I'm bothered by the article's emphasis on the symptom. I don't think working on the issue causing the symptom is necessarily going to respond to short term work. I guess it depends on the symptom and what is causing it but concentrating on the symptom and my feelings about it just seem too oblique to me and if my headache is caused by a brain tumor (as happened to my mother; she was having grand mal seizures and was sent to a psychiatrist; as useful as talking about her mother/upbringing/past might have been to her it could not help the symptom) could be the wrong emphasis. I don't think therapy is about "believing" but about trust; I cannot tell you how many times I did not understand (YET!) but trusted my therapist knew what she was talking about and went along with her for awhile until I did understand.

I had a symptom for approximately 45 years, the one that brought me into therapy in the first place and, true to what the article said, it went away when I did not "need" it anymore. However, I did not need it anymore because of 20+ years work in therapy and my life. That I had it for 45 years, too, there was a huge area of habit involved and habits are not changed easily in short-term therapy. The length of time one has had a symptom would matter, I'd think; like a festering wound, some are not going to be fixable in short term therapy?