ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author focuses on the nature of single-session therapy (SST). After briefly discussing its origins, the author distinguishes between SST that lasts for one session with no prospect of further help and SST where the therapist and client embark on the process with the intention of helping the client in one session but where they agree that further sessions are available if needed. Some attribute the birth of SST to Sigmund Freud, who at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century saw two people for a single session while on vacation and did so as a favor to them. When it is clear, at the outset, that clients may have access to further help if needed, some therapists prefer to use the term ‘One-at-a-Time Therapy’ rather than the term SST. Traditionally, in counselling and psychotherapy, a ‘session’ is usually a ‘therapeutic hour’ which lasts for 50 minutes.
