One hour to find what's really stuck

Élodie expected to have to tell everything. Her childhood, her failures, her secrets. She had prepared her story the way you prepare for an oral exam. Instead, I asked her precise, almost simple questions. And as the answers unfolded, something strange happened: connections appeared where she had only seen unrelated events. For a long time I was wrong about what people expect from a first session: they don't want to pour everything out, they want to understand.

The word comes from the Greek and means "the resurfacing of memories". In brief therapy as I practise it, the anamnesis is the first step of the first session: a time of guided exploration to identify the key blocks and traumas. No need to say everything, or to phrase it well. The goal is not an exhaustive account of your life: it's to pinpoint, precisely, what is holding you back today. A good anamnesis looks less like a confession than like a cartographer's work: we survey the terrain, note the fault lines, trace the lines of force.

A present-day block, a fear, an out-of-proportion reaction, often takes root in a handful of founding experiences. The brain recorded them as permanent alarms, and it replays the same reaction whenever a situation resembles them. The anamnesis serves to find those points of origin. That is what makes it possible to work fast and work true: we don't clear the whole forest, we go straight to the roots we've located. It's also what makes the approach accessible to teenagers and children: no long speeches are needed for the map to take shape.

The anamnesis is not a separate session: it opens directly onto the second step of that same first hour, mental deprogramming, which aims to deactivate the traumas we've identified, provided there is no contraindication. The work is done gently, without reliving the events. It's this pairing, mapping then defusing within the same hour, that explains why so many people leave that first appointment feeling relieved, and why quite a few simply don't come back: that's the point. You leave with a clear assessment: what we saw, what shifted, and what remains if anything remains.

Don't prepare anything. Really. Come as you are, with whatever weighs on you, even if it's vague, even if it's badly worded. If you'd still like to take a first step before the appointment, simply note down three recent situations where your reaction seemed stronger than the situation deserved. Those are often excellent threads to pull.

An accurate map is worth more than years of wandering. To discover the full course of that first hour and what follows, visit the brief therapy page.

Keywords: anamnesis, first brief therapy session, therapy intake interview, identifying your blocks, personalised assessment, key traumas, how brief therapy works