Just 1 hour. How a single therapy session can help you overcome a problem
Experts and patients alike praise single-session therapy, which offers a more targeted approach to counselling while saving money and time
Just before the holidays in 2025, Julie Hart felt stuck. A nagging problem she had struggled with for years left her ruminating all day and questioning nearly everything she had ever said, done or could do.
She was considering traditional therapy but decided instead to try single-session counselling. Rather than committing to weekly therapy sessions, she would get only 60 minutes to tackle the problem. It worked.
“It helped me get unstuck, is how I would describe it, in a very positive, meaningful and effective way,” says Hart, who is from the US state of Virginia.
Hart joined what experts say is an increasing number of people who, at least for now, have decided to forgo the weeks, months or even years that traditional therapy implies in favour of a more targeted approach.
The therapy is what it sounds like: one session, typically an hour, in which a counsellor helps the client identify concrete steps towards relieving a specific problem. The intention is not to completely solve it, but rather to help clients walk away with a toolbox of strategies for how to approach it.
“Those strategies made all kinds of sense,” Hart says. “But you can’t identify them when you’re in it.”