The solution-focused approach to therapy and coaching has its roots in the work done by herapists in the second half of the twentieth century. This article discusses some important recursors, such as Milton Erickson and the Mental Research Institute. Further, it shows how the members of the Brief Family ...

Reflecting teams have had a remarkable impact on therapy. This process is unique in that it gives the client multiple perspectives from a team of therapists and this sharing of ideas reveals new possibilities for the client. The idea originated from Tom Andersen and its process is described in vast ...

| Reflections on Reflecting Teams

Constructivism, as a philosophical orientation, has only been widely accepted in mathematics and science education since the early 1980s. As it became more broadly accepted, it also became clear that there were incongruous images of it. In 1984, von Glasersfeld introduced a distinction, echoed in Steier's chapter 5, between what ...

This talk, delivered at “De l’autopoie`se a` la neurophe ́nome ́nologie: un hommage a` Francisco Varela; from autopoiesis to neurophenomenology: a tribute to Francisco Varela,” June 18–20, at the Sorbonne in Paris, explicates several links between Varela’s neurophenomenology and his biological concept of autopoiesis.

Today, the term "psychotherapy" is used to refer to all manner of interventions, ranging from a voluntary dialogue to electrical, pharmacological, and surgical procedures imposed on persons against their will. This usage reflects the fashionable failure to distin¬¬guish between bodily disease and "mental disease"; between treating diseases with chemical and ...

| On the future of psychotherapy

Systemic family and couples therapy (SFCT) has evolved into a variety of forms to meet the needs of the people who come for therapy. Our clients differ not only by bringing the full range of psychological and relationship difficulties and the variety that our society has imaginatively created in family ...

This paper is a contribution to a dialogue on contructivist ideas in qualitative research in which collaborative inquiry is a central feature. By this I mean a process of finding out how both 'researchers' and 'subjects' have come to conceive an issue through sharing of their perceptions. Collaborative or participatory ...

This paper is about a particular kind of relating between people engaged in processes of change, such as in therapy, primary medical care practice or participatory action research. My thesis is that if a therapist, practitioner or facilitator of research engages with individuals or groups on a basis of relational ...

Systemic thinking is central to the specialty of couple and family psychology (CFP). Eleven applications of systemic thinking (perceptual and cognitive structuring processes) are described to characterize the way couple and family psychologists think about research and practice. The application of systemic thinking to research is described in light of ...

Tom Andersen, the Norwegian therapist who made a name for himself with the concept of the reflecting team, briefly toured South Africa in March, running workshops in four major centres under the banner of the Family Life Centre of South Africa. New Therapist followed him for two of the stops ...