Postmodern Therapies

Social Constructionism

The psychological expression of the postmodern worldview which values the client's reality without disputing its rationality or accuracy in addition to focusing on a collaborative partnership over assessments or techniques.

Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT)

Steve deShazer

(1940-2005)

 Insoo Kim Berg

(1935-2007)

Concepts of SFBT 

• Clients want to change, can change, and are doing their best to make change happen.
• No problem is constant ~ Change IS inevitable.
• Positive psychology ~ a focus on what is right and working rather than dwelling on weaknesses and deficits.
• Positive orientation that clients are competent and accepted as they are.
• Present and future focused.
• Goal oriented.
• Clients choose the goals they wish to accomplish.
• Behavior change is the most effective approach to enhancing one's life.

Goals of SFBT

• Goals are unique to each client and are constructed by the client to create a fuller future.
• The client should express what they want to achieve in therapy.
• Small, realistic, achievable changes that can lead to additional positive outcomes.
• To talk about change produces change.
• The therapist assists the client in creating well defined goals that are:

1. Stated positively in the clients language
2. Process or action oriented
3. Structured in the here and now
4. Attainable, concrete, specific, and measurable
5. Controlled by the client

   

Techniques of SFBT

• Pre-therapy change or events that are set into motion by simply scheduling the initial appointment.
• Exceptions and exception questions
• Scaling questions - Scales of 0 through 10
• The Miracle Question - "If a miracle happened and this problem was solved, what would be different?"
• Change focused questions
• Formula First Session Taste - homework that occurs between the 1st and 2nd visit that places emphasis on future solutions over past problems.
• Therapist feedback to clients
• Termination focus

  

 Narrative Therapy

Michael White

(1949-2008)

David Epston

(b. 1944)

 

Concepts of Narrative Therapy

• Listening to the clients' stories without judgement or blame while affirming and valuing them.
• Separation of the person from the problem in their mind.
• The client is the primary interpreter of their own experiences and is the expert on what they want.

Goals of Narrative Therapy

• To invite people to describe their experience in a new and fresh language so that they may discover what is possible.
• To enlarge perspective and focus and to facilitate discovery or creation of new options that are unique to the client.

 

 

Techniques of Narrative Therapy

• Narrative therapy is not technique driven and has no set agenda or specific formula.
• The therapists creation of an encouraging climate to see the clients stories from different perspectives.
• Circular, relational questions designed to empower clients in new ways and to discover the clients experience.
• Externalization - The person is NOT the problem, the PROBLEM is the PROBLEM.
• Alternative stories and re-authoring of stories.
• A search for unique outcomes and assisting clients in finding new meanings and outcomes.

     

   

References:
 Corey, Gerald (2012). Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy. 9th ed.
      Belmont,California: Brooks/Cole. (pp. 396-426).