Resistance revisited

It was a coincidence that I was asked to talk about resistance at Ground Rounds at the University of Texas, Department of Psychiatry, on the tenth anniversary of mailing the first version of Death of Resistance to a journal in 1979. Although the paper was subsequently rejected 17 times and revised six times, it was eventually published inFamily Process (de Shazer, 1984). I still insist that the concept of resistance was a bad idea for therapists to have in their heads.This paper was presented April 14, 1989, at Ground Rounds, University of Texas, Southwest Medical Center, Department of Psychiatry, Dallas, Texas.     

Emotions in solution-focused therapy: a re-examination

This article re-examines whether and how emotions are an aspect of solution-focused therapy. A major theme in the article focuses on the usual ways that therapists define and discuss emotions in solution-focused and other therapies. We argue that these discussions are a source of much confusion about emotions and about solution-focused therapy, including the confusing idea that emotions are neglected in solution-focused therapy. The second major theme describes an alternative approach to these issues, one that we believe better fits with the assumptions and concerns of solution-focused therapy. The approach is based on Wittgenstein's writings about language games, private experience, and how emotions are rule-following activities. Viewed from this perspective, solution-focused therapists take account of their clients' emotions by helping clients to create new emotion rules to follow.     

Some Thoughts on Language Use in Therapy

Drawing on the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein and his own experience as a therapist and educator/trainer, the author describes some of the issues involved in helping therapists to find their way out of various muddles and mazes that are deeply embedded in language.     

Changing teams/changing families

A therapist's view of the nature of change and the processes of changing directly influences what the therapist does clinically. This essay describes how we have moved our clinical practice closer to our epistemological premises about the processes of change. For us, one key element in initiating the processes of therapeutic change is the introduction of randomness into the system. In our view, the system under consideration is the family-system plus the therapist (team)-system, and the random can be introduced anywhere in that suprasystem. Therefore, changing the therapy team can promote changing the family's problematic pattern.     

A requiem for power

The author's work has led to the conclusion that the metaphor or construct of power is not theoretically necessary or practically useful. A model emphasizing cooperation builds on what clients are already doing and avoids a need for them to resist the therapist's ideas.My colleagues at the Brief Therapy Center-Insoo Kim Berg, Wallace Gingerich, Eve Lipchik, Alex Molnar, Elam Nunnally, and Michele Weiner-Davis-have contributed to the development of the theory, research, and practice underlying this presentation.Originally published as part of a special issue on the power metaphor guestedited by Klaus G. Deissler inZeitschrift fur systemische Therapie (1986),4, 208–212.