Customer Reviews

Brief Therapy with Intimidating Cases: Changing the Unchangeable

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This is the second book that I have read coauthored by Richard Fisch, he also cowrote "Tactic of Change." I enjoyed the authors perspective of looking at the clients attempts to solve the problem as a focal point of change. The clients were stuck in their solutions to the problems. In these case studies, "the cure was indeed the disease." You can see Fisch's influences - Milton Erickson, Paul Watzlawick and John Weakland. The cases were indeed intimidating and all were handled in 10 sessions or less. The author's approach of illiminating what has been tried and changing the circular solutions attempted, in a paradoxical manner, is a major contribution to the field of brief therapy. This cofounder of the Mental Health Reaserch Institute is one of the inovators for an creative approach to solution and complaint based therapy. This book gives some great exampes of counterintuitive and paradoxical methods, with tips on how to facilitate the client into action. I only wish that it could have been longer then its puny 151 pages.

A great introduction for those who have entertained the notion of informing themselves about paradoxical interventions in psychotherapy but, for whatever reason, not quite got there yet. The extended case histories are easy to digest and the relatively light didactic content make for breezy reading. Recommended.