The Virtues of Patience

I like goals in therapy. I tend to be more directive than other therapists and I have had plenty of clients who have benefitted from 6, 4, or even 1 session of therapy. And I have seen the opposite; people who continued in therapy after they have had as much benefit as they are likely to get.

We are all confronting how much patience we do or do not have and how our just-in-time, efficiency-oriented society has left us collectively and individually under-equipped to meet the medical and psychic challenges of corona virus. This article by Jonathan Shedler and Enrico Gnaulati seems particularly apropos in identifying how penny-wise-pound-foolish thinking in health care, and a general culture of impatience, has pushed psychotherapy away from long-term therapy even when it is indicated.

Academic researchers promoting brief manualized therapies tell us therapy is finished in 8 to 12 sessions. But if we believe the expert therapists—psychologists and psychiatrists of diverse theoretical orientations with an average of 18 years of practice experience—meaningful therapy has barely started.

Sometimes when governments or insurers seek to save money in health care, they end up making an efficient system for achieving poor results.