I'm with you. Mixed bag. I don't disagree with him for a large portion of therapy patients. I do believe a large portion of therapy clients are short-term, easily resolvable issue type of clients. And I agree that most these should be in and out of therapy fairly quickly.

However, I was someone whose therapy went on for a decade, but I wouldn't describe my therapy like this writer did, as letting clients run on for entire sessions about their problems without working toward achievable goals. I also wouldn't necessarily say I had severe psychological disorders (he doesn't define what qualifies for this exception in his book), at least not that kept me from working, etc. I was seriously depressed and dealing with PTSD, but I doubt I would have been considered as someone with "severe psychological disorders" considering how high functioning I managed to be despite many hospitalizations, etc. It's just not that black and white.

His ideas have some merit, but (ironically) seem to engage in black and white thinking a bit.

My personal experience was that even with a very goal-oriented therapist, complications made reaching those goals a rather long-term prospect. I do think had my life not been so entirely complicated by other issues, I probably could have reached my goals much faster, but sometimes life happens.

The fact that he's pushing the ideas in his book also shed a bit of questioning on his ideas. He has a "pill" to sell in the form of his book. It is what it is.