“I only see my clients one or two times, and I am so busy rushing through what I have to get accomplished that I don’t have any time for the luxuries of evaluation.” Response to Case 1 That is a tough...

“I only see my clients one or two times, and I am so busy rushing through what I have to get accomplished that I don’t have any time for the luxuries of evaluation.” Response to Case 1 That is a tough situation. But let’s think about what is possible in these kinds of cases. What basic aspects of single-system design are applicable? Clearly this practitioner is doing something, which sounds like an intervention, B. So far, so good. But with one or two client contacts, it doesn’t sound too promising for any kind of experimental removal, or even the addition of a new intervention. On the other hand, the practitioner has already said she has no time for a baseline, but we can ask whether she does a rapid assessment of the presenting problems as the basis of her intervention, B. If so, she may have enough information to do at least a reconstructed baseline, indicated by the notation (A). This is not the strongest design in the world, but certainly a rough basis for identifying changes that may be occurring. What any practitioner needs in cases of brief contact is some verbal or archival description of the problem in enough detail to make a sensible and sensitive plan of intervention. In some cases, perhaps not all, this would be enough information to reconstruct a baseline. In other cases, there may be an obvious criterion of success so that all the practitioner needs to know is that the client is not presently successful (at the first interview situation), but that by the end of this contact, the problem may be resolved according to that criterion of success. If so, this too would be the basis of evaluation.