Prof Windy Dryden

Keynote: Single-Session REBT: Learning from Demonstration Sessions

Time: 15.00 – 15.45 GMT

Keynote speaker: Prof Windy Dryden

In this Keynote address, I will discuss the principles and practice of Single-Session Therapy (SST) and show how REBT can inform this mode of service delivery. In particular, I will outline what I have learned from conducting over 400 single-session demonstration sessions that have helped me to refine my work in this area.


Windy Dryden is Emeritus Professor of Psychotherapeutic Studies at Goldsmiths University of London and is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society. He has authored or edited 233 books. His current interests are in single-session and very brief interventions within a therapy and coaching context. Relevant publications include: ‘When Time is at a Premium’ (Rationality Publications, 2016), ‘Single Session Integrated CBT: Distinctive Features’ (Routledge, 2017) and ‘Very Brief Cognitive-Behavioural Coaching’ (Routledge, 2017). His book, ‘Very Brief Therapeutic Conversations’ (Routledge, 2018) is focused on work he has done conducting live demonstrations of therapy/coaching in front of an audience that last 30 minutes or less. He has done more than 380 such demonstrations all over the world.

His latest books are ‘Single-Session Therapy: 100 Key Points and Techniques’ (Routledge, 2019) which outlines the theoretical underpinnings and practical applications of the single-session mindset, ‘Single-Session One-At-A-Time Therapy: A Rational Emotive Behavioural Approach’ (Routledge, 2019) which presents an REBT perspective on SST/OAAT, Single-Session Therapy: Distinctive Features (Routledge, 2019) which outlines the theoretical and practical distinctive features of this way of working with clients and The Single-Session Counselling Primer: Principles and Practice which is a comprehensive introduction to SST for counsellors.
His goal is to disseminate SST/OAAT with the hope that it might help provide help at the point of need within the NHS, a form of IAPT where the ‘I’ stands for ‘Immediate’.