen and supported in the ways you’ve always deserved.
If you’re ready to explore weekly therapy with me, I’d be honoured to walk with you on this journey.
Whether you’re navigating midlife motherhood, perinatal trauma, attachment wounding or emotional overwhelm — you don’t have to do it alone.
Feel free to reach out and we can explore what rhythm of therapy feels most supportive for you right now.
I'm Dr. Jenny Turner, clinical psychologist, mum and founder of Mind Body Soul Psychology - a specialist, trauma-informed, private psychology service for mothers in midlife - I can help you finally begin to relate to your own anxieties, shame, guilt, rage and overwhelm in a way that enriches your life & relationships.
I offer online appointments to women based all over the UK, and I offer in-person appointments in Ripon, North Yorkshire - click here to find out more: www.mindbodysoulpsychology.co.uk
You might also like to follow me on Instagram, @drjennypsychologist , or sign up to my Substack newsletter for regular moments of solidarity in the challenges of this midlife mothering journey, as well as compassion & inspirations for guilt-free self-care, at this time of life.
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