The New Language of Change: Constructive Collaboration in Psychotherapy

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.

Steven Friedman, PhD, is a clinical psychologist at Atlantic Counseling & Consultation in Weymouth, Massachusetts, and a senior consultant at Beacon Health Strategies in Boston. An active presenter of workshops and seminars on time-effective therapy and family therapy, Dr. Friedman serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Systemic Therapies.