Solution-Focused and Solution-Oriented (Possibility) Counseling
Key figures: Insoo Kim Berg, Steve de Shazer, Eve Lipchick, Bill O’Hanlon, Jane Peller, John Walter, Michele Weiner-DavisThe bridge between modern and postmodern family therapies is really in the solution-focused and solution-oriented therapies of Steve de Shazer/Insoo Kim Berg and Bill O’Hanlon/Michele Weiner-Davis, respectively. Growing out of and away from the strategic family therapy models, the solution approaches joined the postmodern movement and developed questions of difference (including exception questions, the miracle question, and scaling questions) to orient clients toward preferred solutions.
Postmodern, Social Constructionist, and Narrative Approaches to Family Counseling
Key figures: Tom Andersen, Harlene Anderson, David Epston, Kenneth Gergen, Harold Goolishian, Stephen Madigan, Michael WhiteThese models that ushered in the postmodern era in family counseling— narrative approaches to family counseling—were first introduced Down Under when Michael White and David Epston began to think of families as living out narratives often imposed on the system. Using externalization, unique events, and reauthoring interventions, narrative therapists seek to separate clients from problem-saturated stories and to cocreate stories of competence and capabilities. Counselors who use postmodern, social constructionist approaches often adopt what Harlene Anderson and Harold Goolishian called a decentered or not-knowing position characterized by interest, curiosity, and inquiries about the next most interesting development. Reflecting teams are used in each of these models to add diverse, multiple voices and perspectives to the process of counseling. Tom Andersen from Norway was the first to design reflecting teams. The purpose of the reflecting team is to provide an audience for counseling that will respond from multiple perspectives and give families many different lenses from which to view their struggles and successes.
Feminist Family Counseling
Key figures: Carol M. Anderson, Judith Myers Avis, Laura Brown, Betty Carter, Phyllis Chesler, Barbara Ehrenreich, Carolyn Enns, Carol Gilligan, Rachel T. Hare-Mustin, bell hooks, Deborah Anna Luepnitz, Dell Martin, Monica McGoldrick, Jean Baker Miller, Peggy Papp, Pam Remer, Patricia Robertson, Olga Silverstein, Lenore Walker, Froma Walsh, and Judith Worell, to name a very fewGrowing out of the feminist revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, feminist family therapists challenged patriarchy and the acceptance of White, male, heterosexual privilege inherent in the field of family therapy. They then went on to place gender role and power assessments, egalitarian relationships based on informed consent, consciousness-raising, assertiveness training, gender issues, and cultural diversity at the center of family counseling. Feminist family therapists understand patriarchy to be the dominant culture in all societies, and they have critiqued family systems theory for its lack of focus on gender and multicultural issues.
Evidence-Based Practice
Since the dawn of the 21st century, increased emphasis has been placed on interventions that show results. Cognitive behavioral counseling has led the way as an evidence-based practice, but solution-focused counseling from the postmodern tradition has also adopted this orientation, as have all three couples counseling models I present in this book.
Cognitive Behavioral Family Counseling
Key figures: Frank Dattilio, Albert Bandura, Aaron Beck, Albert Ellis, John Gottman, Neil Jacobson, Donald Meichenbaum, Gerald Patterson, Ivan Pavlov, B. F. Skinner, John Watson, Joseph WolpeAn application of behavioral learning theory and evidence-based practice to family counseling, cognitive behavioral family counseling blends the work of cognitive therapists, confronting irrational beliefs, with meth ods for shaping and reinforcing desired behaviors and interactions in families that research has shown to be effective. This model is preferred by most managed care facilities because it pragmatically addresses client actions and problems: It designs specific, often time-limited, interventions enacted in the service of ending identified dysfunctions or pathologies.
Parenting
Key figures: Alfred Adler, Diana Baumrind, Don Dinkmeyer, Rudolf Dreikurs, Haim Ginott, Thomas Gordon, John Gottman, James Lehman, Gary McKay, Cheryl McNeil, Jane Nelson, Michael PopkinA review of the major parent education programs and models currently used in the United States, this chapter presents models focused on democratic or authoritative-responsive parenting that use encouragement, active listening, reflective practice, natural and logical consequences, choices, and coaching in the service of building self-esteem in children and understanding and redirecting their mistaken goals. Emotion coaching and emotional intelligence are at the heart of raising competent, self-reliant kids and preparing them to cope with the challenges they will face throughout their development. This chapter is available at www. jamesrobertbitter.com.
Current Approaches to Couples Counseling
Three models of couples counseling currently dominate the field. They are the scientific approach of John and Julie Gottman, the emotionally focused therapy with couples developed by Susan M. Johnson, and imago therapy with couples as designed by Harville Hendrix and Helen Hunt. Each of these models is addressed in its own chapter. As you will have seen for the chapters above, there are also practitioners of couples counseling in the other models covered in the book. In addition, many prominent couples therapists, such as Pat Love (2001), Esther Perel (2009, 2017), and Froma Walsh (2016a, 2016b), work from their own unique perspectives.
The Science of Couples Counseling
Key figures: John Gottman, Julie Schwartz Gottman, Robert LevensonStarting in the 1970s, John Gottman and Robert Levenson began to study couples in conflict. Starting at the University of Illinois and later at the University of Washington, they conducted several longitudinal studies that eventually involved the psychophysiological measurement of couples in distress. They started with a study of sequential patterns in couples and found that couples’ interactions had enormous stability over time, that problems never really got resolved, and ultimately that there were patterns of interaction that predicted divorce just as there were patterns that characterized happy relationships. In the 1990s, John Gottman and his wife, Julie Schwartz Gottman, formed the Gottman Institute in Seattle, Washington. Their couples work is an example of translational research that involves the use of scientific data in the development of effective couples relationships.
Emotionally Focused Counseling With Couples
Key figures: Susan M. JohnsonSusan Johnson originally worked with Les Greenberg in the early development of emotionally focused therapy until Greenberg decided to go in a different direction, focusing primarily on individuals. Although both of these founders refer to their work as “emotionally focused,” they mean very different things by the term. Susan M. Johnson uses the term “emotionally focused therapy” to refer to relationships as a holding space for attachment issues and the possibility of a new emotional regulation. The end point of counseling is emotional connection, functional interdependence, safety and security, and a sense of belonging to each other.
