The aim of today’s article is to illustrate how Single-Session Therapy (Cannistrà & Piccirilli, 2018) can represent a valuable tool for anxiety-related difficulties.
Can a single meeting really make a difference?
In a constantly changing world, where people need practical and quick answers to regain balance and serenity, Single-Session Therapy represents a form of intervention that fits well with contemporary needs. It is based on the idea that each meeting can be considered complete and meaningful in itself, to the point that a person who attends even just one session may consider it sufficient to face and overcome their problem.
This does not mean, however, that those who turn to a psychologist practicing SST will see their problem disappear forever after a single session. Rather, it means that that meeting will have made a difference: for example, it will have allowed the therapist and the person to identify tools, strategies, and resources that the person can begin to use immediately.
When anxiety, from a natural physiological response, becomes an uncomfortable travel companion
Anxiety is a physiological condition that can manifest in different forms from person to person: it ranges from constant worry about the future to the fear of having to manage specific situations, such as exams, job interviews, or periods of change.
It is a reaction naturally adopted by the body and mind when faced with a situation perceived as potentially threatening. In other words, anxiety is a travel companion that wants to protect from danger but, in doing so, ends up seeing danger everywhere. Unlike fear, which is a basic emotion experienced in the immediate moment—when a danger is present and concrete—anxiety keeps one on alert even when the danger is still imaginary, vague, and undefined. This makes it uncomfortable in people’s eyes, because if it persists and becomes invasive, it compromises quality of life.
How Single-Session Therapy is useful
The usefulness of Single-Session Therapy lies in the therapist’s ability to guide people to focus on what they consider most urgent at a given moment. When, in fact, a person comes to the office determined to address their anxiety, the therapist helps them clearly identify which aspect of anxiety worries them the most, shifting from a nosographic diagnosis to an operational definition of the problem.
How is the operational definition of the problem developed?
In other words, the therapist will not dwell solely on the presence of common symptoms such as palpitations, racing thoughts, or the feeling of losing control, but will mainly investigate how anxiety works for that particular person. By clearing the field of preconceived ideas, the therapist guides the person to focus on what happens when they experience anxiety—namely when, how, and with whom it occurs, and what the person themselves does in response.
What are the next steps?
This attention to detail allows the person to understand which aspects they could intervene on and thus identify a goal. For even a single meeting to be complete in itself, it is necessary that this goal be concretely achievable by the person by the end of the session—that is, that it represent a S.M.A.R.T. goal (specific, measurable, attributable, realistic, time-bound). Examples include: preparing for an upcoming event, learning to manage a situation differently, distancing oneself from the thought that generates blockage. If the person identifies more than one goal, it is important for the therapist to guide them in prioritizing—that is, selecting the one they consider most urgent at that moment—so that single-session therapeutic work can gain effectiveness and efficiency.
From the search for exceptions to concrete tools
To trace the resources useful for bringing the person exactly where they want to go, during Single-Session Therapy the search will focus on past, present, or future exceptions: anxiety-provoking situations that the person has already managed in the past, is managing in the present, or imagines being able to manage in the future. These are moments in which they have successfully used specific previously acquired skills, or moments in which they believe it may be useful to acquire new ones. Tracing what the person has already done, is already doing, or could do allows them to visualize which tools are already part of their toolbox and which ones they might still need.
From unhelpful solutions to effective solutions
At the same time, the person also becomes able to recognize not only which actions they should take but also which ones they should stop taking: a Single-Session Therapy is, in fact, sufficient to identify those actions that appear to the person as possible solutions but that, in the long run, end up only fueling their anxiety, revealing their nature as dysfunctional attempted solutions (e.g., seeking reassurance, avoidance, excessive attention to the body, etc.).
Conclusion
Single-Session Therapy opens up a new perception of oneself and of reality, showing the person that they may have more resources than they think and that, even in just one session, they can find the approach best suited to them to reduce anxiety and make it manageable. With SST, psychological intervention is optimized in terms of time and cost, facilitating access to care and immediately guiding both clients and therapists toward autonomy and self-confidence.
Anna Falco
Psychologist, Trainee in
Systemic–Strategic Brief Therapies
at the ICNOS Institute
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Bibliography
Cannistrà F., Piccirilli F. (2018). Terapia a seduta singola. Principi e pratiche. Giunti