The new edition of Single-Session Therapy: Distinctive Features provides an up-to-date general introduction to the field of Single-Session Therapy (SST).
Written by eminent clinician and author Windy Dryden, this book challenges mainstream therapeutic assumptions, predicated on the certainty that clients will have more than one therapy session. Following the popular Distinctive Features format, the book is divided into two sections, with 15 chapters describing theoretical features and 15 offering practical techniques of SST. Updates to the revised edition include new chapters on the importance of the working alliance in SST, on different types of help that clients seek from SST and on common errors in SST and how to avoid them.
Single-Session Therapy will be of interest to those across the psychotherapy and counselling professions and will provide extensive guidance for students, trainees and practitioners alike.
Preface
Part 1 THEORY
1. What’s in a Name
2. Misconceptions about SST
3. People Have the Capacity to Help Themselves Quickly
4. SST Is Based on Providing Help at the Point of Need (Rather than Help at the Point of Availability)
5. The SST Mindset
6. The Importance of Expectations in SST
7. SST is a Fusion Between What the Client Brings to the Process and What the Therapist Brings to the Process
8. SST Challenges Therapists’ Cherished Beliefs About Therapy and Change
9. What Can and Cannot Be Achieved From SST
10. The ‘Client Criteria’ Question
11. What Makes Good SST Therapists
12. For Better or for Worse: Context Matters
13. The Importance of the Working Alliance
14. From Theory to Practice I: Guidelines for Good Practice
15. From Theory to Practice II: What to Avoid
Part 2 PRACTICE
16. Overview: The Process of SST
17. Making a Decision about SST
18. Contracting
19. Preparing for the Session
20. Getting Started
21. Discovering What Help to Give
22. Working with Problems and Goals
23. Creating and Maintaining a Session Focus
24. Doing the Work
25. Utilising Client Variables
26. Making an Impact
27. Negotiating a Solution
28. Practising the Solution in the Session and Action Planning
29. Bringing the Session to a Suitable End
30. Following-Through and Following-Up
References
Appendix 1: 30 Ideas That Inform My Practice of Single-Session Therapy
Appendix 2: What Is ONEplus Therapy
Appendix 3: Therapeutic Contract with Professor Windy Dryden: ONEplust Therapy
Index
Biography
Windy Dryden is in clinical and consultative practice and is an international authority on Single-Session Therapy. He is Emeritus Professor of Psychotherapeutic Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London. He has worked in psychotherapy for more than 45 years and is the author or editor of over 260 books.
