Fast Therapy - Slow Healing Theoretical Analysis of Brief Therapy in Adolescent Mental Health Services
Authors
Hanway, Derek
Issue Date
2025.16.12
Degree
MA in Pscyhotherapy
Publisher
Dublin Business School
Rights holder
Rights
Open Access
Abstract
Abstract This thesis critically examines the rise of brief therapy within contemporary mental health systems, arguing that its widespread adoption reflects not only service-level efficiency demands but deeper cultural anxieties surrounding distress, diagnosis, and therapeutic containment. While often dismissed as a product of neoliberal managerialism, brief therapy has historical and theoretical roots within psychoanalysis—particularly in the work of Ferenczi, Rank, Malan, and Davanloo—who demonstrated that time-limited therapy can retain relational depth and emotional transformation. The thesis contrasts these models with current applications in youth mental health services, where brief interventions are often driven by outcome-based funding models, digital scalability, and a cultural climate of ‘prevalence inflation’ and diagnostic overreach. Rather than rejecting brief therapy outright, this thesis argues for its reclamation as an ethically grounded, developmentally attuned modality. When supported by clinical integrity and theoretical rigour, brief therapy can serve not as a shallow stopgap, but as a meaningful encounter capable of supporting genuine psychological change.