This volume offers clinicians and students an inside view of several new competency-based approaches that are transforming the field of psychotherapy. Showing how to build on client strengths, the book details a collaborative process in which the therapist and client co-construct meaning in the therapeutic conversation. In-depth clinical examples and question-and-answer exchanges between the editor and the chapter authors provide the reader with a uniquely personal view of the process of therapy. This book will be of great interest to psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, marriage and family therapists, mental health counselors, psychiatric nurses.
REVIEWS
“This book is a sophisticated reference work on the application of postmodern thinking to the field of psychotherapy. Conveniently divided into sections on solution-focused, narrative, and reflecting team work, it contains both theoretical and case study material. Its author list reads like a ‘who’s who’ of the leaders in the field, including Berg, deShazer, Selekman, Andersen Anderson, and Hoffman. An excellent choice for an advanced class.”
“For the past ten years, the field of family therapy has been on the edge of making, at a minimum, a change in its own narratives about therapy and, at the other extreme, a major paradigm shift. The New Language of Change offers therapists a view of what is on the other side of this transition. The book offers clear theoretical descriptions and comprehensive case examples that fit the political, economic, and philosophical changes that therapists now face. I highly recommend it.”
“As therapy turns the corner from the traditional to a more collaborative approach, therapists need useful information to help guide them. The views presented in this book offer readers a clear map to engage in therapeutic conversations.”
“Read this book! If you are new to solution-oriented brief treatment this volume offers you a comprehensive overview of this significant and emerging model from the people who are involved with its evolution. If you are an ‘old hand’ at constructivism and post-structural therapies, Friedman’s volume gives you an intelligent, thought-provoking, in-depth view at how to do even better.”
“Takes you behind the scenes into the minds and hearts of many of today’s most creative clinicians and theorists. Extensive case transcriptions, commentaries, reflections and questions raised by and asked of each of the authors invite the reader to visualize the ideas in practice. Join in the dialogue in this intimate book with thinkers currently shaping much of the solution-focused, narrative, and postmodern approaches to work with families.”
“After the introduction of family therapy and systems thinking in past decades human cervices in general and family therapy in particular are currently witnessing yet another major evolutionary step. The new trend–or generation–is not a monolithic theory of the etiology of human problems, nor is it a predefined method of doing therapy. Whether it is presented under the designation narrative, reflective, postmodern, solution-oriented, resource-ridden or competence-based, from the client’s perspective it is all much the same: a respectful and collaborative way of helping people which, as becomes clear in this book, gives plenty of room for adaptation and personal style.”
“Packed with valuable information…highly recommended for practitioners and students studying practice.”
“A manifesto 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 manifesto into a constitution.”
“Packed with valuable information…highly recommended for practitioners and students studying practice.”
“A manifesto 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.”