How to Plan Your Healing When Sessions Have Limits
“Therapy lays out a map for the journey of life, and each session is a gentle marker, helping you find your way forward.”
Therapy Is a Trail, Not a Sprint
When a new calendar year begins, access to Medicare-rebated psychology sessions under the Better Access initiative resets as well. For many people, this can bring a mix of hope, relief, and pressure. There is often an unspoken question underneath it all: What if ten sessions aren’t enough?
It can help to start with a reframe. A therapy journey is not a sprint with a fixed finish line; it is more like a trail. Some sections are steady and predictable; others are steep, winding, or require pauses to regroup. Medicare helps fund part of the journey, but it does not set the pace, define your needs, or measure the value of your healing. When viewed this way, January becomes less about “starting again” and more about planning the next stretch of your path with intention.
Understanding Medicare
The Better Access program was designed to improve our access to evidence-based psychological care. With a valid Mental Health Treatment Plan (MHTP) and referral from a GP, psychiatrist, or paediatrician, eligible people can access:
Up to 10 individual psychology sessions per calendar year
Up to 10 group therapy sessions per year
Services provided by a psychologist or eligible mental health professional
While there are conditions that may provide access to additional sessions, this forms the base that most people work from. Referrals are usually provided in stages, commonly six sessions followed by a review (with your GP), and then up to four additional sessions if appropriate. These limits are administrative, not clinical, they are designed to distribute funding, not to determine how complex, valid, or deserving your concerns are.
What the “Calendar Year Reset” Really Means
If you used all your sessions in the previous year, it can be helpful to treat a new referral as checkpoint. Just like on a trail walk, this can be a place to pause, look back, and ask:
What has been helping?
What still feels unfinished or tender?
What kind of support feels realistic and sustainable right now?
Taking a moment of contemplation helps to make sure you feel like you are heading in the right direction and still moving forward with the support you need.
Therapy is not a ten-step formula
There is no hard rule that it must follow a set number of sessions, and those limits were never meant to function as clinical prescriptions. Research consistently shows that the strongest predictor of meaningful improvement is the quality of the therapeutic relationship. The connection between you and the mental health professional you have chosen matters more than the number of sessions or the specific type of therapy. This connection includes feeling understood, being able to speak honestly, and having space to offer feedback. Therapy works best as a collaborative process. Talking openly about what is helping and what feels off is not criticism; it is valuable information. This might include:
• Naming when a technique or exercise doesn’t feel like a good fit
• Questioning interpretations or reflections that don’t quite ring true
• Sharing concerns about assessments, pace, or focus
What matters most is having clear markers along the way that help us know we are on the right path, rather than chasing an arbitrary finish line. Each session can help adjust direction, especially since much of the real work, reflection, practice, and integration, often happens between sessions, in everyday life.
Alternative Funding Pathways: Different Systems, Similar Pressures
Not everyone accesses psychology through Medicare. Other pathways may include the NDIS, Return to Work schemes, the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, private health, or private funding. These systems often look different on paper, but they share similar pressures. Reviews, eligibility criteria, and funding boundaries are common across frameworks. Instead of fixed session caps, support is often linked to:
Individual goals such as emotional regulation, daily functioning, relationships, or work capacity
Scheme-specific criteria, like “reasonable and necessary” supports or recovery-focused outcomes
Time-limited funding periods rather than open-ended care
Across all systems, therapy is most sustainable when it is clearly linked to meaningful outcomes and reviewed collaboratively over time.
Growth Beyond the Room
Therapy change often happens between sessions. Instead of traditional “homework,” micro-experiments allow you to “test” what works and what doesn’t. These are tiny, values-based actions that build awareness of how the theory can work in the reality of your life. Examples can include:
Self-compassion
When you notice self-criticism, pause and say, “I’m learning.” This can help reduces internal feelings of shame and increase patience.
Boundaries
Say “no” to one small request this week, notice how it feels in your body to set a limit with others. The goal is to help builds assertiveness and recognise when you feel “pulled” to please others.
Emotional regulation
Name one feeling before lunch each day, try to work on things other than “anxiety” or “stressed”. We often forget to recognise the emotions of shame, guilt or envy. We seldom take the time to reflect on our feelings until they are overwhelming us. This strengthens our emotional literacy and provides more time between the feeling and our reaction to pause and regulate.
Sensory regulation
Take a 2-minute sensory break, stretch, hydrate, or feel your feet. This can help to supports our nervous system and build our emotional resilience.
Micro-experiments encourage us to explore what is going on in our world. There’s no goal in mind (no perfect answer), just trying to learn more about who we are and how we work.
Planning Therapy With Compassion, Not Urgency
A sustainable therapy plan is often built around a few key practices:
A GP review to clarify current needs and confirm appropriate referral pathways
Thoughtful reflection on progress, including subtle or easily overlooked changes
Intentions rather than deadlines, prioritising direction and meaning over speed
Clear priorities, creating a gentle “triage” of what matters most and working with one focus at a time
Mapping supports beyond Medicare alone, such as self-directed strategies, private sessions, or community-based programs
Adjusting session frequency to align with your energy, capacity, and financial realities
Using sessions well doesn’t mean rushing to use them all. It means pacing care in a way that respects your needs and resources, while allowing space for integration and change to take shape in everyday life.
Your Hike, Your Pace
Each Medicare cycle funds another stretch of the trail, but the journey remains yours, sessions are just markers along the way. Healing unfolds in the space between appointments, through reflection, practice, and connection. Whatever funding path you have available, you decide the pace, the meaning, and the direction of the hike.
