Today’s article was created with the aim of addressing the issue of accessibility to psychological support.
I am Ester Fantoni, a psychologist specializing in psychotherapy at the ICNOS Institute, and starting today I am joining this space as a blog contributor.
I work in a small town in the Po Valley, one of those contexts where people prefer to “see you in person,” want to “know who you are,” and where the idea that “you have to manage on your own” is still strong. If I feel unwell, I go to the doctor to get medication.
In recent years, something has changed: talking about mental health has become possible. And yet, asking a psychologist for help is still often difficult, because the idea of the psychologist as “the doctor for crazy people” continues to circulate.
It is within this context that I grew up, trained, and now work. And it is precisely from here that I would like to guide you in discovering the power of Single-Session Therapy.
Prejudice and stigma: when asking for help feels too much (or wrong)
At this point, someone might wonder: but does a psychologist really work in these contexts?
Despite the resistance I mentioned, I find myself welcoming many people. However, the request for help often comes when the suffering has already become very intense. Before that, everything has been tried: medication, attempts to ignore the problem, sometimes even a more religious justification, “it must be the cross I have to bear!”
The dominant idea is that you have to manage on your own.
But then a point comes when you simply can’t do it anymore. And that’s when the number is dialed and a psychologist is called.
Often the path is this: first a desire for change arises, then one tries to tolerate, endure, grit one’s teeth… and only at the end does one ask for help.
The fear of others
Alongside the internal struggle, there is also the fear of others: “What will they think of me?”
The place where the psychologist receives clients then becomes a central element: a room in a neutral place, perhaps a bit ambiguous.
I remember when, at first, I shared my office with the town’s general practitioners. No one wanted to come there. There was a secretary in the waiting room; other people from the town could recognize who was coming in and understand that they had an appointment with the psychologist. The office was too central, too visible. “Others can see me.”
As psychologists, we cannot ignore these frameworks of meaning and significance: they define and, at the same time, keep the person “handcuffed” to their suffering.
On tiptoe, our work is to welcome and help the person find a different key, a possibility for freedom.
It is precisely in this scenario that proposing a single session can facilitate approaching the request for help, turning into a concrete opportunity.
Why proposing a single session makes a difference
Single-Session Therapy (Cannistrà and Piccirilli, 2018) has a great advantage: it immediately changes the perception of therapy.
We are no longer talking about a long process, no undefined commitment is requested, no one is asked to “enter therapy.”
The idea is much simpler: we meet for one session, we work on what is important to you, and then you decide whether to continue or whether that was enough.
In contexts where asking for help is frightening, this proposal often functions as a real “permission” to cross the threshold of the office.
The sentence I hear most often is:
“It’s just one meeting… I can try.”
This significantly lowers fear and stigma, because:
- there is no label,
- there is no feeling of “starting therapy,”
- there is no perceived risk of being judged,
- there is no fear of becoming trapped in a long process.
People enter with a different mindset: they do not have to prove anything, they do not have to convince themselves that they “have a problem,” they do not have to feel ill. They only need to understand whether a conversation might help them take a step forward.
Single-Session Therapy: when psychological care becomes more accessible
A single session can:
- provide support and sometimes even resolve the presented problem,
- offer a positive and immediate experience,
- restore agency to the person,
- allow them to experience that psychology is not a place of diagnosis, but a space of possibility.
In this way, people become aware that an endless process is not always necessary to feel better: sometimes a different reading of the problem, a focused intervention, or a conversation that opens new paths is enough.
In small communities, where stigma is more deeply rooted, this also produces cultural change:
one person who comes once often paves the way for others who otherwise would never have considered doing so.
Conclusions
Single-Session Therapy is not only an effective clinical method: it is also a powerful social and community tool, as it allows people to approach psychological support while lightening fear, concerns, and stigma.
In this way, it becomes possible to redefine the very meaning of “asking for help”: no longer a sign of weakness, but an act of responsibility toward oneself.
As a professional, I see SST as a valuable key to overcoming stigma and making psychology accessible even to those who otherwise would never have made that phone call.
One single meeting can change everything.
Ester Fantoni
Psychologist, Trainee Psychotherapist
in Systemic-Strategic Brief Therapies
at the ICNOS Institute
Bibliography
Cannistrà F., Piccirilli F. (2018). Terapia a seduta singola. Principi e pratiche. Giunti.