For a number of years, Rubin Battino has been presenting professional workshops on the art of very brief therapy. He defines very brief therapy as seeing clients only once or twice, with any additional sessions being the client’s choice. In his new book, When All Else Fails: Some new and some old tools for doing brief therapy, the emphasis is on the many approaches that can be used as rapid and effective methods for working with clients. The author feels that the essence of brief therapy is the expectation of the therapist (which is transmitted to the client one way or another) that only a few sessions will be needed to resolve realistically and satisfactorily the client’s concerns.

The book addresses both new and old ways of doing brief therapy. Some of the new ways include: expectation; the power of pauses; chatting as therapy; poetry; healing language; touch; laughter and others. Some of the old ways include: Gestalt therapy; bioenergetic analysis; neuro linguistic programming (NLP); encounter groups and group therapy; and ideomotor signalling; psychodrama; narrative therapy, provocative therapy and hypnosis. The last is an important part, both directly or indirectly, of all of the methods discussed. Whenever a client ‘goes inside’ during a session, they are effectively in a trance state.

A therapist who can choose among a variety of brief therapy techniques is more than likely to be in greater command of the therapeutic process as he or she will be able to choose exactly those techniques that fit their client’s situation and their personality. This book offers the professional a myriad of options for a more well-rounded practice.