Brief Therapy
Over the past 30 years, I have become an expert in a few areas… hypnosis, influence, and persuasion. I have focused my expertise on helping humans become more effective and efficient in whatever they do.
This is the opposite of what most of us were taught in high school. Remember when you where assigned a 500-word book report or 1,500-word essay on the War of 1812. Every time my children receive these assignments, my left eye begins to twitch.
It’s not that I'm against students having writing assignments. In fact, I think most humans would benefit by learning to write better. The sign of a great writer, however, is not how many words they can write on a subject; great writers strive to communicate their message in the least amount of words possible. This guideline from the writing world has influenced most other areas of my life. (NOTE: There are certain areas in life that you do want to last as long as possible.)
I teach sales organizations to hear the word “yes” more often and in less time, I teach corporations and individuals how to have purposeful conversations that make big things happen with the least amount of effort, and I teach mental healthcare professionals how to implement brief therapy into their practices to facilitate change in the least amount of time. Brief therapy is what I’m going to discuss in this article.
Brief therapy applies to any therapy in which time is a consideration. There is no rule that states brief therapy can only be “X" hours otherwise it’s just regular therapy (whatever that means). Brief therapy is more of a mindset that focuses on being highly effective with the client in the least amount of time. Specifically, my goal of brief therapy is to help a client make their desired change as quickly as possible. That means as quickly as a single session or as few sessions as possible.
This is how I’ve made a name for myself over the years. For example, I often ask mental healthcare professionals to refer their most challenging client to me who has a phobia that they have not been able to help the client overcome. I send the client back to the mental healthcare professional after a single session with no signs of ever having the phobia. By helping the client make a change in less than an hour that their regular therapist has not had success with, I don’t have to convince them to hire me to help make their therapy more effective and efficient. Most of the time, they contact me wanting to learn what I did with their client.
Therapy can be shortened significantly by eliminating one question from the sessions… “Why?”
Most of the time, it is not necessary to understand the “why” of behaviors. The focus should be on making a change in the present and future. Finding “what" the client is doing and “how" they do it allows you to gather more relevant information than “why” they are behaving the way they are. With this information you can help them learn new ways to run their brain and change their behavior.
Your goal as a mental healthcare professional is to help your clients become their own therapist. Begin to think outside the therapy box.
Ask yourself these questions to help spark your creativity…
“What can I ask or say to this client in front of me that will help them think in a different way?”
E.g., “What would happen if when you put on your favorite music and sang along when you find yourself feeling sad."
“What hobby could this client take up that will help them learn the skills needed to make this change?”
E.g., I had a client who hired me to help with his anxiety. He had shared with me that he loved karate as a teenager. I asked him how long he thought it would take to master Tai Chi since he already knew karate. He told me that he didn’t think it would take long at all. I told him to take 8 weeks to learn and practice it. After that, he was to set up an appointment to show me what he had learned. To my surprise, he was very proficient with Tai Chi within a short amount of time. To his surprise, his anxiety was all but gone.
“What homework can I give this client that will reframe how they think about their challenge?”
E.g., I had a married couple come to me because they “just weren’t connecting any longer”. I asked them to cook dinner together for the next two weeks, and then we would meet again. During their next session, they let me know that they felt closer to each other than they had for several years.
“What is a small thing this client could change in their life that will push them closer to their desired outcome?”
E.g., I was working with a client for weight loss. One of her major challenges was candy. She was eating 10 or more candy bars every day. I told her that she could purchase and eat as much candy as she wanted, but she had to store all the candy in the trunk of her car. After a couple of weeks, it was “more trouble than it’s worth” to go out to the car every time she wanted a candy bar.
