Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: CHILDHOOD ONSET ANOREXIA NERVOSA AND RELATED EATING DISORDERS Brian Lask and Rachel Bryant-Waugh (eds.). REWRITING LOVE STORIES: Brief Marital Therapy . Patricia O'Hanlon Hudson and William Hudson O'Hanlon. HEARING THE CRY. Suicide Prevention: What to Look for, What to Do, Where to go. Margaret Appleby and Margaret Condonis. Narellan, NSW . Tony Wolf & Son Printers RESIDENTIAL TREATMENT; A COOPERATIVE, COMPETENCY-BASED APPROACH TO THERAPY AND PROGRAM DESIGN . Michael Durrant.     

FOCUSED SUPERVISION SEEN THROUGH A RECURSIVE FRAME ANALYSIS*

The last decade has seen a dramatic increase in the literature addressing family therapy training and supervision (Liddle, Breunlin, & Schwartz, 1988; Morris & Chenail, 1995; Selekman & Todd, 1995; Thomas, 1994). Most of this literature, however, focuses on theory rather than prctice. This paper presents a study of solution-focused therapy's model of supervision, which we have labeled focused supervision. This supervisory process is conceptualized as a conversation during which supervisor and supervisee engage in a dialogue that mutually shapes the meaning of the experience. This study attends to the actual words spoken and utilizes recursive frame analysis to get closer to the talk of a focused supervisory session.     

Reviews

Books reviewed Patch Adams [Film]. Starring Robin Williams Cooper, John F., A Primer of Brief Psychotherapy O'Hanlon, Steffanie and Bertolino, Bob (Eds) Evolving Possibilities: Selected Papers of Bill O'Hanlon Haber, Russell. Dimensions of Psychotherapy Supervision: Maps and Means Coale, Helen W. The Vulnerable Therapist: Practicing Psychotherapy in an Age of Anxiety Anderson, Leela (Ed.) Bedtime Stories for Tired Therapists     

Possibilities Might Be More Encompassing than Solutions: An Interview with Bill O'Hanlon

Bill O'Hanlon has authored or co-authored seventeen books, including Taproots; Solution-Oriented Hypnosis; An Uncommon Casebook; Shifting Contexts; Rewriting Love Stories. He has published 32 articles or book chapters. Bill has produced or co-produced two computer programs and several audiotapes and videotapes about therapy. His books have been widely translated. He is co-editor of The Journal of Collaborative Therapies and is on the advisory board of the International Association of Marriage and Family Counselors. He says that his teaching ‘may cause severe disruption to old beliefs and unhelpful patterns and you may have no place to go but toward the life that has been your heart's and soul's desire’.     

THE INTEGRATION OF EMOTION IN SOLUTION- FOCUSED THEAPY

The authors believe that solution-focused therapy can be enhanced by more overtly incorporating emotions into its theoretical framework and therapeutic strategies. They discuss the role of emotions in solution-focused therapy and offer several solution-focused interventions that utlize client affect.     

Solution-focused premarital counseling: helping couples build a vision for their marriage

This article outlines a solution-focused approach to premarital counseling. Solution-focused premarital counseling is a strength-based approach that focuses on a couple's resources to develop a shared vision for the marriage. Background information about premarital counseling and solution-focused therapy provide the framework for the development of intervention strategies that are grounded in the solution-focused approach. Solution-oriented interventions include solution-oriented questions, providing feedback, and the Couple's Resource Map, an original intervention that is described in this article.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article: IN SEARCH OF SOLUTIONS — A NEW DIRECTION IN PSYCHOTHERAPY . William Hudson O'Hanlon and Michele Weiner-Davis. THE COUPLE'S HYPNOTIC DANCE . Creating Ericksonian Strategies in Marital Therapy. Carol J. Kershaw. BEYOND THE MYTHS: Mother-Daughter Relationships in Psychology, History, Literature and Everyday Life . Shelley Phillips. COGNITIVE THERAPY AND THE EMOTIONAL DISORDERS . Aaron T. Beck. COGNITIVE THERAPY WITH COUPLES . Frank M. Dattilio and Christine A. Padesky. TREATMENT OF FAMILY VIOLENCE: A SOURCE BOOK . Edited by R.T. Ammerman and M. Hersen.     

Single Session Interventions: An Example of Clinical Research in Practice

Single session consultations seem to be an efficient and effective way of providing therapeutic interventions at a time of increasing demands for services and shrinking resources. Though ‘one-off’ consultations have a long clinical history, specific interest in their use was sparked by Talmon's (1990) observation that 78% of his clients who had had only one consultation had experienced improvement in their presenting problems. Several Australian studies have supported Talmon's advocacy of this approach (Boyhan, 1996; Hampson, O'Hanlon, Pentony and Cramby, 1994; Price, 1994) but have significant methodological flaws. The present study used a pre–post methodology to assess the effectiveness of single session interventions and explored whether family dynamics impacted on changes in the presenting problem and in level of coping. The results indicated significant changes in both. Family pride or morale was identified as a major factor in positive response to the interventions. The implications for the use of single sessions and for further clinically based research are discussed.     

Family Phone Therapy in University Counseling and Psychological Service Centers: A Family Systems Approach

Abstract

This paper offers family phone therapy as a method for student mental health practitioners to overcome the obstacle of geographic distance between students and their families when family therapy is the treatment of choice. The issues of confidentiality, triangulation, diversionary conversation, and mixed communication, which present unique concerns when engaging in family phone therapy, are introduced and strategies to deal with them are discussed. A case example is presented to demonstrate the utility of family phone therapy in dealing with problems that students who use university mental health services can typically experience. Finally, implications of dealing with students' developmental tasks from an individual or family systems perspective are discussed.     

On ethnomethodology, feminism, and the analysis of categorial reference to gender in talk-in-interaction

This paper sets out an ethnomethodological approach to the study of gender and interaction, and demonstrates how the topic of ‘gender’ can be studied empirically via its categorial reference in talk‐in‐interaction. I begin by charting the history of ethnomethodological accounts and studies of gender, starting with Garfinkel's groundbreaking work and the subsequent ‘doing gender’ project, alongside a more general discussion of feminism's relationship to ethnomethodology. I then consider two related trajectories of research, one in conversation analysis and the other in membership categorization analysis, both of which deal with the explication of gender's relevance to interaction, but in somewhat different ways that raise different problems. Finally, drawing on data from different institutional settings, I show how ‘categorial’ phenomena such as ‘gender’ can be studied as phenomena of sequential organization using the machinery of membership categorization alongside conversation analysis. I suggest that the analysis of members' categories in their sequential environment allows language and gender researchers to see how everyday notions of gender are taken up, reformulated, or resisted, in turns of talk that accomplish conversational action; that is, how categories ‘might be relevant for the doing of some activity’ ( Sacks, 1992 vol. 1: 597).     

Book reviews

Abstract

Our paper on reconstructing and re-conceptualising social work in the emerging milieu is intended to contribute to an ongoing debate about the organisation and conceptualisation of social work in the Australian social, political, economic and cultural context. The responses to our paper by our colleagues, O'Connor, Furlong and Ife, provide a diversity of important perspectives for the social work profession in Australia to consider. It is our hope that this public conversation will continue and expand as other voices are added to what we hope will become a lively and defining discussion on our professional futures.     

Issuing and Responding to Unusual Questions: A Conversation Analytic Account of Tom Andersen's Therapeutic Practice

Tom Andersen is considered one of the key contributors to the development of postmodern practice. Little is known, however, about the ways in which his ideas and practices are routinely carried out in situ. We used Conversation Analysis (CA) to investigate a session of couple therapy facilitated by Andersen. We show how Andersen and client participants oriented to and addressed problems of understanding that occurred between them. The source of this trouble was Andersen's use of unusual question formulations. We offer preliminary evidence that such unusual formulations served particular interactional and institutional (i.e., therapeutic) functions in their local contexts of use. We conclude by considering some implications of this analysis—and of conversation analytic inquiry more generally—for the practice of family therapy.     

Book Review

Book reviewed in this article: WOMEN IN FAMILIES . A Framework for Family Therapy. McGoldrick, M., Anderson, C.M. & Walsh, F. (Eds.). SEX, LOVE AND VIOLENCE . Cloe Madanes. TAPROOTS . William Hudson O'Hanlon. New York THE BLAMMO-SURPRISE BOOK . Stephen R. Lankton SAMMY THE ELEPHANT AND MR. CAMEL . Joyce C. Mills, PhD and Richard J. Crowley, PhD TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT . Joy Hayward and David Carlyle. DEAD BIRDS SINGING . Marc Talbert. A GIRL LIKE ABBY . Hadley Irwin. YOU TAKE THE HIGH ROAD . Mary K. Pershall. LANGUAGE STRUCTURE AND CHANGE — Frameworks of Meaning in Psychotherapy . Jay S. Efran, Michael D. Lukens and Robert J. Lukens. A SYSTEMIC HARPOON INTO FAMILY GAMES . Giuliana Prata. CARDBOARD . Fiona Place.     

A Dialogical Model for Engaging Spirituality in Therapy

This article addresses the issue of engaging client diversity in therapeutic practice by elaborating a dialogical model of engagement that is sensitive to and inclusive of the spiritual dimension in the therapeutic encounter. Drawing on Martin Buber’s writings on the ‘I–Thou’ relationship, the concept of intersubjectivity, research on spirituality in therapy, and the authors’ clinical experiences of collaboratively engaging the spiritual dimension in therapy, strategies of engagement are critically examined. Treatment benefits of practices that facilitate the inclusion of client spiritual values and beliefs in the therapeutic conversation are explored and potential therapeutic pitfalls are identified.     

Career Research From an Action Perspective: The Self-Confrontation Procedure

A videotape playback procedure (self-confrontation) following a career-related conversation is proposed as a means of studying career development from an action perspective. This perspective is premised on an understanding of career development as intentional, goal-directed, and occurring in a social context. In this article, a career conversation between a parent and an adolescent is used to illustrate the procedure. During the individual playback, the participants are asked for their thoughts and feelings (cognitions) while the conversation took place, and their interpretation of it. The categories used in the analysis are described. This procedure provides contextually-sensitive and empirically-grounded data useful for researchers and practitioners.     

The Discursive Performance of the Alliance in Family Therapy: A Conversation Analytic Perspective

Following the ‘discursive’ turn in family therapy, the attention of practitioners shifted towards understanding how culture and language shape meaning‐making in therapy. In this article, we demonstrate how conversation analysis (CA) can be used to examine the processes and outcomes of systemic/constructionist practice. We used CA to study collaborative interactions of a renowned constructionist therapist Karl Tomm and one client‐family. Viewing collaboration as a pivotal aspect of the therapeutic alliance, we demonstrate how the ‘split’ within‐system alliances were developed and sustained in the course of therapy and how they were discursively transformed into ‘intact’ alliances. The therapist's efforts to align with perspectives of family members (and subsystems) seemed pivotal in this process.     

An Evaluation of Working on What Works (WOWW): A Solution-Focused Intervention for Schools

Working on What Works (WOWW) is a manualized, 10-week classroom intervention based on solution-focused brief therapy. This study evaluates WOWW using a randomized experimental, posttest-only design. The study included 30 fourth and fifth grade classrooms, containing 30 teachers and 413 students. Results indicate no significant differences between WOWW and control groups for student internalizing and externalizing behaviors, student–teacher relationships, student academic performance, or teacher sense of efficacy. However, students in the WOWW group had significantly fewer days absent from school compared with the control group. Additionally, teachers' ratings on WOWW classrooms' performance improved significantly more than teachers' ratings on the control classrooms. Results from this study show that WOWW is a feasible intervention for therapists to use in schools and can be implemented across classrooms in both public and private schools. WOWW has potential to improve student attendance and classroom performance, both of which are important areas of concern for schools.     

SOLUTION-FOCUSED THERAPY IN A PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL

This paper presents the authors' use of solution-focused brief therpay in an adult inpatient psychiatric hospital setting. we suggest that a theoretical inteeegration of the medical model and the solution-focused approach provides a useful treatment modality. We discuss implementation of the model, emphasizing assessment, treatment milieu, the role of staff, therapy, and discharge issues. We also describe the model's usefulness for training and supervision and offer recommendations for future research.     

Recovering Process from Child Sexual Abuse During Adulthood from an Integrative Approach to Solution-Focused Therapy: A Case Study

ABSTRACT

In recent times, strengths-based recovery approaches that focus on the present and build strategies that look toward the future have become popular. However, some cases require the consideration of experiences from previous stages of the clients’ development. This single-case study explores the psychotherapeutic process of a middle-aged woman who presented with a history of child sexual abuse (incest) and a long-term adult diagnosis of depression that was treated in public health services. This psychotherapy involved an integrative approach to solution-focused therapy; specifically, the approach proposed by Yvonne Dolan to work with adult survivors of sexual abuse, in conjunction with techniques and strategies from the transtheoretical model. Measures incorporating therapeutic working alliance and outcomes were administered over sessions. Results showed positive outcomes from this therapeutic intervention, which remained at 3-month and 12-month follow-ups. Implications for practitioners’ specialist practice in health services are discussed, given the complexity of comorbid mental health conditions with a history of child sexual abuse.