INDEX OF QUOTES
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Problems reflect people being stuck* in a particular way of making sense of things, and this way of seeing means that alternative behaviors or possibilities for solution are not available to them. Watzlawick, Weakland, and Fisch suggest that problems often happen because normal life events and experiences are made sense of in a particular way that leads them to attempt to solve the problem in a particular way. Even if these attempts do not seem to work, they tend to resort to “more of the same” solutions, since their explanation of the situation does not allow room for alternative solutions (Watzlawick et al., 1974; Weakland et al., 1974). This concept of more of the same attempted solutions leading inexorably to more of the same problem is a central idea in the brief approaches to therapy. Cade has summarized this assumption: As our patterns of association become established in a particular way, they will tend to influence the processing of subsequent experiences. In this way we develop belief frameworks or mental “sets” that determine how we see ourselves and our world, and how we ascribe meaning, and thus respond to, those experiences. In our relationships with others, we then develop patterns of behaving together that both reflect our mental sets and those of the people with whom we interact, and tend by repetition to be confirmed — though such patterns rarely develop consciously. (Cade, 1985, p.35) I believe that, in our work with children and families, we cannot know why things happen (and, often, our clients themselves do not know). We can make guesses (or "hypotheses") which maybe more or less helpful. Our focus, then, becomes one not of our knowing why things happen but of how our clients make sense of their experience and how we might assist them to make sense of things differently. A focus on context leads us to operate our residential programs in such a way as to make it most likely that people will experience new possibilities, that they will find ways of seeing themselves that will provide new options for relationships and behavior. *In reference to the phenomenon of “more of the same,” I
have commented that, if I was ever to be asked to contribute to a revision of
DSM, my version would include only one diagnostic category — that of 'stuck’ —
which would encompass all the existing diagnostic categories (Durrant &
Kowalski, 1993). |
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— MICHAEL DURRANT
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