Brief Therapy with Intimidating Cases: Changing the Unchangeable

by Richard Fisch, Karin Schlanger

A Proven Technique Applying Brief Therapy to Difficult andChallenging Disorders

Changing the Unchangeable is a myth shattering book that revealshow short-term therapy can be used as a powerful tool for treatingclients who present a range of complex psychological disordersincluding severe depression, delusions and paranoia, anorexia,alcoholism, obsessive-compulsive behavior, and borderlinepersonality disorder.

"Fisch and Schlanger have done an admirable job of addressing thedifficult. They have done this with detailed description of casesand of step-by-step explanations for dealing with the'unchangeable' briefly.""Filled with rich examples, this is anincisive, carefully analyzed exploration of the pioneeringpractices created at MRI's Brief Therapy Center."-Carlos E. Sluzki,clinical professor of psychiatry, University of California LosAngeles

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction

192 pages, Hardcover

First published December 30, 1998

Reviews

[Reix · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really love this kind of brief therapy and I find it very useful. The book shows several real cases, as well as the principles of the functioning of this non-directive therapy, centered in the problem (the disfunctional behaviour), instead of treating the patient as if he/she was an ill person. The behaviour is the one who is ill, but not the person, something really important to get the client feel confident and non judged. Besides, trying to normalize the "wrong" behaviour, breaks a lot of barriers to get the final objective.
The most interesting cases, in my opinion, are the ones about paranoid people that only with a couple of sessions get to normalize their disfunctional behaviours and weird thoughts.
There's still a long way to do in problem centered therapy, but for me, the greatest barriers for its more outspread use are the economic interests: most therapists prefer to keep a troubled patient for a long time instead of helping him/her faster, so they can get more money in the process...