Short psychotherapeutic interventions (four sessions).

This paper points out: (1) The fundamental importance, during the patient's first visit, of a shift of the objective involvement on the therapist's person, when a significant real object fails. (2) An initial interpretation, based on understanding this mechanism, is mutational in that it transfers the mourning for relations to internal objects. (3) The patient usually takes medical advice when in a more or less open crisis situation, where his objective investment (internal and external) is shaken. (4) The nature of the crisis can be understood, by a deep investigation of the patient's relational context following a psychoanalytical pattern. (5). Application of these concepts allows very short interventions (psychotherapeutic interventions), the therapeutic value of which is undeniable.