Quick Change Therapy (QCT) is defined by four hour therapy sessions. These sessions can be offered in a number of flexible formats according to the client and therapist’s wishes and needs. QCT can be offered as a five day single course, or any combination and variation of days (two or three days once a week, fortnightly or monthly) or a single day (once a week, fortnight or month) until work is complete.

One of the main advantages of QCT is that work that would otherwise take months to conclude can be completed in a shorter number of days (one day of a four hour session is the equivalent to one month, at an hour a week, of traditional therapy formats). This advantage is multiplied because each hour of work follows through immediately, so there is little chance of losing the thread and momentum; and no time lost ‘warming up’, as is often the case with the traditional one hour a week style.

Because every client is different, an assessment interview is made to gauge:

1. The prospective client’s suitability to work within the QCT format
2. Their suitability to work within the formats that the therapist can offer
3. What sort of variations to the model may be needed
4. If the prospective client should be referred for a different treatment

Obviously, if a therapist is offering a five day single course, and follow up days would be difficult to schedule, the filters applied during the assessment interview need to be much finer. The assessment interview form will help assess whether or not QCT is likely to be the right path for the client, and if it is, how it is best offered. For some clients, the QCT format one day a week; standard PICT model; or another style of therapy or counselling altogether, may be the best recommendation.

The ideal QCT clients are those with clear-cut issues with whom it is easy to establish a good healthy adult to adult rapport fairly quickly - with splashes of healthy parent and healthy child! From the ideal client who may be suitable for a short one-off course, there’s a sliding scale of those who will need more time and for that time to be spread out, all the way to those who are not suitable.

Clients with eating disorders, DID issues, self-harm, drug/alcohol abuse or ritual abuse experiences will always take longer – and cannot be considered for a one-off 5 day format, but it would be possible to be seen for 5 days, once a month, until work is complete.

Clients who process slowly will also not be suitable for a single 5 day format. Slow processors are people who are slower than usual to answer questions or make visual pictures because they: need extra time to think carefully about any new information; need to create pictures in thorough detail; need time to fully ‘sense’ their pictures; have a step by step ‘thinking programme’ that has to be started over if they go off track or are interrupted; find it difficult to stay focused on one issue at a time; or spend a lot of time arguing in their own mind about what they want to say. Of course, there is always a possibility that a client is suffering from PMS or is on a medication that affects their thinking process. There is no right or wrong way to process information or create visual images in our minds, but people who have a slower way of processing may not have time to complete everything in the one-off 5 day format.

Charges for QC vary with the experience, qualifications and location of the therapist. Fees in London are generally greater than fees charged the North, therapists who have specialised training charge more than a therapist with general training. Therapists who have worked for years and built up a good reputation charge more than someone who more recently qualified. Therapists usually charge their usual hourly rate for QCT. Of course, it may seem like a lot because it will be a lump sum, but it must be remembered, it is the same cost as would be paid for one hour weekly sessions, but clients are getting their issues resolved in a quicker, condensed period of time.

Clients accepted for QCT will be required to make a substantial non-refundable deposit to secure the booking and pay the balance on the first day of the therapy. If it has been arranged to have several two or three day sessions, payment is usually made at the start of each section of time (after the initial deposit).