Seven Principles of Single-Session Therapy

In this book, Professor Dryden outlines seven core principles of Single-Session Therapy (SST). Beginning with a discussion of issues concerning the nature of SST, he puts forward the view that single-session therapy is best understood within the context in which it is practised. He then outlines central features of single-session thinking or what is known as the single-session mindset which underpins good SST practice. Professor Dryden makes the point that SST is not several sessions crammed into one. Rather, it is complete in itself and has its own process which he carefully outlines.

One of the most frequently asked questions about single-session therapy stems from the doubts that therapists have about the possibility of forming a good therapeutic relationship in a single session. Professor Dryden shows that forming such a relationship is possible and argues that effective SST is based on the development and maintenance of a good working alliance and discusses the main features of this alliance.

Professor Dryden emphasizes that the effective practice of single-session therapy is based on (a) consensual views of good practice that stem from the single-session mindset and (b) individual contributions from therapists based on their views of what constitutes effective practice. In illustrating the latter, Professor Dryden discusses what he brings to the practice of SST from his own ways of working as a clinician.