This volume offers clinicians an inside view of several new competency-based approaches that are transforming the field of psychotherapy. Unlike therapies that focus on deficits and dysfunction, this book describes approaches that build on client successes and strengths. Seen as a collaborative process in which therapist and client co-construct meaning in therapeutic conversation, the clinician acts as a facilitator who joins with the client to generate narratives of strength, hope, and optimism as alternatives to the dominant problem-saturated story. In-depth clinical examples demonstrate the application of these ideas. In addition, at the end of each chapter is an illuminating question-and-answer exchange between the editor and the chapter author, providing the reader with a uniquely personal view of the process of therapy. Table of Contents Foreword, Kenneth J. Gergen I. Paths to Solution 1. Making Numbers Talk: Language in Therapy, Berg and de Shazer 2. "Both/And" Solutions, Lipchik 3. Take Two People and Call Them in the Morning: Brief Solution-Oriented Therapy with Depression, O'Hanlon 4. After the Shift: Time-Effective Treatment in the Possibility Frame, Fanger 5. Enhancing Views of Competence, Durrant and Kowalski 6. Solution-Oriented Brief Therapy with Difficult Adolescents, Selekman 7. Toward a Mutual Understanding: Constructing Solutions with Families, Mittelmeier and Friedman II. Narratives of Liberation 8. The Monsters in My Head, Langella 9. The Turtle with Wings, Freeman and Lobovits 10. A Narrative Approach to Families with Adolescents, Dickerson and Zimmerman 11. Escape from the Furies: A Journey from Self-Pity to Self-Love, Friedman 12. In Pursuit of a Better Life: A Mother's Triumph, Brecher and Friedman III. Reflexive Conversations 13. See and Hear, and Be Seen and Heard, Andersen 14. On a Roller Coaster: A Collaborative Language Systems Approach to Therapy, Anderson 15. Tekka with Feathers: Talking about Talking (about Suicide), Hoffman-Hennessy and Davis 16. Helping Embattled Couples Shift from Reactive to Reflective Positions, Caesar IV. The Postmodern Era: A Universe of Stories 17. Silenced Voices Heard: A Tale of Family Survival, Sawatzky and Parry 18. Without a Net: Preparations for Postmodern Living, Parry "Packed with valuable information...highly recommended for practitioners and students studying practice." -Crisis Intervention "A manifes to of our times....Individual, couples, and family therapists can benefit, mightily, by reading sections one and two. Family therapy instructors can use the manifesto almost as a textbook. Theoreticians will find a great deal to excerpt from as they turn the manifesto into a constitution." -American Journal of Psychotherapy from the publisher's website |