With today’s article we take up a topic already addressed in the previous article regarding the existence or otherwise of criteria that establish an effective use of Single Session Therapy with clients, extending it to its use in the context of health services.   

The objective of the article will, in fact, be to identify the indications and contraindications for the implementation of SST in health services. The question we ask ourselves, in fact, is whether Single Session Therapy can be a valid tool for providing psychological interventions in healthcare organizations and what can make its introduction more effective.

To answer this question we will again make use of Windy Dryden (2019) who suggests some indications and contraindications capable of predicting whether SST will be used as an effective method within an organization.  

 What indicators does Dryden  believe will predict whether HST will flourish as a method of psychological service delivery within an organization?

Service support . It is important that the majority of workers in an organization support SST as a means of service delivery. Before the method is introduced, all interested parties must be able to share their enthusiasm, raise doubts, reservations and objections and discuss them in a respectful manner. Managers, therapists and administrative staff must all be involved in the decision regarding whether or not to introduce SST into the organization. Furthermore, where some therapists do not wish to be involved, they should be respected, so any covert attempts to sabotage SST will be minimised.

Adequate training . Before implementing SST in an agency it is important that all staff are sufficiently trained. This should involve both skill development and the opportunity to share and discuss doubts, reservations and objections about the method.

Ongoing support and supervision . Before SST is rolled out within a healthcare agency, it is important that there is ongoing oversight of how it is practiced to hone skills and protect client well-being.

Adequate administrative support . Within an organization, if there is not enough administrative support to incentivize SST service, it will soon fade away. Therefore, in organizations where SST grows, administrative staff actively participate in the team offering crucial feedback to ensure the smooth functioning of the service.

TSS integrated with other services . It is important that SST is fully integrated with the delivery of the organisation’s other services and not seen as a separate part of what the agency provides, managed by one or two enthusiastic individuals.

Accessible to the public . It is important that the SST service is accessible to the public,

In this article we address a topic that is of profound interest to both scholars of Single Session Therapy and those who are eager to learn it, namely the existence or otherwise of criteria for establishing its use with clients.

Windy Dryden (2019), one of the most important scholars of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in the world and a scholar of psychotherapies, maintains that there are two different ways of addressing the issue: the first is the one which provides for the existence of indications and contraindications, the second is the one that does not foresee any at all.

What kind of indications and contraindications do therapists rely on the existence of criteria to decide whether or not a client can receive a TSS intervention?

Let’s see some!

TSS can be indicated with :  

People who have daily living problems (non-clinical/emotional) such as non-pathological anxiety, depression, guilt, shame, anger, grief, jealousy and envy, or relationship problems at home and work .

People who experience self-discipline issues on a daily basis .

People predisposed to single intervention and ready to take care of their non-clinical problems , especially to prevent more serious problems.

People predisposed to single intervention and ready to take care of their own clinical problems such as simple phobias (Davis III et al ., 2012) or panic attacks (Reinecke et al ., 2013).

Stuck people who need help to free themselves and move forward.

People who see therapy as intermittent help throughout the life cycle.

People with personal development or coaching goals .

People with clinical problems , but ready to tackle a non-clinical problem, for example, a person with a personality disorder who wants help to overcome the problem of procrastination.

People who are open to therapy, but want to try it before committing.

People who want preventative care .

People with meta-emotional problems (e.g. shame of being anxious).

People who require timely and targeted crisis management.

With today’s article we want to once again deal with health services and the growing need for adequate responses in the field of mental health and psychological well-being .

To discuss the topic we will refer to a recent article Psychopandemic and risks of pharmacological abuse: what answers? by David Lazzari, President of the Council of the Order of Psychologists (CNOP) recently published on Huffpost, which in addition to highlighting the increase in psychological distress following the pandemic in all age groups, highlights how among the main forms of help adopted to intervene mainly involve the use of psychotropic drugs .  

Let’s see what the effects of the pandemic are after a year?

The following data was reported in the article:

Compared to the data reported by the WHO before the pandemic according to which 17 million Italians were already suffering from psychological disorders (Kastel, 2019), today this discomfort has increased significantly in the form of anxious, depressive or mixed disorders .

The highest incidence is found in risk groups such as: veterans from intensive care affected by Covid-19, physically ill people who have not benefited from treatment due to fear of contagion or access limitations, people who have lost a relative, caregiver or relatives of people with illnesses or disabilities, people with greater or previous psychological fragility, healthcare workers.

Another worrying fact concerns young people, children and adolescents . In a survey by the CNOP Study Center (15.01.21) it emerged that 47% of parents with children between 3 and 14 years have emotional problems, in another survey carried out on children negative psychological states were highlighted in 62% of cases. Among adolescents, 6 out of 10 say they feel stressed and one in three would like psychological support (Unicef ​​20.11.20).

With respect to the increase in psychological distress, which treatments are most used?

According to some official data from the AIFA (Italian Medicines Agency) and the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) show a significant