Constructivist psychotherapy focuses on the meaning that clients attribute to their world, and the way that this shapes their life and contributes to their difficulties. In this book, Robert A. Neimeyer, a leading figure in the field, provides a clear and accessible explanation of the key features of this approach. Constructivist Distinctive Features concentrates on the 30 key commitments that distinguish constructivism from other cognitive behavioural perspectives. Divided into two sections – Theory and Practice – this straightforward book is illustrated throughout with case material and recent research findings. Neimeyer provides us with a fresh perspective on familiar material, together with a clear, concise introduction to material that the reader may be less familiar with, making this book a valuable text for professionals in training as well as a source of new ideas for practising therapists of constructivist psychotherapy.
"Like Kant, constructivists believe that "reality" is ultimately nominal--that is, it lies beyond the reach of our most ambitious theories, whether personal or scientific, forever denying us as human beings the security of justifying our beliefs, faiths, and ideologies by simple recourse to "objective circumstances" outside ourselves."
"Gone is the faith in an objectively knowable universe..."
"Even the self has been dethroned from a position of agency, freedom, and conscious self-determination..."
Babies don't discover reality. They invent it. SERIOUSLY?!!!
If you don't eat, you WILL die. And if you don't tell your non-self the right story about that wall up ahead you WILL walk right into it. Ugh.
Constructivism is basically Waldorf for grownups. Reality is unknowable, so all we can do is tell stories and all we are is stories. Like Waldorf, therapists are there to manipulate the story.
There is nothing new here. Same old therapy, same ways of helping/manipulating people, just rewritten in constructivist language.
Constructivism is very useful for statists, socialists, communists and others who wish to deny people freedom. No one needs to be free because they don't have such a thing as a self. They just need a story about freedom that makes them feel good.