Brief Psychotherapy: Tautology or Oxymoron?

In the classic little book The Elements of Style, E. B. White recounted how William Strunk, Jr., waxed eloquendy on die beauty of brevity in die use of English, and how he recommended pruning deadwood from cumbersome sentences:Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that die writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subject only in oudine, but diat every word tell. (Strunk & White, 1979, p. 23)Analogizing from die elements of literary style to the fundamentals of effective psychodierapy, we contend diat:Good dierapy is precise. A session should contain no unnecessary psychological tests, no protracted or redundant mediods, no needless techniques, no prolonged silence, and asBrief Psychotherapy: Tautology or Oxymoron? 37 little dilatory rhetoric as possible. This requires not that the therapist gloss over important details, nor that he or she forgo thoroughness for the sake of brevity, but that every intervention tell.