The heart of this book, presented in its middle part, is the material on the Gordian Pillars of Strategic Psychotherapy. The pillars were developed to articulate an approach to strategic psychotherapy developed over more than a dozen years of clinical practice of working with clients presenting with a wide range of complaints. 'Gordian Pillars' is a mixed metaphor. The pillars are the cognitive and behavioural patterns that support a given problem in the way a pillar supports a building. By "problems" we mean conditions like anxiety, depression, or addiction, and even such behaviours as procrastination and dichotomous thinking. The Gordian aspect refers to the mythological Gordian knot, which has come to be a metaphor for an intractable problem. This guide will show you how to untangle client issues and address them in a systematic way.
"Madanes' lucid, coherent, and practical guide for familytherapists is a welcome addition to the proliferating literature byfamily therapy theorists and practitioners.... The book is concise,well organized and clearly written." --Contemporary Psychology A classic work which uses imaginative techniques to help achievebalance within the family. It gives attention to specific problemssuch as violence, drug abuse, and depression, and seeks the hiddenmeaning in these symptoms, which are clues to the underlying familystructure.
This book puts forward a complete picture of Brief Strategic Therapy while defining the theoretical and practical features that distinguish this method from other psychotherapies. The authors present a comprehensive explanation of non-ordinary Mathematical Logic, which underlies brief strategic therapy techniques, to reveal how apparently simple techniques come to solve complex, seemly untreatable problems. This book provides the reader with a detailed description of the techniques applied throughout the treatment, and also explains the strategies, tactics, and techniques employed in reframing people's perceptions, behavior and opinions. This rigorous work is one of Nardone's most important and creative contributions to the evolution of Brief Therapy. It presents the advanced techniques set up for specific pathologies through long-term experimental-empirical research carried out at the Centro di Terapia Strategica of Arezzo, Italy. Case studies are introduced for a better understanding of this approach, followed by a thorough evaluation of the results obtained through on-going experimental-empirical research.
Experience the art of Jay Haley's strategic therapy as he personally utilizes a variety of techniques in treating depression, violence, and psychosis with couples, children, families and various ethnic groups. Visit www.haley-therapies.com for additional resources by Jay Haley, including live videos of the pioneering therapist in action.
Doing What Works in Brief Therapy: A Strategic Solution Focused Approach is both a set of procedures for the therapist and a philosophy– one that is shared with clients and one that guides the work of the therapist. This second edition continues its excellence in offering clinicians a guide to doing what works in brief therapy- for whom, and when and how to use it. Psychotherapy that follows these guidelines validates the client's most important concerns – and it often turns out to be surprisingly brief. Author, Ellen Quick integrates strategic and solution focused therapy and includes guidelines for tailoring technique and interventions to client characteristics and preferences. With clinically rich examples throughout, this book offers applications for couples, including indications for individual or conjoint sessions. - Chapter summaries highlighting key points - Presents ways of eliciting what clients most want to remember - Describes the "Doing What Works Group," including outcome research findings and all materials needed to run the group - Addresses the relationship among the positive psychology movement and this approach and the potential for collaboration - Emphasizes an acceptance-based stance and how acceptance commonly leads to change - Proposes that "doing what works and changing what doesn't" can provide a transtheoretical perspective for therapists of any orientation
This book illustrates how core competencies in the solution-focused and strategic therapies grow from the models' basic principles: discovering and amplifying what works and changing what does not.
In this unusual volume, Bradford Keeney depicts psychotherapy as a performing art. Emphasizing the advantages of improvising one's own therapeutic style, he presents a host of tried-and-true strategic interventions, a short course on brief intervention design, a way of "scoring' conversations with clients much like one would score music, a collection of therapeutic moves, and chapters on creating one's own clinical design. As such, IMPROVISATIONAL THERAPY is a book that will be valued by all who do clinical work.
This book is about psychological disorders based on irrational fears - those apparently unmotivated, paralyzing, panic-filled, gutwrenching fears whose multiplicity and diversity are barely contained in the diagnoses phobias and obsessional disorders. The author, worldrenowned therapist Giorgio Nardone, offers a brief (usually less than 20 session) treatment method that leads to a change in the interpersonal, cognitive, and emotional organizations underlying these painful and all too-common problems. Therapists using a strategic framework focus on reframing patients' representations of self and other, and on changing the relational patterns that sustain fearful perceptions. Based on extensive research and illustrated with in-depth clinical examples, this book offers hope to those whose lives have been unnecessarily limited by their phobias and obsessions. Strategic brief therapy, as developed by John H. Weakland, Paul Watzlawick, and Richard Fisch, is based on a very simple idea problems are accidentally maintained by our repeated, failed attempts at solving them. In this book, Giorgio Nardone uses the strategic brief therapy lens to focus on how particular troubles are accidentally maintained and how therapist and client can overcome them. The follow- up (79 percent resolved and 7 percent much improved) certainly points to the efficacy of Nardone's approach. Giorgio Nardone's strategic psychotherapy model shows specific originality and an innovative quality compared to other brief therapy models. Phobic and obsessive disorders are difficult to treat. Nardone's model achieves rapid symptom remission even in severe forms of panic, fear, and phobia. This book is a very practical manual for professionals because it guides the reader clearly through the different stages of therapy and presents treatment protocol as well as concrete examples of results. A study of two clinical cases, complete with a transcript of therapy, not only enhances comprehension of the model but underscores the brilliance of the
This book describes Brief Strategic Family Therapy, a strengths-based model for diagnosing and correcting interaction patterns that are linked to troublesome symptoms in children ages 6 to 18.
