Maryam

Persian translation by Dr Ali Mohammad Nazari, Abbas Mouziri and others

About the book

This book was written to set out the foundations of the solution-focused approach and explain how its skills are applied in many fields, including mental health, childcare and organisational consulting.

Therapists often, and naturally, pay little attention to research. Yet in developed countries there is a growing need for evidence in therapy: the effectiveness of treatments must be established by the models of scientific research accepted for evaluating medical treatments. This book gives a broad review of contemporary research, including the author’s own research data.

One of the book’s aims is to show how the solution-focused approach applies in organisational settings; I hope it will be a useful resource for managers and management consultants looking for effective interventions.

What others have said about this book

A book full of ideas and exercises for trainees and therapists. A comprehensive account of solution-focused ideas and how to use them in the workplace. An essential book for professionals who want to improve their solution-focused skills. Alasdair brings to this book the knowledge of years of expertise, research and passion for the solution-focused approach.

Bill O’Connell.

Fred Roddick.

***

Alasdair Macdonald has created a landmark in the development of solution-focused approaches. He brings together the history, research and evidence for solution-focused therapy, and offers many practical exercises, from severe mental illness to conflicts at work. The book is a collection of brief, concise insights, [human] relationships and thought-provoking questions, very authoritative and clear.

Mark McKergow, author of “The Solutions Focus: The SIMPLE Way to Positive Change”.

Alasdair has an important and special place in the solution-focused world because of his long-standing interest in research. That interest, and his background in adult mental health work, shine through in this book, which presents them apart from the introduction to the approach. At a time of limited resources and professionals under pressure, this book highlights the flexibility and suitability of the solution-focused approach, which can be effective and practical for clinicians and managers in the field.

Evan George, BRIEF, London.

Contents

Chapter 1: The solution-focused therapy model: the first session, part one

Chapter 2: The solution-focused therapy model: part two

Chapter 3: A case study

Chapter 4: Ethics in solution-focused therapy

Chapter 5: The historical roots of solution-focused brief therapy

Chapter 6: Solution-focused brief therapy in mental health

Chapter 7: The solution-focused approach to severe mental illness

Chapter 8: The solution-focused approach at work

Chapter 9: Future directions for solution-focused therapy

Appendix 1: Websites of academic and training centres for the solution-focused approach

Appendix 2: Rapid, repeated breathing: a remedy for anxiety syndrome

Persian translation by Dr Esmaeil Asadpour, Abbas Mouziri and Fatemeh Naderi

About the book

Dr Elaine Clanton Harpine is a motivational psychologist specialising in the design of group-centred motivational programmes, with 35 years’ experience designing and running motivational programmes for children and adolescents.

Written to help school psychologists and counsellors and others working in school health, this book sets out the theoretical framework of group interventions in schools and gives examples of how to apply them. Although group interventions for schools take many forms, the book focuses on group-centred interventions: preventive programmes that aim to equip pupils to learn and so to perform more successfully.

Group-centred interventions help pupils develop and improve cognitive, emotional and behavioural skills through a series of structured sessions. An element of “play” for children, and a programme of “taking part in social activities” for adolescents, are added to these interventions. As the term “group-centred” suggests, all the interventions discussed draw on the therapeutic power of the “group”; and if the group is led well, “group cohesion” can become an important source of change in its members.

This book can serve as a supplementary resource and training guide for school counsellors with less training in designing and running group interventions with children. It can also be useful and practical for group specialists who want to make their skills more effective, and for newcomers to group work. We hope that by the end of the book readers will be familiar with using group-centred interventions in school settings.

Contents

Foreword

Introduction

Chapter one: School-based prevention programmes to make up for failure

Chapter two: Retraining the skills that build a sense of efficacy

Chapter three: Intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation

Chapter four: Process and change in groups

Chapter five: Choosing effective interventions

Chapter six: A one-week group-centred motivational intervention programme

Chapter seven: Designing group-centred motivational interventions

Chapter eight: Building cohesive group interventions

Chapter nine: Running and evaluating the programme: the long-term goal

How meeting basic needs shapes marital adjustment

That meeting our basic needs affects marital adjustment is taken for granted today, but recognising our needs and learning how to meet them requires knowing ourselves and our spouse. This article looks briefly at the subject.

Introduction

Humanity’s basic, fundamental needs have been discussed in theories across many scientific fields, especially psychology; many theories of personality devote a special section to the subject (Schultz and Schultz, Persian translation by Seyed Mohammadi). One of the most recent approaches to take it up seriously is reality therapy, or choice theory, put forward by William Glasser, which has been very well received in research and clinical practice, especially over the last two decades (Corey, Persian translation by Seyed Mohammadi).

Glasser believed that just as survival needs are genetically programmed in all animals, in human beings — the most complete of animals — four higher and more complex needs are genetically programmed as well (Glasser, Persian translation by Rahmanian). These four needs, usually known as love and belonging, power (achievement/competence), freedom (independence) and fun (enjoyment), are regarded as the basic psychological needs, while survival is the one basic physiological need in human beings. These five needs are shared by all humanity, regardless of age, ethnicity, race or gender. Even so, how much each matters, and in what order, differs from one person to another. In other words, everyone has these five basic needs, but in each person one or more of them stands out as more important than the rest. According to choice theory, it is very important for people to become aware of their own unique pattern of basic needs, because this awareness can play an important part in making healthy, constructive choices in personal and social life (Glasser).

Whether or not the five needs are met has a direct, tangible effect on our feelings and physical states. When they are met well, we experience pleasant feelings and physical states; but if, for any reason, we fail to meet them, we experience unpleasant ones. Our feelings and physical states are in fact clues to whether our basic needs are being met well at the moment. For example, if we feel physically unwell, our survival need may be threatened by an internal infection; or if we feel pleasure and happiness, our need for love and belonging may be well met. In general, this can hold for each of the needs (Glasser, Persian translation by Rahmanian). Each of the five basic needs is described below (Glasser, Persian translation by Rahmanian; Wubbolding et al.).

1) The need for survival

The need for survival is shared by all living beings, and broadly refers to a creature’s drive to stay alive and have a safe place in the world. Much of the behaviour linked to survival, especially in animals, is instinctive. But one essential difference in humans is that, besides instinctive and involuntary behaviour, we can meet our survival needs in highly intelligent and complex ways. And unlike animals, humans usually meet their survival needs with interpersonal and social demands in mind.

2) Power

The need for power refers to the wish to control people or things. It also includes the wish for mastery, achievement and a sense of competence. In general, the need for power can be a good source and driver of progress in different areas of personal and social life. On the other hand, when it appears as an intense wish to exert influence and dominate others, the unhealthy, destructive side of this need has come to the surface. This dysfunctional side of the need for power, which runs against many aspects of healthy, constructive social life and relationships, may show itself in all kinds of hostility and interpersonal conflict.

3) The need for freedom

The need for freedom refers to the human inclination to decide, choose, be independent and act without interference from others or outside constraints. In other words, it is the need for a person’s private life, will and independence not to be attacked by the power and external control of others.

4) The need for fun

The need for fun refers to the sense of liveliness and enjoyment that pleasurable, well-loved experiences and activities bring. Learning about what interests us may be the most important way of meeting this need. The idea of learning matters so much here that Glasser saw fun as the genetic reward for learning.

5) Love and belonging

For today’s social human being, the need for love and belonging is often the most important need. Indeed, meeting the other four needs well is in a sense possible only in the shadow of this one, because all basic needs can be met only in a social context and in relationships with others (Gardner). In other words, a person’s psychological nourishment comes through this need. That is why Glasser believed that someone who has long been unable to experience loving relationships full of affection and belonging will without doubt develop psychological symptoms. In Glasser’s view, chronic psychological problems, whatever form they take — depression, anxiety, obsession or any other — are in fact signs of relationship problems. When the need for relationship, love and belonging is damaged over a long time, psychological illness is unavoidable. Failure to meet this psychological need can come from two main sources: a) the person is caught up in very destructive relationships that have damaged it, or b) the person has no positive, supportive relationships at all. For Glasser, a satisfying, happy marriage requires the need for love and belonging to be well met for both partners.

Using questionnaires and observation, Fitzpatrick[1] and Gottman identified three types of stable[2] marriage. The marital relationships these three types produce are: 1) “traditional”[3] couples, 2) independent[4] couples and 3) “avoidant”[5] couples.

Traditional couples:

They accept conventional gender roles and lifestyles, and resolve conflict in an indirect, so-called low-key[6] way. In short, traditional couples:

• Accept traditional gender roles.
• Put family goals before individual goals.
• Keep a regular, predictable daily routine.
• Do not each keep private space or belongings at home.
• Are moderate in expressing positive and negative feelings.
• Avoid getting caught up in minor conflicts.
• Take up important conflicts between them with the aim of resolving them.
• When starting to resolve a conflict, each first tries to listen to the other’s point of view, and then states and defends their own position.
• Try to persuade the other only after listening properly to their view.

Independent couples:

Striving for equal roles, they resolve conflict in an active, direct, so-called fiery[7] way.

• They accept androgynous, egalitarian roles.
• Family goals come after individual goals.
• They have no particular regular, predictable daily routine.
• Even at home, each keeps private space or belongings that the other may not use without permission.
• They are not especially moderate in expressing positive and negative feelings.
• They prefer to keep wrangling over the issues between them.
• From the very start of a disagreement, without trying to listen to each other, they set out to prove their own view and persuade the other.
• They have many positive and negative feelings towards each other.

Avoidant couples:

They accept conventional roles but lead parallel lives, and, unlike traditional couples, try on principle to avoid attending to points of conflict in their relationship.

• They accept traditional gender roles.
• They try to avoid any kind of conflict.
• Their conflict-resolution skills are very weak. In the few cases where they acknowledge a conflict, they simply state their own views, without any attempt to persuade each other or reach a compromise.
• They play down their disagreements compared with the values and common ground they share.

Gottman’s study also identified two types of unstable couple, described as “hostile”[8] couples and couples who are “completely disengaged”[9] from each other.

Hostile couples:

The first group notice conflict in their relationship and do fight, but they do not seek to solve the problem; mostly they tear each other down.

• They take up their conflicts but make no attempt to resolve them.
• Constant blame, mind-reading and defensiveness are the main features of their interactions.
• They express a great deal of negative emotion and very little positive emotion.
• Their usual pattern of interaction is attack and withdraw.
• They express very high levels of negative emotion towards each other, and very little positive emotion.

Completely disengaged couples:

To prevent confrontation, the second group avoid everyday contact with each other on principle, and put up with each other in a kind of complete silence and indifference.

• They avoid conflict, and their conflict-resolution skills are also very weak.
• Brief episodes of blame, mind-reading and defensiveness appear in their interactions.
• They express very little negative emotion, and positive emotion is almost absent.
• Their conflict pattern is avoid/avoid.

Gottman found that in the three types of stable couple, the ratio of positive to negative verbal exchanges when resolving conflict was 5 to 1, whereas for unstable marriages it was reported to be roughly 1 to 1. Gottman’s and Fitzpatrick’s work especially stresses the fact that stable, lasting patterns of marriage are very varied. Their findings underline the importance of couples taking up their conflicts (with the aim of resolving them) rather than staying silent and ignoring them. Attending to each other’s negative points does damage only when it exceeds one for every five positive responses. In fact, moderate negativity of the kind described above may even help build and deepen mutual social understanding, and so play a useful part in balancing the need for intimacy with the need to exercise power, helping to keep the relationship attractive in the long run.

[1] Fitzpatrick

[2] stable

[3] traditional

[4] androgynous

[5] avoidant

[6] low key

[7] fiery approach

[8] conflictual

[9] Disengaged

Sources: Gottman, J. M. (1993). The roles of conflict engagement, escalation, and avoidance in marital interaction: a longitudinal view of five types of couples. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 61, 6–15; and Fitzpatrick, M. A. (1988). Between Husbands and Wives: Communication in Marriage. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

As one of the centres licensed for specialist premarital counselling and family strengthening, Moeen Counselling Centre plans to run specialist premarital counselling courses and family therapist training courses for students and professionals in counselling and psychology, taught by Dr Bahman Bahmani and other leading teachers in Iran. To hear about course dates and requirements, join our network.