"This question leads to many others, which form the basis for the chapters of the book. Each inquiry is illustrated by case excerpts that show where this approach diverges from strategic and solution-focused questioning. Healthcare Institute and an organizational consultant within Culture Change Consultants."--BOOK JACKET.
All couples go through challenging times: some survive and thrive, others don't. How can we understand and use this distinction in the practical application of therapy? In their solution-oriented, competency-based approach to couples therapy, Phillip Ziegler and Tobey Hiller answer this question. In Recreating Partnership, an innovative, theoretically sound, and practical handbook for clinicians, Ziegler and Hiller present a bold and clinically useful concept, the good story/bad story dichotomy. The book shows clinicians how to use this narrative concept in conducting effective and efficient relationship therapy that will help couples build solutions collaboratively, invigorate partnership, and thrive, each in their own unique ways. The book covers issues such as establishing rapport with antagonistic partners; developing therapeutic goals; hosting conversations that reinvigorate the couple's good story; how, when, and whether to offer task assignments; addressing issues such as domestic violence; and how to bring therapy to a close, as well as many cogent and helpful transcripts. Written for psychologists, social workers, marriage and family therapists, and anyone who works with couples, Recreating Partnership will be exciting and useful to both the novice and experienced practitioner.
Solution-focused therapy is often misunderstood to be no more than the techniques it is famous for—pragmatic, future-oriented questions that encourage clients to reconceptualize their problems and build on their strengths. Yet when applied in a "one-size-fits-all" manner, these techniques may produce disappointing results and leave clinicians wondering where they have gone wrong. This volume adds a vital dimension to the SFT literature, providing a rich theoretical framework to facilitate nonformulaic clinical decision making. The focus is on how attention to emotional issues, traditionally not emphasized in brief, strengths-based interventions, can help "unstick" difficult situations and pave the way to successful solutions.
This book demystifies the process of psychotherapy, making the concept of solution-based therapy accessible and relevant for newcomers to the field and for professionals seeking to apply SFBT principles in their own practices.
An invaluable guide to the history, descriptions of practice strategies, and applications of SFBT! The Handbook of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy is a unique, comprehensive guide that assists clinicians, regardless of experience level, in learning and applying the concepts of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) to particular situations with clients. Noted experts discuss the therapy practices and various uses for the approach in detail, which focuses on encouraging clients to look at exceptions, times when the problem could have occurred and did not, and goals and future possibilities. A history of the practice model and its interventions is discussed, along with limitations, descriptions of practice strategies, applications to specific client populations, and clinical problems and concerns. This useful resource also includes an illustrative case study that uses the SFBT model. The Handbook of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy first lays a foundation of knowledge, providing chapters on the crucial assumptions and practices, history, and epistemology behind the approach. Further chapters use that basis to explain the application of the approach with several clinical issues and various populations, including couples, depression, domestic violence, schools, children, pastoral work, therapist burnout, and a few “outside therapy room” applications. Other chapters focus on the important issues in therapist training and supervision. Extensive references are provided at the end of each chapter. Topics discussed in the Handbook of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy include: assumptions within the SFBT tradition history of the SFBT approach epistemology SFBT with couples depression domestic violence offenders public schools children and young people SFBT in faith-based communities assessing and relieving burnout in mental health practice SFBT beyond the therapy room supervision of training possible limitations, misunderstandings, and misuses of SFBT a tribute to the late Steven de Shazer, co-founder of the SFBT approach The Handbook of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy is an invaluable reference for all types of therapists, including psychologists, counselors, social workers, and family therapists at any level of experience, including students, trainees, and experienced therapists.
For the first time in one volume self-harm, substance abuse, eating-disordered behavior, gambling, and Internet and cyber sex abuse—five crippling, self-destructive behaviors—are given a common conceptual framework to help with therapeutic intervention. Matthew Selekman and Mark Beyebach, two internationally-recognized therapists, know first-hand that therapists see clients who have problems with several of these habits in varying contexts. They maintain an optimistic, positive, solution-focused approach while carefully addressing problems and risks. The difficulties of change, the risk of slips and relapses, and the ups-and-downs of therapeutic processes are widely acknowledged and addressed. Readers will find useful, hands-on therapeutic strategies and techniques that they can use in both individual and conjoint sessions during couple, family, and one-on-one therapy. Detailed case examples provide windows to therapeutic processes and the complexities in these cases. Clinical interventions are put in a wider research context, while research is reviewed and used to extract key implications of empirical findings. This allows for a flexible and open therapeutic approach that therapists can use to integrate techniques and procedures from a variety of approaches and intervention programs.
This new book challenges the medical model of the psychotherapist as healer who merely applies the proper nostrum to make the client well. Instead, the authors view the therapist as a coach, collaborator, and teacher who frees up the client's innate tendency to heal. This book offers provocative reading for clinicians intrigued by the process of therapy and the process of change.
The one-of-a-kind book that provides training exercises illustrating solution-focused brief therapy! As we recognize our own problem behavior in our lives, most of us struggle for ways to change it. Solution-focused brief therapy is the highly effective practice that works by changing concentration from ’problem’ behavior to ’solution’ behavior in just a few sessions. Education and Training in Solution-Focused Brief Therapy presents articles, essays, and a multitude of exercises that explain this unique type of therapy with an eye toward helping readers to use the ideas for use in their own training and practice. Detailed descriptions of training workshops and exercises spotlight the experiences of SFBT therapists to illuminate in-depth basic concepts and strategies. Education and Training in Solution-Focused Brief Therapy relies on two fundamental ideas, that of a therapist discovering and reinforcing a clients’ existing solutions and exceptions to the problem. Expert trainers discuss strategies that work for training and practicing Solution-focused brief therapy. Several exercises for clients are examined, as well as exercises for the training and supervision of other practitioners learning the process. Exercises include The Name Game, the Complaining Exercise, Inside and Outside, the ’Deck of Trumps,’ and the Solution-Focused Scavenger Hunt. Each chapter explains the circumstances in which to use each exercise, the best ways to enhance effectiveness, and how to stay on track in the teaching or training. This one-of-a-kind book includes helpful tables, thorough questionnaires, penetrating case studies, and each chapter is extensively referenced. Education and Training in Solution-Focused Brief Therapy discusses brief therapy principles such as: negotiating goals engagement through complimenting future orientation language should be imaginative and positive explanations and actions taken to solve problems are interconnected challenging the perceived causes of problems reframing the problem so that it becomes a friend acknowledgement and acceptance of client Education and Training in Solution-Focused Brief Therapy brings together essential ideas, suggestions, strategies, and exercises for solution-focused brief therapy training, making this an invaluable resource for solution-focused brief therapists and therapists who teach and train this form of therapy.
Filled with vivid clinical vignettes and step-by-step descriptions, this book demonstrates the nuts and bolts of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT). DBT is expressly designed for--and shown to be effective with--clients with serious, multiple problems and a history of treatment failure. The book provides an accessible introduction to DBT while enabling therapists of any orientation to integrate elements of this evidence-based approach into their work with emotionally dysregulated clients. Experienced DBT clinician and trainer Kelly Koerner clearly explains how to formulate individual cases; prioritize treatment goals; and implement a skillfully orchestrated blend of behavioral change strategies, validation strategies, and dialectical strategies. See also Dialectical Behavior Therapy in Clinical Practice, Second Edition: Applications across Disorders and Settings, edited by Linda A. Dimeff, Shireen L. Rizvi, and Kelly Koerner, which presents exemplary DBT programs for specific clinical problems and populations.