 |
General | Therapy Tools | Therapy Phases
Different methods of therapy are used in every individual case. The individual method chosen takes the preferences of the client into account.
The mutual goal of the therapist and the client is that the client will achieve self-awareness, and, hopefully, a readiness to make changes in various behavioral patterns or in interpersonal communication skills that are found to need improving or removing.
Every family therapist has his own way of working.
Some therapists believe that only long-term treatment can lead to a solution to a complicated problem, and that the length of the therapy should be in direct proportion to the level of difficulty of the problem.
Others believe that one can reach good results in a limited number of sessions that are focused on the main issues that trouble the client.
I, too, believe in the effectiveness of the second method - namely, that of brief therapy:
As a rule, in the initial therapy contract, 12 sessions are scheduled. The sixth session constitutes an interim summary meeting, wherein the current situation and progress are evaluated and a mutual decision is taken as to whether to continue the sessions, take a short break to see what happens without therapy, or find that, in fact, there is no need to carry on.
The focus is put first and foremost on the solving or relief of the specific difficulties that were the original reason for turning to professional help.My goal is to assist the client to reach an understanding of the source of those difficulties, and to help him or her develop problem-solving strategies thus reducing the distress that the problems originally caused. The client is the person who decides the subject content to be talked about.
Clients are never made to work on any additional issues that may surface during sessions - unless they decide they want to. top >top Therapy Tools The techniques and tools used in therapy are adjusted to suit different clients, families and children.
Examples of possible techniques:
- Dialogue
- Narratives and family photograph albums
- Artistic means of expression including drawing, painting, plasticine, collage, music and drama
- Guided imagination
- Therapeutic cards
- In family therapy, the first stage allows the therapist an initial acquaintance with the family, understanding of the family background and interactions between the family members.
- In couple therapy - acquaintance with the couple, both as individual people and as a pair. Introduction to their background and other significant people in their lives.
- The making of mutual decisions regarding the subjects that the client wants to work on.
- The "therapeutic agreement": defining the relations between the client and the therapist, and determining the number of sessions that will be held.
- Working sessions.
- An interim summary, during or after the sixth session.
- A summary at the end of the twelfth session - sometimes the end of therapy, and sometimes leading to a fresh agreement.