Time-Limited Psychotherapy for Whom

SHORT-TERM psychotherapy has been described as an effective method for treating many psychiatric patients. Good results have been reported with a number of different techniques.^1-5 In most reports, however, success has been described not measured. The general purpose of this study was to measure patients' response to a recently instituted time-limited (TL) psychotherapy program.

The study had three specific goals: (1) to determine if change occurred during the TL treatment period; (2) to test whether criterion measures useful in evaluating other brief treatments would prove sensitive to change following TL treatment; and (3) to determine what patient characteristics related either to treatment success or to treatment failure.

Method  The Treatment.—The study was conducted at the Psychiatric Clinic of the Boston University Medical Center. The clinic has adopted a TL treatment period of 12 hours.⁶ Although the 12 hours may be arranged