ABSTRACT
Teaching on a counselling course, I have found that students tend to see
long-term therapy as superior to short contacts and I think this view may
have three main sources, all of them stemming from anxiety. One is that
psychoanalysis is seen as the peak of a hierarchy of therapeutic
interventions, and thus to work short-term is seen as inferior, a blow to the
therapist’s self-esteem. The second stems from a belief that given enough
time all problems can be resolved, and therefore brief contacts stir up
anxieties regarding limitations. It is difficult to accept that no relationship,
however long it may continue, can provide the answers to all difficulties.
