TOW Post #5- Article: "Shrinking Hours"

         

            Therapy is a key solution to solving your problems, a way to get everything out to a person who is not biased. Usually people can go for two to three times a week for about a standard one hour session. But recently these sessions have been declining. Most sessions today are are 50 to 45 minutes instead of  full 60 minutes. Some people are wondering why these sessions are shortening and if it is good for the patients.

             In the opinion section of the New York Times Newspapers, writer Richard Friedman, who is the Director of Psychopharmacology at the Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic and the Weill Cornell Medical College, brought up this recent trend. He tries to bring up this trend to those who are running these therapeutic sessions and who decided to cut them shorter. Friedman uses terminology that therapist would understand, why shortening time might not be the best thing, and refutes his argument.

           Using high intelligence terminology establishes his knowledge and credibility to his audience. Because his audience are most likely to be therapist, he create a level of common understanding. Terms like "psychotherapy" and "therapeutic truism" shows that Friedman has a good foundation of knowledge of the therapist "world." This pushes his therapist readers to consider what he has to say about sessions being shortened.

           Friedman also mentions why shortening the time is not beneficial to the patients. He bring up that it takes many patients to reveal their true feelings a good amount of time into the session. When cutting the sessions short the patient might not get everything out that they would like to say. Also the shortening sessions are still being charged as a full session. He explains how "a therapist can charge for a 45 minute session if it lasts between 38 and 52 minutes; a 30 minute session can run anywhere from 16 to 37 minute," ripping off patients financially. On the other hand Friedman does refute the negatives of shortening session by say that there was "one small study showed that depressed patients responded more quickly to a brief course of interpersonal psychotherapy than they did to the antidepressant Zoloft." 

          In his article Friedman successfully achieves his purpose by making therapists aware of the consequences, good and bad, that come with shortening the sessions and that they should reconsider their recent trend through his credibility and examples that explain the pros and cons.

Source:http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/opinion/sunday/shrinking-hours.html?_r=0