By now you know, the reason that prompted Moshe Talmon and his research group to start research in Single Session Therapy was a significant fact: in psychotherapy the most frequent number of sessions is 1.
Talmon, Hoyt, and Rosenbaum verified this finding on over 100,000 patients and was subsequently confirmed by studies around the world (Talmon, 1990; Hoyt, Rosenbaum & Talmon, 1990; Weir et al., 2008; Hoyt & Talmon, 2014).
Being a psychotherapist is a profession. But I think that it cannot be “just” a profession: Its characteristics make it probable (if not desirable, or even necessary) to find inside elements such as vocation, passion, intellectual honesty, responsibility … However, it is certainly also a profession. And it is certainly not the first nor the only, which puts itself at the service of people to help them overcome a state of malaise or to achieve more complete well-being.
This raises a crucial question: the trained psychotherapist, to continue doing his job, must be able to conduct an economically sustainable activity. Otherwise in a short time he will be forced to stop his activities.
The question at this point is: does Single Session Therapy lead precisely to this risk?
When it comes to Single Session Therapy, three possible scenarios can be configured, starting from the same setting of the therapeutic intervention.
 In a nutshell, referring to the classic subdivision of Talmon (1990), we can say that essentially a SST can be of 3 types:Â
Single session therapy and its peculiarities described by Martin Soderquist, interviewed by Flavio CannistrĂ . During the interview Dr. Soderquist explains and tells us about the very beginning of his use of single session therapy with couples and what lead him and his colleagues to apply such a therapy, also discussing the results achieved.
In the last article we talked about the 10 General Principles to be adopted to start integrating Single Session Therapy into your practice: today we see 11 practical guidelines.
As already mentioned, these are the Guidelines originally presented by the group of Rosenbaum, Hoyt & Talmon (1992) and since then a lot of water has passed under the bridge. Furthermore, in an article we do not think we can be exhaustive.
Nevertheless, they are very useful for the clinician who wants to start integrating TSS in his own practice, giving precise references. To these, then, you can add the reading of our free EBook Single Session Therapy. An introduction to principles and practices.
You may be wondering how to integrate Single Session Therapy into your professional practice.
We have already answered that, regardless of the therapeutic approach followed, the use of TSS is possible for all therapistsBut, in practice, how can this be done?
Obviously in an article it is difficult to summarize all the points and explain how to develop them pragmatically, but we will try to give you an initial overview, promising then to return to the different points later.Â
How to integrate TSS into professional practiceÂ
It is certainly no secret to anyone that it is in this historical-geographical context, that overall in the contemporary world, the need to think about the possibility of short therapies becomes more and more urgent.
The economic crisis that has hit Italy and the rest of the world, and more generally the set of crises that characterize the era in which we find ourselves, bring with them many consequences, on a small and even large scale, even front of the personal well-being of citizens (see the in-depth article in the article The future of psychotherapy: trends and prospects).
In this article, of particular interest to healthcare facilities, we try to give a brief glimpse on how and why TSS helps in reducing costs. In particular, we will focus on the problem of waiting lists, although in this first article we will only give a very quick overview.
As Michael Hoyt (1994) recalls, patients are far less interested in therapy than the therapist himself is. Patients are quite interested in the result.
How is it possible, then, that up to now Single Session Therapy has had so little diffusion?Â
Althought in a synthetic way, we try to give some answers to this question.
Regardless of the basic training of each professional, there are some assumptions that transversally distinguish the Single Session Therapy approach.
Rather than modeling itself around predetermined psychotherapeutic assumptions or focusing on particular diagnoses, SST is characterized by a mindset that places the tools, methods and interventions of a wide range of approaches at the service of the client in a creative way, always bearing in mind that every single session could be the last.