Book Description

On the leading edge of the new solution-oriented and narrative approaches, this book presents groundbreaking work converging around the idea that psychotherapy is primarily a special kind of conversation that elicits clients' strengths, competencies, and solutions. The therapist is seen as an expert in creating conversations that reveal clients' expertise and empower them to change. The book was conceived around a conference that took place in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in June 1992. In the meeting rooms and the hallways, over morning coffee and late into the night, the conversations among all conference participants - presenters and attendees - were intense and dynamic. People engaged in ongoing conversations about therapy, defining and redefining their positions in, as Bill O'Hanlon has called it, "the third wave" of psychotherapy. Readers will sense the flavor and excitement of those Tulsa discussions in the dialogue of chapters and commentaries in Therapeutic Conversations. Here contributors not only present their latest views on ways to empower clients but also discuss such issues as positioning of the therapist, time as a dimension in psychotherapy, the uses of rituals and stories, and the differences been "exceptions" and "unique outcomes". Representing various perspectives on narrative, conversational, and solution-focused therapies, the contributors include, among others, Bill O'Hanlon, Steve de Shazer, John Weakland, Michele Weiner-Davis, and Stephen Gilligan. There is a distinctly international flavor, with contributions from Karl Tomm of Canada, Michael White of Australia, and David Epston of New Zealand. Whether venturing into the Theoretical Conversations of Part I or the ClinicalApplications of Part II, readers will find themselves stimulated not only to try new ways to converse therapeutically but also to participate in the continuing conversation that defines the practice of psychotherapy.