Beyond Technique in Solution-Focused Therapy: Working with Emotions and the Therapeutic Relationship(The Guilford Family Therapy)

Solution-focused therapy is often misunderstood to be no more than the techniques it is famous for -- pragmatic, future-oriented questions that encourage clients to reconceptualize their problems and build on their strengths. Yet when applied in a "one-size-fits-all" manner, these techniques may produce disappointing results and leave clinicians wondering where they have gone wrong. This volume adds a vital dimension to the SFT literature, providing a rich theoretical framework to facilitate nonformulaic clinical decision making. The focus is on how attention to emotional issues, traditionally not emphasized in brief, strengths-based interventions, can help "unstick" difficult situations and pave the way to successful solutions.

Table of Contents:
I. Theory and Practice 1. A Theory of Solution-Focused Therapy 2. The Therapist–Client Relationship 3. Understanding Clients 4. Emotions in Solution-Focused Therapy 5. The Process of Clarifying Goals 6. The Team behind the Mirror and the Consultation Break 7. The Summation Message and the Suggestion II. Applications 8. Couple Therapy 9. Family Therapy 10. Working with Involuntary Clients 11. Long-Term Cases 12. The Solution-Focused Approach to Crisis

About the Author :
Eve Lipchik, MSW, cofounder, ICF Consultants, Inc., Milwaukee, WI Foreword by Wendel A. Ray, PhD

Review :
"Lipchik dispels all the stereotypes of solution-focused therapy (SFT), so that even SFT skeptics will want to give the model a second look. Her version cherishes the uniqueness of clients, is nonformulaic, emotion-focused, and privileges the client-therapist relationship over technique... Replete with rich case illustrations (which heretofore I would have assumed to be 'too complex' for SFT), the volume has left me with the imprint of a master teacher and clinician and has greatly enriched my practice." - Douglas H. Sprenkle, Purdue University, Indiana, USA "At last, someone has written a book that integrates the practical simplicity of solution-focused work with the crucial presence of emotion and relationship. Lipchik liberates our understanding of feelings from cumbersome theoretical frameworks, and shows how they are a basic currency in the therapeutic exchange... Eminently practical and theoretically illuminating." - Stephen Gilligan, in private practice, USA, and author of Therapeutic Trances and The Courage to Love