Do you know that several “well-known names” in psychotherapy adopted the Single Session mentality?
Although we are in 2017, we have already had the opportunity to underline how Single Session Therapy has been studied and implemented in many contexts for many, indeed many, years.
See, for example, the article by Flavio Cannistrà, Single session therapy is an old thing.
There is a particular thing we say during our workshops: “You are already doing Single Sessions, even if you don’t know it.”
Think of all the times you have a session and, the next, the person does not show up: that’s a Single Session. Both when it is the first and last session, and because, even if it is not the first, it is a session in which you have the opportunity to leave something significant to the person, and by “significant” we mean “that it helps him to resolve his problem”.
So why not understand how to maximize every single encounter (be it the first, the last, or any of the therapeutic process)?
And here’s the interesting aspect: many important psychotherapists throughout history have thought that adopting a Single Session mentality, that is, making the most of each meeting, was a key principle. Who are these authors? You sure know some of them.
11 psychotherapists who have adopted the single session mentality
Certainly there are many more than we mention, but here are some of the most significant:
Sigmund Freud: the father of psychoanalysis was able to experience a Single Session Therapy on at least 2 occasions. In fact, there are two cases reported in which the doctor from Vienna solved problems in a single session: the treatment of Katarina, a nurse afflicted by strong anguish encountered during a holiday period (he had to do a TSS even on vacation ), and Gustav Mahler’s composer and treatment of impotence, who solved his impotence by working with Freud during a single, intense, walk.
David Malan: Known for being the father of brief psychodynamic psychotherapy, Malan conducted research at the prestigious Tavistock Clinic in London between 1968 and 1975. He and his colleagues verified how a long line of people had significant improvements after a Single Session of diagnostic intervention, both at the symptomatic level (51%) and even at the level of psychodynamic reorganization (24%). The author directly argued that, before sending a patient to a long or short treatment, it would be advisable to try a Single Session.
Moshe Talmon, Michael Hoyt (in the photo) and Robert Rosenbaum: founding fathers of TSS, or rather authors of the first systematic research, in 1992 conducted, on a sample of 60 patients, the first systematic Single Session Therapy intervention. It turned out that 58.6% of those treated with a single TSS session expressed positive changes in their lives: the degree of improvement, measured on a scale from 1 (high) to 5 (zero) was 1.7. The results were maintained in the follow-ups conducted at 3, 6 and 9 months.
Eric Berne: quoted by Goulding & Gouding (1979, authors of redecision therapy), is known to all as the father of transactional analysis. Working in a privileged way with groups of people, he began each of his therapy groups by declaring the following sentence: “What can I heal, in each one, in this room, today?” This is really a typical TSS mentality: having a specific goal for each session, on which to work for that encounter with the person.
Jay Haley (1969): psychotherapist known for having been part, in the 1950s, of the original Palo Alto Group (the group of Bateson and colleagues who formulated the double bind theory), for having “discovered” the world ‘outstanding psychiatrist Milton H. Erickson (see the book Uncommon Therapies), for creating strategic family therapy, and for working with Salvador Minuchin, Haley used to ask in her first session: “If I were to tell you that we will have a just meeting, what would you like to talk about? ” As with Berne, this is a typical TSS mentality and this phrase is still often used today by therapists who practice it.
Nicholas Cummings (1995): Past-president of the American Psychological Association, Cummings wrote of the opportunity for resource-focused intermittent treatment to be offered during the person’s life cycle. He used the terms intermittent psychotherapy and psychotherapy along the life cycle, meaning the need to conceive psychotherapy also as an “as needed” service, which the client can have when he wants, for the problem he wants, and for the duration strictly necessary: even a single meeting.
Irvin Yalom (2005): an outstanding author known perhaps primarily for his contributions to group psychotherapy as well as for his approach to existential psychotherapy, argues that the life of a group of people with psychological problems, a group that usually changes rapidly, must be considered as a single work and therapy session. Like Berne and Haley, he conceptualizes the idea of working in every single session as if it could potentially be the last.
Milton H. Erickson (1987): many of the cases cited by the famous and charismatic Phoenix psychiatrist, known for his innovative methods that have influenced a large number of psychotherapeutic approaches in the last thirty years of the 1900s (in particular, but not only , the new approaches to brief psychotherapy), and because of his revolutionary contributions to the field of hypnosis, they were effectively single-session therapies. Patients from all walks of life, with difficulties and disorders of all kinds, were often helped by Erickson in a single meeting.
Steve de Shazer (1982): the founder of solution focused brief therapy, unfortunately perhaps still not well known in Italy, is often quoted by many of the authors of Single Session Therapy. The SFBT, in fact, is an approach that has in itself many concepts dear to the Single Session Therapy, including the fact of focusing on the resources of the person and, in fact, conceiving each meeting as complete in itself.
Carl Whitaker (1989): well-known psychiatrist with unconventional methods (he himself referred to his methods as therapy of the absurd), pioneer and innovator of family therapy, as well as teacher of Michael Hoyt (one of the “founders” of Single Session Therapy ), explicitly invited us to remember that you never know if the session you are having with that family will be the last. As a result, he suggested working to get the most out of each and every meeting.
Windy Dryden (2016): professor of psychotherapy at Goldsmiths University in London, trained with Albert Ellis, Aaron Beck and Arnold Lazarus, he is quite well known in Italy given the large amount of his books that have been translated. Dryden, in all probability, was among the first to integrate cognitive-behavioral therapy with Single Session Therapy, and he was certainly the first to write books about it (with a preface by Michael Hoyt).
Learn the wisdom of the wise
This is just a limited number of people who have adopted the mentality, or even the practices, of Single Session Therapy. During our workshops we often cite cases, examples, principles and practices of authors like these, to show that TSS is a far from new and limited approach, and that it has its roots in the principles and practices of similar authors. If you want to learn more about the principles of TSS download our free ebook (click here), or participate in one of our workshops in Single Session Therapy.
Flavio Cannistrà & Federico Piccirilli
Psychologists, Psychotherapists
Founder & Co-Founder of
Italian Center for Single Session Therapy
Bibliographical references
Berne, E. (1966). Principles of group therapy. Rome, Astrolabe, 1986.
de Shazer, S. (1982). Patterns of Brief Family Therapy: An Ecosystemic Approach. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.
Erickson, M. H. (1987). Works. Vol. I-IV. Rome: Ubaldini astrolabe.
Freud, S. (1980). Works, vol. 12. Turin: Bollati Boringhieri.
Freud, S. & Breuer, J. (1893). Clinical cases. In S. Freud, Works, vol. 1. Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 1975.
Goulding, M.M, Goulding, R.L. (1979). Changing lives Trough redecision therapy. New York: Grove Press.
Haley, J. (1969). The art of being a failure as a therapist. In The power tatics of Jesus Christ and other essays (pp. 69-78). New York: Avon.
Hoyt, M.F. & Talmon, M. (eds.) (2014a). Capturing the Moment. Single Session Therapy and Walk-In Services. Bancyfelin, UK: Crown House.
Malan, D. H., Bacal, H. A., Heath, E. S. & Balfour, F. H. (1968). Psychodynamic changes in untreated neurotic patients, I. In British Journal of Psychiatry, 114 (510), 525-551.
Malan, D. H. Heath, E. S., Bacal, H. A. & Balfour, F. H. (1975). Psychodynamic changes in untreated neurotic patients, II: Apparently genuine improvements. In Archives of General Psychiatry, 32 (1), 110-126. doi: 10.1001 / archpsyc.1975.01760190112013
Yalom, I. & Leszcz, M. (2005). The theory and practice of group psychotherapy. New York.
Whitaker, C. A. (1989). Nocturnal considerations of a therapist of the Roma family: Astrolabio-Ubaldini, 1990.