An excerpt from Counseling on postmodern approaches to therapy

Postmodernist therapy, developed in the 1980s, has no single founder and is the result of the efforts of many people*** working together. In contrast to postmodernist therapy, we will refer to the therapies described earlier collectively as modernist therapy. Modernist therapy believes that reality is objective and that there is a standard range of reality. It believes that people have problems because their emotions or behaviors deviate from objective norms, and it labels these deviant emotions and behaviors as abnormal, and then helps them return to a "normal" state.

Postmodernist therapy, on the other hand, rejects objective reality and focuses more on the subjective reality of the visitor. In other words, it shifts from focusing on the external aspects of the problem to the internal parts of the individual, emphasizing the exploration of multiple meanings of events. For example, in the face of a case of depression, modernist therapy focuses on exploring what the visitor has depression, what is the root cause of depression, and how to eliminate the problematic behaviors exhibited, etc.; whereas postmodernist therapy believes that the visitor's state of depression has existential significance and value, and focuses on language to help the visitor find out what depression means to the visitor's life at the moment, or with the help of depression is telling the visitor about his life at the moment. Or with the help of what depression is telling the visitor, or what positive resources the visitor employs to cope in the depressed state, and so on.

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The more classic postmodern therapies are Focused Solution Brief Therapy and Narrative Therapy.

Focused Solution Short-Term Therapy, a short-term psychotherapeutic technique, centers on finding solutions to problems. It assumes that people are healthy and full of abilities. Visitors have the resources necessary to solve their own problems, and can construct their own resolution journeys under the guidance of a counselor.

So, rather than focusing on the problem, Focused Short-Term Therapy looks for the positive and effective aspects of the visitor's life, the exceptions to the problem, meaning that the solution to the problem lies in the exceptions. By exceptions, we mean behaviors or thoughts other than the problem. By asking the visitor, "What was done to keep the problem from happening?" This encourages the visitor to make this small exception the beginning of a change that will gradually grow into more change.

For example, a female visitor feels that her marital status is in trouble, and believes that her husband no longer loves her. She is agitated by this, and often focuses on her husband, wanting to be with him all the time, which drives her husband crazy, and tries to avoid her. Her husband became less and less interested in staying at home, and even when he was at home, he often stayed alone in his study and didn't want to talk to her.

This woman wanted counseling to improve her marriage. The counselor made an exception question, "Are there times when you are the one who acts more relaxed or when you are able to do something on your own?"

The visitor replied, "I would sometimes read a book by myself and wouldn't want to be so clingy to him; instead, he would come over and check on me. Maybe at those times he thinks I'm less annoying to him because I'm more independent!"

Listening to this exception, the counselor admiringly and in an uplifting tone continued to ask the visitor, "You think he prefers you to be a little more independent. What did you do to make yourself so that you could be a little more independent?"

The visitor replied, "Oh, sometimes I want to do my own thing, and sometimes I tell myself I can't always depend on him."

The counselor continues with the question, "When you tell yourself that, does it make a difference to you?"

The visitor replied, "Yes! The more I think about it, the more independent I can be."

...... This conversation is about helping the visitor discover solutions to their problems on their own by discovering their exceptions, so that they can start with small exceptions and gradually build up to trigger more and bigger changes in the couple's daily communication.

Why is it that small changes can lead to bigger changes? Focused short-term therapy recognizes that people have a system that has a "black" part (i.e., interactions when problems occur) and a "white" part (i.e., interactions when problems don't occur). The traditional approach is to correct the black part, but the Focused Short-Term Therapy approach is to expand on the white part.

Since the whole system is in a fixed balance, once the white part expands a little, the black part decreases a little, and a change in the whole system occurs. Small changes cannot be ignored, just like a snowball, starting from a small snowball, the bigger it rolls, bringing about a snowball effect, and eventually triggering a big change in the visitor's existing way of thinking, feeling, and behaving.

The previous female visitor realized that when she read a book independently and did something she liked, her husband was more willing to come closer to her. Then the next thing you know, she's doing her own thing a little more and not relying on his husband as much. The husband, without the oppressive feeling of being approached by his wife, will also communicate with her more and more. With each passing day, husband and wife will be able to get along easily.

Next, let's take a look at some examples of how Focused Solution Short-Term Therapy can be practiced with tools.

First of all, the most commonly used technique is "Focused Dialogue for Change". Focused Dialogue for Change involves the counselor asking questions to help the visitor focus on the possibilities for change. To help the woman, the counselor did a lot of questioning with the exception of focusing on the problem, which you can already feel.

The counselor can also use questions that explore "what can be done in the here and now" instead of "why in the past" to reconstruct the visitor's problem and create change. For example, when helping a client clarify goals, the counselor might ask, "What do you want in life?" or "When faced with this question, what do you want? Or, "What do you think I might be able to do to help you with this problem?" or "What do you want to change when you come here today?" This can make the visitor stop complaining and face the problem squarely, thus leading to the goal of action.

The counselor can also help the visitor by asking questions that clarify what the first signs of change are. For example, ask the visitor, "If your parents noticed that you were becoming better behaved, which change do you think they would notice first?" Guide the visitor to map out the first signs of change so that action steps to address the problem can be initiated. There are two types of questions that can be asked here.

First, the miracle inquiry. For example, "How will your life be different when a miracle happens?" The purpose is to explore what the visitor wants differently in life. Guiding the visitor from focusing on past problems to exploring a satisfying future state fills the visitor with confidence while clarifying long-term goals.

Second, exception questioning. The counselor assists the visitor in identifying the exceptions, guiding him to see what happened when the complaint didn't occur or wasn't as serious. Commonly asked questions are, "When does the problem not occur?" "What has ever been done to make you feel better about yourself?"

I don't know if you've had a feeling of clarity after listening to these presentations, and that's how you can help yourself to find solutions in your life.

Focused Solution Short-Term Therapy focuses a lot on the counselor's feedback to the visitor, including three components: encouragement and praise, bridging, and assigning homework. Encouragement and praise build up the visitor's hope and let the visitor know that he/she has the ability to reach the goal; the bridge is to connect the encouragement and praise with the subsequent tasks; and by assigning homework, the visitor is allowed to observe his/her own life, look for the exceptions, carry out self-exploration, and compare the difference between before and after the change, so as to strengthen the effect of the counseling, or the visitor is allowed to do some behavioral tasks that can help to solve the problem.

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Next, let's look at another representative of postmodernism, narrative therapy.

Some scholars have proposed the theory of "narrative therapy" on the basis of family therapy. I believe we all have this experience, when you are unhappy, you like to talk to the people around you. In fact, narrative therapy is somewhat similar to this kind of "confabulation", vivid language can reproduce the situation, and let us re-enter the situation, and then we can proceed to the next step.

The counselor, by listening to the visitor's story, externalizes the problem, i.e., separates the person from the problem, and emphasizes that "the problem is the problem, the person is not the problem". The counselor then deconstructs the problem, rewrites the story, and changes the perspective of the problem. The concepts of "externalization" and "deconstruction" are somewhat unfamiliar to some of you, but that's okay, we'll give you some further examples in the counseling strategies we're going to study below.

Narrative therapy emphasizes the "story," which is a main story and a sub-story. Main stories are also known as problem stories, those stories in the visitor's life story that are particularly important and become centered around a main axis. Branching stories, also called alternative stories, are events in the visitor's life story that do not fit into the main axis and go unnoticed.

For example, a 31-year-old female doctor came to the counseling room. She had a good job, a good income, and had bought her own house, but she was not satisfied with herself, and often felt sad and miserable, and burst into tears in the counseling room. The counselor learned that the reason why she was so sad and upset was because she had participated in countless dating activities, but had not yet found a suitable partner to get married and start a family. And her family keeps urging her to get married, which makes her exhausted. This is the problematic story, or the main story, that she has been influenced by the concept of "a man should be married when he grows up, and a woman should be married when she grows up".

But if she is not influenced by the concept of "a man should be married, a woman should be married", she can live a very rich and happy life. Through the help of narrative therapy, we need to help her reconstruct the "not married, but also can live a happy and happy" branch story, or alternative stories. For example, although she is not married, she has created a cozy home for herself through her own efforts and is responsible for her own life. Or that because she is not married, she can dispose of her time and money very freely, traveling, reading and studying, listening to music, etc. Instead, she can organize her life in a more meaningful way, and have all kinds of free choices for herself.

Replacing an irrational main story with a spinoff story is the core concept of narrative therapy. After developing a new main story, it is also necessary to help the visitor to identify himself with himself on the basis of his own abilities and resources, so as to help the individual to solve the current as well as the future problems he will encounter.

Next, let's look specifically at what are the counseling strategies of narrative therapy.

First, there is the externalization and deconstruction of the problem, through which the person is allowed to see his or her own strengths and abilities through the problem. Problems can be anthropomorphized to help the visitor engage in a dialogue with the problem. For example, when faced with a depressed visitor, the counselor can ask through anthropomorphism:

"When is depression farther away from you?"

"Okay, let's look at this depression, where is he taking us?"

"When you don't feel depressed, what are you doing at that time?"

"After all this time, you're still dealing with this depression, and I'm very curious if I can ask, how did you manage to keep dealing with him without getting crushed within all this time?"

"What would you like to say to this depression? What does this depression want to say to you?"

In this way, the visitor's depression no longer appears as one with the visitor, and through questioning that externalizes the problem, the visitor can stand outside of the depression to interpret what the depression is doing to him or her, what he or she is doing when not depressed, how he or she is coping with the depression, what the depression means to him or her, and so on.

After the problem is externalized and deconstructed, the story needs to be reconstructed. Like the previous story of the female doctor, the main story of many visitors is often embedded behind some specific culture, historical knowledge and habits, and these taken-for-granted notions are often the constructors of the visitor's problems, and we can easily become the victims and scapegoats under the culture. Narrative therapy counselors need to help visitors step outside of their self-identity that is influenced and controlled by the dominant culture.

For example, the visitor told the counselor, "In my childhood, my dad used to beat me and my mom. I loved to go to school, but sometimes I skipped school. I didn't skip school to go out to play, but to see if my mom and dad were fighting and if they were okay. I felt really sorry for myself then!"

The attitude and thought process of the narrative therapy counselor was: a child experiencing domestic violence must be pitiful? Who rules that? How did the little one think of sneaking around to see if mom and dad were fighting? What is the pity he is talking about? Where did the idea of feeling sorry for himself come from? How did the little man survive the pitiful days? What was the hardest part of the pitiful days?

Reconstructing the story involves digging for special meaning events, that is, looking for any events that don't fit into the main story, which can be events that contradict the main story, don't fit in with the mainstream culture, or finding out when the problem is ineffective. Discovering special meaning events is an iterative process until the visitor's inner strengths are uncovered. So to deconstruct and reconstruct, the counselor does not have to agree with the visitor's pre-existing feelings or show sympathy and compassion for the visitor, but rather look at the visitor's experience with an attitude of externalization and curiosity.

Through "action blueprint questioning", we can connect the special events in chronological order, explore the details of the special events, and understand the visitor's self-identity, interpersonal relationships, including desires, motivations, goals, dreams, expectations, values, beliefs, determination, promises, and a more ideal form of life, and so on. shape of life, etc. Narrative therapy's exploration of special meaning events is very similar to Focused Solution Short-Term Therapy's exploration of problematic exceptions.

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Both of the postmodernist therapies described above optimistically believe that people are capable and resourceful, and that they can find answers to their problems on their own. But for these therapies to be effective, cooperation and communication are key. The visitor and the counselor are always in an active and interactive relationship. By listening, the counselor enters the visitor's world and guides positive action. Then, through invitation, he or she prompts further change, helping the visitor to search for new meaning and to generate new ideas and behaviors.

The counselor is the expert in the problem-solving process, and the visitor is the expert who understands the problem best, and when the two work together, the problem is solved. The counselor is only "triggering" the visitor to use his or her abilities, not "creating" change. The emphasis here is on the visitor's own resources and respect for the visitor's own problem-solving abilities.