Collaborative Therapy – Flashcards
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Role of the Therapist
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Partner in dialogue. Enter with a beginner's mind because the client is the expert. Curious and speculative. Use the client's language and avoid a position of leadership
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What is Collaborative Therapy?
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A two-way dialogical process in which therapists and clients co-explore and co-create understanding related to client problems and agency. No scripted techniques, so therapy is directed by whatever the client chooses to say.
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Not Knowing
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The therapist's approach to getting to know the client. Blank slate. Avoid "pre-knowing" (assumptions) because even when clients appear to have similar experiences, they all have unique understandings of the situation. Maintain a stance of curiosity
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Knowing With
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Therapists learn about the client as they work together in better understanding the client's life. Therapist and client are mutually transformed
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Significant Contributors to Collaborative
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Harlene Anderson and Harry Goolishan (founders of the Houston Galveston Institute) Tom Anderson
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Monologues
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Occurs in a conversation with someone or an imagined individual when the client or therapist is only focused on what they are trying to say rather than hearing the other. Repetitive thoughts are also considered a monologue. Leads to therapeutic impasse.
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Therapeutic Impasse
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Result of monologues. Because therapy follows from whatever the client just said, monologues interfere with therapy and individuals can no longer generate useful meanings. The therapist's job is to shift the conversation back to dialogue. A "resistant" client is the therapist's fault because they are allowing them to be stuck in monlogue
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Philosophic Stance
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The therapist should have a "way of being" with the client that focuses on the person rather than roles and functions. The client is the expert, and dialogue is transformative.
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Withness
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The therapeutic relationship is a conversational partnership; a process of being with the client. Conversational partners move one another through understanding and are willing to accompany each other through the ups and downs.
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Who is the expert?
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The client is the expert of content and the therapist is the expert of process
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Outer Talk
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Verbally spoken conversation between therapy participants
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Inner Talk
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The thoughts and conversations each person has within while participating in conversation. Therapists should not pressure clients to share inner talk, but therapist should share own inner talk when it appears helpful to therapy.
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Therapeutic Systems
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Problem-organizing: systems only exist once someone comes in with an acknowledged problem Problem-dissolving: systems dissolve as soon as the clients no longer have a problem. Problems seem to dissolve through dialogue
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Assessing the Client's Worldview
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Therapist does not look for "errors" or the source of the problem, but instead approaches the client with a gentle and nonjudgmental curiosity. Therapist looks for the client's logic that makes their world make sense
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Goal
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Increase the client's sense of agency. Maximize opportunities for agency to emerge
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Transformation
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Therapy results in transformation instead of change. This process emerges from within the clients and is not controlled by the therapist
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Setting Goals
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Goals are collaboratively constructed with the clients and uses their language. Goals change as meaning and understandings are transformed. Therapists do not have a set of predefined goals for clients
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Conversational Questions
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Questions that naturally stem from the dialogue rather than a theory. Follows logically from what client is saying and is generated through therapist's curiosity
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Appropriately Unusual Comment
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A type of reflection that is not so usual that it exactly reflects the client's worldview (and therefore does not promote change) but is also not too unusual that the client will not use it to develop new meaning. These fit within the worldview, but offer room for curiosity and new perspectives. The appropriate amount of "unusual" is different for each client, s be careful not to scare them away
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Listening for the Pause
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After an appropriately unusual comment, clients typically pause to integrate perspectives. Therapist needs to be comfortable in the silence
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Mutual Puzzling
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The process of the dialogue - working together to solve a puzzle.
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Being Public
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Refers to the therapist sharing their inner talk to be honest about significant issues affecting treatment or to prevent monologues. Must present perspectives tentatively. Should be public when therapist has outside communication with other professionals or when the therapist has a significant difference in values
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Accessing Multiple Voices
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Making the most of other perspectives.ex. reading letters to witnesses, writing letters to past or future self, letters to or from significant others, letters from parts of the self that are not expressed, etc.
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Reflecting Teams
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Reversal of the one-way mirror. The families can watch the therapeutic team's conversations. Team avoids comments that agree on one description of what is going on with the client. This way the client hears multiple explanations and can choose which one resonates most
