Time-limited counselling

Abstract

This paper introduces a new synthesis of approaches to time-limited psychodynamic counselling, giving an account of some of its antecedents and of some of the values which underlie therapeutic effectiveness.

It offers a discussion of the impetus which may be obtained by facilitating the client in working towards a positive outcome which is clearly identifiable. Two time-limited counsellings are then described, in which the underlying conflicts, surrounding loss in the first and impaired trust in the second, are seen to emerge. Finally, some ethical issues are raised and the effects of the planned ending on the client's unconscious process are described.

Mental health, in the humanistic sense, is characterized by the ability to love and to create, by the emergence from the incestuous ties to family and to nature, by a sense of identity based on one's experience of self as the subject and agent of one's powers, by the grasp of reality inside and outside of ourselves, that is by the development of objectivity and reason.