This is the question people practising ATT ask more than any other: when do I move up? How many days on this one before the next? Which order? Am I ready for the harder version?

The published protocol’s answer is unexpected, and it is worth stating plainly:

There are no levels. The exercise is not designed to get easier, so there is nothing to graduate to.

What the manual actually specifies

Wells is explicit about this at the design stage. The technique should be attentionally demanding and should not become substantially less demanding with practice — otherwise, he writes, it would not systematically strengthen control processes[1].

Read that again as an instruction rather than a description. Most training is built so that what was hard becomes easy, and you then take on more. ATT is built so that what is hard stays hard. Difficulty is not a ladder you climb; it is a condition the exercise has to keep meeting.

So how is the difficulty kept up?

Not by advancing you. By changing the material. The manual specifies varying the sounds and their arrangement between sessions, and describes that variety as offsetting the effects of practice on task difficulty[1].

That single clause replaces the whole idea of levels. You do not get better at one fixed recording and move up; changing the sounds and arrangement is meant to limit familiarity. The thing you are meant to improve at is steering attention in general, not at this particular arrangement of sounds.

Which means the common practice pattern — find a session you like, repeat it daily until it feels comfortable, then look for a harder one — is inverted. Comfort with a specific recording is the state the protocol is designed to prevent.

What about the number of sounds?

There is one adjustable dial, and it is not a level. The manual gives a range of between six and nine sounds, tied to the level of demand required, not to how long someone has been practising[1]. Published work has used the top of that range: nine sounds across three distance bands, in sessions of about twelve to fifteen minutes.

So a session with more competing sounds is more demanding. That is a property of the session, available from the start — not a reward for weeks of practice.

Why the question comes up anyway

Mostly because of how ATT is usually encountered. Recorded sessions are often published as numbered series — Beginner 1, Beginner 2 — and a numbered series implies an order and a progression whether or not the underlying protocol has one. People reasonably ask when to move to the next number.

The honest answer is that the numbering belongs to the recording, not to the technique. Nothing in Wells’ chapter describes a sequence of increasingly difficult sessions or a criterion for advancing between them[1].

What to do instead of moving up

The protocol’s own answers to “am I doing this right yet” are about practice, not level:

  • Change the sounds, not the difficulty. Vary the arrangement between sessions[1]. If you use recordings, that means a different one each time rather than the same one until it is familiar.
  • Keep the schedule. The manual asks for practice twice a day at about twelve minutes, while noting that in reality most people manage once[1].
  • Judge by returning, not by mastery. The script’s instruction is to refocus when attention strays or is captured[1]. A session where that happened repeatedly is not a session you failed to advance past.
  • Expect the effort not to fade. It is meant to require practice and to stay demanding[1].

The reframe

If you are waiting to feel ready for something harder, you are applying a model the exercise does not use — and the waiting itself is a form of checking your own progress, which puts attention exactly where the technique is trying to move it from[1].

There is no next level. There is the next session, with different sounds.

For what to expect early on, see ATT for beginners; for the schedule, see how often to practise ATT.

Questions and answers

When should I move on to a harder ATT session?
The published protocol has no levels to move between. It is specified to stay attentionally demanding rather than become easier with practice, so there is no graduation point to wait for.
How many days should I stay on one session before changing?
The manual asks for the sounds and their arrangement to be varied between sessions, not repeated for a set number of days. Repeating one recording works against the design rather than building up to something.
So how does it get more difficult?
It does not, by design — the difficulty is held constant. The sound count is the one dial the manual describes, and it is tied to the level of demand required rather than to how long you have been practising.

References

  1. Wells, A. (2009). Metacognitive Therapy for Anxiety and Depression. Guilford Press. Chapter 4: Attention Training Techniques.

Published by the makers of Heed, an app for practicing ATT-style sessions. iPhone · Android. Heed is a self-practice tool inspired by ATT research — not therapy, and not a medical device.