A Critical Examination of Irvin D. Yalom’s Single-Session Consultations

It is the Relationship that Heals

Windy Dryden

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2025
• Topic: Psychology
• eBook ISBN:
  9781040410493
• Subtopic: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
• Index: Psychology

This book explores the single-session work done by Irving Yalom and considers the implications of this work for the current theory and practice of single-session therapy (SST).

Due to failing memory and decreasing stamina as he aged, Yalom eventually decided that if he was to continue to offer help to patients, he could only do so by offering them single-session consultations. While it was perhaps reluctant single-session work, it coincided with the continued rise of SST starting with the publication of Moshe Talmon's book in 1990. This book examines Yalom's work against the growing literature on single-session therapy, covering both what single-session therapists can learn from Yalom's consultations as well as what they would not want to implement. Dryden closely examines Yalom's work in these sessions through a single-session mindset and tracks how it impacts the development of SST.

This book will be of interest to any single-session practitioners as well as those scholars and followers of Yalom.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsement
• Half-Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Yalom: A Reluctant Single-Session Therapist
• 3 Yalom’s Position on What Was Therapeutic about His Single-Session Consultations
• 4 The Sessions and Post-Consultation Patient Feedback
• 5 What Single-Session Therapists Can Learn from Yalom’s Single-Session Consultations and What They Probably Would Not Wish to Implement
• 6 Examining Yalom’s Work through the Lens of the Single-Session Therapy Mindset
• 7 Final Reflections
• Index