The difference between brief counseling and longer term psychotherapy is hard to define as there are common factors that apply to both ways of working. There are many and varied definitions of what counseling and psychotherapy are and the differences between them. What follows is a common definition, one that I find useful and one that broadly applies to how I work.
BRIEF COUNSELING:
Brief counseling can range from anywhere from 3 sessions to 20 sessions, although some schools of therapy may claim 20 is actually long term whereas other schools of therapy may claim 20-40 sessions is a relatively short amount of counselling! It depends on what schools of counseling are defining these terms.
In general brief counseling is often problem and solution focused. A client may have some symptoms, various particular problems they would like solved and the counseling stays focused on achieving the goals negotiated between client and counselor. Brief counseling is, what is often called, ‘directive’ counseling in that the counselor is mostly task oriented and works in a direct and active way in motivating the client to achieve their goals.
The focus of brief counseling is less an understanding of one’s personality dynamics but more on achieving quick changes in one’s life. This involves working more on cognitions and actions and less on emotions. There are limitations to brief counseling as often we have psychological patterns which are enduring enough as to require deeper and longer work to change. Yet, much therapeutic work of value can be engaged in brief counseling.
LONGER TERM PSYCHOTHERAPY:
Psychotherapy, or longer-term counseling, can be anything from 20-40 sessions to over 25 years of weekly sessions. (Irvin Yalom, the famous existentialist psychotherapist, saw a client for this long!). This form of work is more oriented towards a deeper exploration of personality dynamics. Rather than focusing on problem solving particular issues current in one’s life, although this can be part of the work, psychotherapy involves an exploration of enduring themes in one’s life. Although the focus is still on how these enduring themes are played out in the client’s life now, the therapeutic work often involves an awareness of past developmental issues and how they effect the present.
Psychotherapy often focuses on personality and relationship issues, especially how these manifest in the relationship between the client and the psychotherapist. The key to psychotherapy can often involve a close exploration of the relationship between the client and the therapist and how the client’s enduring themes of relating to others manifest in their relationship with the therapist. In this work the relationship between the client and the therapist is seen to mirror the client’s relationships to others outside of the therapy space. Gradual working through of what arises within the therapeutic relationship provides the opportunity for gradual change in this relationship and in the client’s other relationships.
In contra-distinction to the brief and more active/directive counselor the psychotherapist is less active, in being directed to helping the client achieve goals, but more focused on creating a ‘holding environment’ where the client feels safe and trusting enough to allow old wounds to arise and to be healed through the therapeutic relationship. The focus on this work is thus not on cognitions and behaviour, as in brief counseling, but more on the emotions underlying the latter.
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