Over the last ten years as a therapist, I have heard many stories of resilience and heartache, triumph and disappointment, adversity and growth, trial and opportunity.   I believe it is a privilege to be entrusted with so many people’s stories, and with the opportunity to play a meaningful role at various crossroads in the lives of my clients.   

I see counseling as partly about helping people to explore the impact of the stories they frequently tell about themselves and their world, and to invite people to reflect on new ways of creating meaning about their lives.  Sometimes the way we think and talk about our lives ends up constraining our choices and limiting our perspectives.    At other times, we hit upon realizations and new perspectives that open up possibilities and solutions we hadn’t considered.    One of the rewards of my work is being able to participate with people in the latter process and to celebrate their achievements with them as they gradually start to re-write their own stories.

In order to provide a flavor of how I work in therapy, I would like to discuss some of the guiding principles and assumptions that influence my thinking and practice.    These ideas focus on my assumptions about the nature of problems and my theory of change.  

What are some of the core assumptions that inform your therapy approach?

Assumption One:    We are relational beings, meaning that we are best understood within a relational, systemic context.     We exist in families and networks of people.     Behavior is often best understood in the context of the relational environment in which a person exists and the interconnectedness between persons.     Establishing and maintaining secure, emotional bonds and attachments with others is a central, motivating need and organizing principle in human beings.  We yearn to feel accepted and valued by others and to know that we matter to those who matter to us.   

Assumption Two:   We are meaning-making beings.  We attach meaning (i.e. interpretations, core beliefs, assumptions about the way things are, etc.) to our experiences, and this meaning in turn guides what we pay attention to, how we think, how we feel, and how we act.  Thus, the beliefs and assumptions we hold about the world shape our lives, and have significant consequences for our relationships, for others and for ourselves.   Some meanings may be helpful in assisting us and our families to experience growth and solutions to our problems; while other meanings may constrain solutions and perpetuate problems.     In other words, the “problem” is not always the problem; rather it is often our belief about the problem that is the problem ¹.    I use the term “meaning” broadly, to describe (a) thought processes that lie largely within the realm of our awareness such as internal self-statements and automatic thoughts, (b) explanations for why events occur the way they do and why people do the things they do, and (c) underlying core beliefs or assumptions about the nature of reality, the world, relationships, oneself, and other people.  These latter core beliefs often lie outside of our awareness, but serve as powerful rules for our decision-making and behavior.

Assumption Three:   We are agentive beings, meaning that we have the ability to act for ourselves, based on our powers of reflection and choice.      In the absence of limitations to the contrary, we have the ability to reflect on our experience and to consciously choose our response – our thoughts, actions, words, and intentions, for example – to any given situation.     Where there is the ability to reflect, to choose one’s response, and to act for oneself, there is personal accountability and the possibility of transcending “stimulus-response” behavior. 

Assumption Four:    We bring forth what we focus on ².    What an individual focuses on or distinguishes is what becomes real to him or her.   An outgrowth of this assumption is that both problems and solutions are heightened, solidified, and made more real as they are distinguished in language between individuals ³.  

What is your theory of how problems develop?

While these ideas are not comprehensive, and do not necessarily capture every situation, I assume that many problems occur in connection with one or more of the following:  (1) constraining core beliefs about the nature of things or assumptions that lie at the heart of the matter are limiting one’s view of options, solutions, choices and possibilities ⁴; (2) attachment needs are unmet or threatened ⁵, resulting in a hardening against vulnerability; (3) individuals and family members engage in reciprocal, self-perpetuating, negative interaction patterns whereby they interpret each other’s behavior and selectively attend to events in ways that confirm their constraining core beliefs and subsequently act in ways that further preclude safe, emotional connection;  (4) people do not focus on strengths, resources and solutions such that possibilities and positive changes often go unnoticed or forgotten.  

What are your primary tasks as a clinician when working with people to facilitate change?

My primary tasks as a clinician in therapy are based on the assumptions and ideas I have already presented.   Some of the following tasks may apply more than others in particular situations.   These tasks include:  (a) drawing forth conversations of affirmation, affection, growth and change, between myself and individual clients and/or between family members, (b) inviting reflection about more facilitative views on the issues involved, views that create therapeutic possibilities and options, (c) promoting stronger emotional connections and attachments between family members through expanding  the emotional experience of clients and through subsequent dialogue around that new emotional experience ⁶, (d) helping individuals address their needs for acceptance, worth and personal agency, (e) helping family members to identify and alter negative interaction patterns  through examination of the rules and structure that perpetuates such patterns and to create self-perpetuating positive interaction patterns, (f) helping clients focus on solutions, successful outcomes, progress toward goals, efforts to create change, strengths and resources, and personal accountability for change, in order to facilitate further change, and (g) strengthening each client’s sense of self-efficacy by connecting successes and positive outcomes to their own effort rather than to circumstance or chance.

¹ Wright, L. M., Watson, W. L., & Bell, J. M.  (1996).  Beliefs: The heart of healing in families and illness.  New York, NY: Basic Books.

² Maturana, H. R.  Telephone conversation:  The Calgary/Chile coupling [Telephone transcript].  Calgary, Canada:  University of Calgary.

³ See Wright, et al. (1996).

⁴ See Wright, et al. (1996).

⁵ Johnson, S. M.  (1996).   The practice of emotionally-focused marital therapy: Creating connection.   New York: Brunner/Mazel, Publishers.