Short-term therapy
Psychotherapy? We like to associate urban neurotics à la Woody Allen, who are dependent on their therapist for life. In Germany, around half of all psychotherapies are so-called short-term therapies with around ten to 30 sessions - and many new studies prove their successes. Sometimes even a single therapy session is enough to get rid of problems such as spider phobia. Even Sigmund Freud, known for intensive and lengthy psychoanalysis, has achieved spectacular success with short-term therapies. So he managed in only six sessions to cure a mental paralysis of the conductor Bruno Walter.
Quite uncontroversial psycho-quickies with therapists are not. Critics say that "tinkering with the symptom" does not really help the patient. Then you may be afraid of heights but instead, for example, develop chronic headaches because the basic mental problem is not resolved. But: "Fears or constraints can also be an isolated disorder without the underlying cause of a complex mental illness", says the Hamburg psychotherapist Prof. Dr. med. Iver's hand. "You do not have to declare everyone a seriously ill person who has some mental abnormality." But when does a short-term therapy really promise success? There are some mental disorders that, from experience, can be treated fairly well in a few sessions. These include anxiety disorders such as fear of heights, claustrophobia (fear of tight spaces such as elevators, tunnels) or even the unfounded fear of suffering from an incurable disease. In a Norwegian study at the University of Bergen, such "conceited patients" lost their fears 80 percent after just five psychotherapy sessions. Also washing compulsion or control constraints ("Is the stove really off?") Often improve surprisingly fast.
A classic area of short-term therapy is crisis intervention, for example, after the death of a relative or after a divorce. A very recent study from Hamburg and Braunschweig shows that conversation psychotherapy limited to 12 hours after serious life events contributes to the fact that those affected are significantly better off than people who do not receive professional help in a comparable situation. Victims of violence can often be helped with short, targeted psychotherapy, as experience from the 33 trauma outpatient clinics in North Rhine-Westphalia shows. There, treatment under the Victims Compensation Act is free of charge for those affected.
For depression, therapeutic discussions help specifically ask about the current trigger of the mental disorder, often very fast (see interview on the next page). A new study by the University of Heidelberg also shows that short-term therapies can make sense in areas that were not previously thought of: The scientists compared patients with severe back pain. One group was treated for three weeks with muscle training, massages and water aerobics, the other group received nine hours of psychotherapeutic treatment, including relaxation exercises, instead of aquagym. This resulted in an impressive difference in long-term success: 94 percent of patients without psychotherapy had to be taken on sick leave in the next two years because of back pain. For the psychotherapy group it was only 60 percent.
And when should you rather stay away from a short therapy? In severe depression, chronic mental problems and profound personality disorders, one can expect no quick successes. Then a good therapist quickly realizes that well over 30 hours will be needed. In addition, it is also possible that behind a symptom such as washing compulsion is much more than just a disturbing habit. Prof. Hand: "There are simple and complicated situations, but you can not recognize that on the symptom alone." Sometimes it happens that the short-term treatment is still a multi-year psychotherapy.
