The New Language of Change: Constructive Collaboration in Psychotherapy

by Steven Friedman (Editor)

This volume offers clinicians an inside view of several new competency-based approaches that are transforming the field of psychotherapy. Unlike therapies that focus on deficits and dysfunction, this book describes approaches that build on client successes and strengths. Seen as a collaborative process in which therapist and client co-construct meaning in therapeutic conversation, the clinician acts as a facilitator who joins with the client to generate narratives of strength, hope, and optimism as alternatives to the dominant problem-saturated story. In-depth clinical examples demonstrate the application of these ideas. In addition, at the end of each chapter is an illuminating question-and-answer exchange between the editor and the chapter author, providing the reader with a uniquely personal view of the process of therapy.

464 pages, Hardcover

First published May 21, 1993