Family Centred Brief Solution-focused Therapy with Chronic Schizophrenia: a Pilot Study

The purpose of the study was to pilot a family centred brief solution-focused therapy model (BSFT) with families and clients diagnosed with schizophrenia. A control group of clients and their families received traditional outpatient therapy, while an experimental group of clients and their families were treated with a BSFT model. All participants were pre-tested and then post-tested with the Family Environment Scale after five therapy sessions over a ten-week period. Significant differences between the groups were found on expressiveness, active-recreational orientation, moral-religious emphasis and family incongruence. The participation of families and clients with schizophrenia in family centred brief solution-focused therapy produced encouraging results and demonstrated the need for expanded studies using BSFT with other chronically mentally ill clients and their families.     

焦点解决短期治疗对青少年心理危机干预的哲学思辨

采用维特根斯坦的“图像说”和“语言游戏说”,对比了对青少年心理危机干预中当事人语言表达的不同理解。后基于“语言游戏说”,总结了焦点解决短期治疗在心理危机干预中的具体实践方法,突出体现了其受到维特根斯坦语言哲学的影响,把心理干预的关注点放在对当事人语言本身的诠释上,把治疗结果看作摆脱语言设限后的各种可能性上,进而为化解危机找到各种更为便捷的途径。也体现了焦点解决短期治疗是一种有别于传统认识论的干预模式,是一种在哲学思维上的干预。

     

Solution-focused Couples Therapy Groups: An Empirical Study

The professional literature contains numerous theoretical and case study articles regarding the development and use of solution-focused therapy. However, as with many models of systems-oriented therapy in use with couples, very little has been subjected to empirical investigation. This project was designed to make a contribution to the empirical literature regarding the effectiveness of solution-focused therapy in use with couples' groups. This study utilized pre-test comparisons of treatment and comparison groups, and examined pre- to post-test changes in the scores of the treatment group couples. Twenty-three treatment group couples participated in a six-week solution-focused couples therapy (SFCT) group. A separate group of thirteen couples served as a comparison group. The Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS) was used to assess changes in the couples' relationships. Scores on the Marital Status Inventory (MSI), as a pre-test measure indicating the couples' likelihood of divorce, indicated no significant differences between groups. The remaining analyses revealed significant improvement in DAS scores. Self-reports from the couples involved indicate improvement in a variety of areas after completing the six-week solution-focused couples group therapy process.     

心理咨询新模式:聚焦于问题解决的短期咨询

“聚焦于问题解决的短期咨询”是一种新兴的心理咨询模式,它因其正向思考、省时省力等优点迅速在世界范围内崛起,并被广泛应用在不同的咨询情境中。文章在对聚焦于问题解决的短期咨询简介的基础上,介绍了其产生背景,指出了该模式的应用领域,并对其作了简要评价。     

Therapeutic Interaction and Dropout: Measuring Relational Communication in Solution-focused Therapy

The relational communication of sixteen dropout versus sixteen continuation sessions of solution-focused therapy was studied using two different coding schemes. On the Topic Initiation/Topic Following coding scheme (Tracey, 1986) no differences were found between dropout and continuation sessions, whereas the Family-Relational Communication Control Coding Scheme (Heatherington and Friedlander, 1987) yielded a number of significant findings. Both in 'successful' and in 'unsuccessful' dropout sessions, therapeutic interaction was found to be more conflictive than in continuation cases, with clients showing more domineering behaviour in dropout than in continuation sessions. Markovian and lag sequential analysis are used to clarify some of these findings, and their implications are discussed.     

Brief Therapy: Two's Company

The triad is a key element in family therapy. It is clinically useful to conceptualize it as a unit with a structure of its own. This paper suggests that a typical triadic system consists of a pair of allies and an isolate, or "odd-man-out," all of whom are "stuck" in a rigid pattern that has become dysfunctional. The therapist can break the pattern by developing interventions specifically designed to create new alliances and thus broaden the family's behavioral repertoire.     

Brief Therapy: Focused Problem Resolution

This article describes a general view of the nature of human problems and their effective resolution and of related specific procedures, growing out of our prior work in family therapy, that have developed during six years of research on rapid problem resolution. With treatment limited to a maximum of ten sessions, we have achieved significant success in about three-fourths of a sample of 97 widely varied cases, and this approach to problems appears to have considerable potential for further development and wider application.     

Brief Therapy: Focused Solution Development

This article describes the form of brief therapy developed at the Brief Family Therapy Center. We have chosen a title similar to Weakland, Fisch, Watzlawick, and Bodin's classic paper, "Brief Therapy: Focused Problem Resolution" (20) to emphasize our view that there is a conceptual relationship and a developmental connection between the points of view expressed in the two papers.     

Solution-Focused Brief Therapy

A brief history on Solution-Focused Brief Therapy is given, followed by pragmatic assumptions, offering a new ‘lens’ for looking at clients. SFBT originated from social constructionism: reality is subjective and there are many realities, all equally correct. Outcome studies indicate that SFBT has a positive effect in less time and satisfies the client’s need for autonomy. Indications and differences between problem-focused psychotherapy and SFBT are outlined. SFBT can be seen as a form of cognitive behavior therapy. Instead of reducing problems, the solution-focused question is: ‘What would you rather have instead?’ A lot could change for the better for both clients and therapists.     

Solution-focused Ideas in Social Work

A group of social workers from Helsinki City Social Service Department working in an ordinary community-based social welfare office were trained to use basic solution-focused ideas in their work with people seeking living allowances and with families in child welfare. These social workers' relationships with their clients were compared to their previous similar relationships and to a control group. There were no significant changes in goal achievement but in line with solution-focused orientation there were increases in positive statements, goal focus, and shared views between social workers and their clients.     

Time and again: Intermittent Brief Dynamic Therapy

Abstract

The author notes that in many of the settings in which Brief Therapy takes place that a client may return after the ending for a further series of sessions. Time-limited therapy has placed an emphasis upon the termination phase of the therapy and linked this to the process of individuation and separation. Such an approach, as articulated by Mann (1973 Mann, J. 1973. Time-limited psychotherapy, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.  [Google Scholar]), which draws conceptually from the work of Winnicott (1965 Winnicott, D. W. 1965. The maturational processes and the facilitating environment, London: Hogarth Press.  [Google Scholar]) and the notion that the infant achieves unit status from the original undifferentiated merger with the mother, is not easily compatible with Intermittent Brief Dynamic Therapy. The work of attachment theorists and Stern (1985 Stern, D. N. 1985. The interpersonal world of the infant, New York: Basic Books.  [Google Scholar]) provide an alternative basis upon which to conceive of the development of the infant. While emphasizing the importance of attending to affects at points of separation and ending, as is evidenced in the work of Della Selva (2004 Della, Selva P. C. 2004. Intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy, London: Karnac.  [Google Scholar]), such a framework is more readily compatible with the development of Intermittent Therapy, and with the realities of the settings in which much brief work takes place. The author also comments upon the flexibility inherent in Winnicott's own practice of brief consultations, and the implications of this for the development of Intermittent Brief Dynamic Therapy. The paper includes a case study that illustrates this debate and which provides evidence for the therapeutic potency of a form of Brief Dynamic Intermittent Therapy where a dynamic focus maintains a structuring pattern to the narrative over a sequence of several periods of Brief Therapy, spread over a number of years.     

Family Therapy in France: A Brief Overview

The major issues in contemporary family therapy in France are described: Difficult beginnings, the practice of family therapy today, training and professionalisation, organization for family therapy, journals and publishing, and perspectives for family therapy in France.A psychiatrist, Head of Hospital Psychiatric and Mental Health Center near Paris (Ville Evrard. France 93330) and a family therapist     

Systemic Therapy: A New Brief Intervention Model

A brief psychotherapy model based on systems theory is presented. The model emphasizes the interactional context of clients' problems and represents an efficient intervention paradigm.     

Aikido: A Model for Brief Strategic Therapy

Building on Watzlawick's observations of certain similarities between judo and brief strategic therapy, this paper develops theoretic and pragmatic parallels between brief strategic therapy and a sophisticated martial art system, Aikido. After presenting the contextual similarities of the two conceptual systems as parallel “challenges” to the therapist and Aikidoist to effect change, the similarities in basic principles of practice are presented. The similarities in the philosophical and attitudinal positions of these conceptual systems are then delineated, followed by a case example that integrates the various concepts in the paper.     

Solution-focused brief therapy: a review of the outcome research

Solution-focused brief therapy (SFBT) is a new and increasingly used therapeutic approach that focuses on helping clients construct solutions rather than solve problems. The approach evolved in a clinical context amid many anecdotal reports of success from both therapists and clients, but it has not been subjected to controlled empirical testing until very recently. In this article we critically review all of the controlled outcome studies of SFBT to date (N = 15) to assess the extent to which SFBT has received empirical support. Five studies were well-controlled and all showed positive outcomes--four found SFBT to be better than no treatment or standard institutional services, and one found SFBT to be comparable to a known intervention: Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Depression (IPT). Findings from the remaining 10 studies, which we consider moderately or poorly controlled, were consistent with a hypothesis of SFBT effectiveness. We conclude that the 15 studies provide preliminary support for the efficacy of SFBT but do not permit a definitive conclusion. Our critique highlights areas where methodology in future studies can be strengthened to provide more conclusive evidence of SFBT efficacy.     

Systems and Solutions: The Discourses of Brief Therapy

The author describes how brief therapy has evolved in the past 10 to 15 years from ecosystemic to solution-focused brief therapy. SFBT is characterized as a radically constructivist approach to personal problems which emphasizes how troubles and solutions are socially constructed realities.