Three Perspectives on Brief Psychotherapy

Shortening the length of psychotherapy is one way in which the discrepancy between supply and demand in mental health services may be reduced. Brief therapeutic approaches developed from three different theoretical orientations are described: crisis intervention, brief behavior therapy, and brief psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy. The three approaches are compared with reference to conceptualization of the problem and techniques of treatment as applied to a clinical case excerpt. Differences and commonalities are discussed.