Feedback is one of the seven core interventions of Single-Session Therapy (SST) according to the method developed by the Italian Center for Single Session Therapy. Unlike interventions that take place at a specific point during the session, feedback is a cross-cutting intervention that spans all phases of the therapeutic encounter.
In an SST session, the therapist must maximize every minute to accurately understand the problem, build an alliance, and facilitate change. Providing intentional feedback therefore becomes a crucial therapeutic tool.
Why Feedback Is Crucial in Single-Session Therapy
Providing ongoing feedback throughout the conversation allows the therapist to:
- Verify whether they are truly “on course” with respect to the client’s experience and goals, reducing misunderstandings and misleading interpretations. It may happen that the client shifts away from the objective identified at the beginning of the session, and it becomes the therapist’s responsibility, with appropriate sensitivity, to determine whether they are still aligned or whether the goal needs to be revised (Cannistrà & Piccirilli, 2018).
- Help the client feel deeply heard, an element that fosters alliance and trust even within a single encounter (Miller et al., 2006).
When the therapist reformulates what the client has said, explicitly stating, “If I understand correctly, what you’re saying is…”, they make their effort to understand visible and create a shared foundation on which therapeutic work can proceed.
Feedback as a Tool for Building Alliance
The quality of the therapeutic alliance in Single-Session Therapy is directly related to the therapist’s ability to reflect back the meaning of what they have heard. In this sense, feedback is not merely a summary but an empathic and focused reformulation that communicates:
“I am following you, what you are saying matters, and I want to make sure I understand you correctly.”
Some clinically relevant effects include:
- Clients feel that they are not merely being “interviewed” but genuinely met and understood.
- The therapeutic alliance develops more rapidly, an essential characteristic in an approach that may consist of only one session.
Staying on Course: Feedback as a Compass
Words do not carry the same meaning for everyone. If the therapist misunderstands a key term or a crucial aspect of the client’s story, there may not be a second opportunity to correct the course.
This is why providing regular feedback throughout the session functions as a compass:
- It allows the therapist to verify whether the map they are constructing truly matches the client’s experience.
- It reduces the risk of drifting toward issues that the client does not consider central or that do not represent the true focus of the problem.
Each piece of feedback becomes a micro-checkpoint:
“Are we still working on what matters most to you?”
This makes the session more efficient and prevents unnecessary detours.
Feedback as Implicit Reframing
Paraphrasing is not only a way of confirming understanding; it often already constitutes an intervention on the meaning framework surrounding the problem.
A therapist’s reformulation may emphasize a resource, an exception, or a detail that the client has not previously considered important, helping them view their experience from a new perspective.
In Single-Session Therapy, this is particularly valuable because the client may begin thinking about their problem differently during the conversation itself, rather than only at the end of the session.
Feedback thus becomes a form of intervention, not merely a listening skill—a practical way of facilitating the onset of change within a limited timeframe.
Developing Feedback Skills
The ability to provide effective feedback is a skill that can—and should—be deliberately developed, especially when working from a Single-Session Therapy perspective.
For professionals who wish to integrate the structured use of feedback into their SST practice, the website terapiebrevi.it offers a dedicated video course on Single-Session Therapy. The course explores the core interventions of the Italian Single-Session Therapy method developed by the ICSST, helping clinicians structure each session and maximize its impact while providing practical techniques that can be applied immediately and effectively across a wide range of clients and presenting concerns.
Conclusions
In Single-Session Therapy, feedback is a cross-cutting competency that accompanies the entire therapeutic process. Through continuous, intentional, and well-calibrated feedback, therapists can build alliance, maintain focus on the client’s goals, and facilitate shifts in meaning throughout the conversation itself.
Single-Session Therapy therefore requires the use of feedback in a conscious, strategic, and well-practiced manner—not only to “understand better,” but also to intervene while listening, transforming every exchange into an opportunity for change.
Vanessa Pergher
Psychologist, Psychotherapist
Team member of the Italian Center
for Single Session Therapy
References
CannistrĂ , F., & Piccirilli, F. (2018). Single-Session Therapy: Principles and Practices. Giunti.
Miller, S. D., Duncan, B. L., Brown, J., Sorrell, R., & Chalk, M. B. (2006). Using formal client feedback to improve retention and outcome: Making ongoing, real-time assessment feasible. Journal of Brief Therapy, 5(1), 5–22.
Prescott, D. S., Maeschalck, C. L., & Miller, S. D. (2017). Feedback-Informed Treatment in Clinical Practice: Reaching for Excellence. American Psychological Association.