Brief Therapy

Brief therapy is a term that refers to various intervention approaches that endeavor to get from Point A (the problem that led to therapy) to Point B (the resolution that ends therapy) via a direct, parsimonious, and efficient route. Brief therapy may be defined succinctly as time-sensitive treatment to relieve psychological distress and/or promote growth or as the development of a collaborative alliance and an emphasis on patient strengths in the service of an efficient attainment of cocreated goals.

Synonymous with brief therapy is the phrase planned short-term therapy. Another closely related term is time-limited therapy, which explicitly emphasizes the temporal boundaries of the treatment. The approach is intended to be quick and helpful, without anything extraneous and without one more session than necessary. Brevity and ...