ABSTRACT
Ernest Jones (1955), in his biography of Freud, gives an early example of single-session therapy. In the summer of 1910 Freud was on holiday in the Netherlands when he received an urgent telegram from Gustav Mahler, the composer, asking for an appointment. Jones states that Mahler was greatly distressed about his relationship with his wife. Though loath to interrupt his vacation, Freud responded affirmatively to Mahler's request. Then he received another telegram cancelling the appointment.
Soon there came another request, with the same result. Mahler suffered from the folie de doute of his obsessional neurosis and repeated this performance three times. Finally Freud had to tell him that his last chance of seeing him was before the end of August, since he was planning to leave then for Sicily. So they met in an hotel in Leyden and then spent four hours strolling through the town and conducting a sort of psychoanalysis. Although Mahler had had no previous contact with psychoanalysis, Freud said he had never met anyone who seemed to understand it so swiftly…. This analytic talk evidently produced an effect, since Mahler recovered his potency and the marriage was a happy one until his death, which unfortunately took place only a year later [pp. 79–80].
