Content uploaded by Dean-David Holyoake
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Dean-David Holyoake on Jun 05, 2015
Content may be subject to copyright.
Multiculturalism and solution-focused psychotherapy: an exploration of the nonexpert role
Abstract
Orientalism is described as the ‘grandest of all narratives’ (Edward Said, 1978 Said, E. 1978. Orientalism, Routledge: London. )
Zai sheng huo zhong, mei li de xiao, you ya de chou (In life, beautifully smile, gracefully worry) (From Van Leeuwen, 2005 Van Leeuwen, T. 2005. Introducing social semiotics, London: Routledge. , p. 153)
The role of the solution-focused psychotherapist (SFP) is less about confirming the rights of the client as an individual and more about amplifying their preferred social performance. The client, the therapist and the drama of therapy represent the object of this performance in which cultural meaning is simply amplified. The identity of the client is framed within multicultural narratives and discourse with which the psychotherapist grapples and strives to maintain a type of neutrality and equality, a relationship of nonexpertness. It is the client who has the resources and who is expert in their own lives. Yet, the drama conflict is one in which the client expects certain answers, reassurances and direction. This article is an exploration of issues related to counselling technologies, language and culture on the solution-focused notion of nonexpert practice.
... It is a period when the constructivist and post-constructivist philosophy of Europe launched a small challenge against humanism, cognitivism and behaviorism that had been in dominance for decades. However, due to the vagueness of postmodern age over the past 30 years, virtual reality, magnetism and information age, some social scientists and psychologists argue that epistemological constructivist and post-constructivist philosophy brings a new perspective to personality, language power and expertise (Holyoake and Golding, 2012). ...
Solution-focused therapy began to gain widespread attention in our country and around the world in the last quarter of the 20th century suggesting that clients possess the power, resources and problem-solving skills needed to solve their problems. During therapy, the counselor focuses on clients’ strengths in life rather than their problems. Clients’ strengths include their values, beliefs, experiences and spirituality. Since these strengths can be a part of the solution, it is possible to use them during therapy in accordance with the philosophy of solutionfocused therapy. Due to the client’s limited self-disclosure and the focus on solution rather than problem, it is considered that this approach can be used by clients from different cultures.Studies demonstrate that this therapy method can be benefited by Muslim clients, in particular, due to its emphasis on solution and future-focused and hope-oriented nature. In the present study, the emergence and philosophy of solution-focused therapy is briefly described and multiculturalism, spirituality and religion in solution-focused therapy and compatibility of solution-focused therapy with Islamic perspective are addressed with case examples and analyses.
In an age where the proliferation of progressive Westernised medicine, philosophy and outcome-orientated psychotherapy march into all of our media-saturated lives, it is difficult to believe that a counter-argument could challenge the seemingly reasonable and core concept of ‘the self’. Yet, there is an alternative philosophy called Social Constructionism with an emerging associated therapy approach called Solution Focused Therapy that views ‘the self’ very differently from the mainstream humanistic essentialism ideas about selfhood. Solution Focused Therapy shares a pedigree with narrative and systems approaches to counselling, with a primary consideration being the fluid nature of identity and the possibility of re-authoring alternative stories. This article aims to re-think some of the primary issues associated with the perceived centrality of selfhood in psychotherapy and to consider a ‘different ending’ and choose ‘different characters’ in a story which allows for a ‘rethinking of possibilities’. Employing the sentiment of Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) and his ‘uncanny sense of self’, the authors use some ideas from Hong Kong residents to help pick their way through the most poignant concepts to conclude that there is still a lot of re-thinking to do.
The Vertigo of Late Modernity engages with some of the most important concerns facing society today. Author Jock Young brings a fresh, intellectual perspective and offers a new dimension to sociological and criminological theory. He deals with the impact that major social issues have on the modern world, as well as the way in which society and individuals respond to these issues. This major new work explores the fundamental debates that need to be addressed in a late modern world filled with inequality and division.
This second edition of Solution-focused Therapy remains the most accessible yet comprehensive case-based introduction to the history, theory, research and practice of solution-focused therapy (SFT) within mental health care and beyond. Drawing on contemporary research and the author's own extensive experience, the fully revised and updated new edition includes: discussion of recent developments relevant to research and training; a new chapter on challenges to SFT and the integration of SFT with other therapeutic approaches; extended discussion on ethical issues; topical exploration of the application of SFT with patients with personality disorders and dementias; contemporary research on solution-focused coaching and approaches to organizational change; new case material This highly practical guide should be on the desk of every student or trainee studying this strongly supported, growing approach. It is also a useful resource for practitioners wanting to update their core skills and knowledge.
This 2006 introduction to the philosophy of social science provides an original conception of the task and nature of social inquiry. Peter Manicas discusses the role of causality seen in the physical sciences and offers a reassessment of the problem of explanation from a realist perspective. He argues that the fundamental goal of theory in both the natural and social sciences is not, contrary to widespread opinion, prediction and control, or the explanation of events (including behaviour). Instead, theory aims to provide an understanding of the processes which, together, produce the contingent outcomes of experience. Offering a host of concrete illustrations and examples of critical ideas and issues, this accessible book will be of interest to students of the philosophy of social science, and social scientists from a range of disciplines.
There are three principal sections to this book. This first section is an introduction that provides the theoretical and political frame for the material presented in the other two sections.
In this first section, I have presented an overview of some of the more recent developments in social theory that David and I have found of compelling interest, and some of what we believe to be the implications of those ideas for therapy. The discussion of theory includes some of Michel Foucault's thought on power and knowledge.
It is our hope that the material that we have included in this book adequately reflects our exploration of practices of the literate tradition in a therapy that is situated in the text analogy and in Foucault's thought, and fairly represents the experience of these practices on behalf of those persons who have sought therapy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This is an extraordinary collection that goes to the heart of Lacan's theory and the controversy that has surrounded it. The main text is a transcript of a provocative filmed interview with Lacan that was aired on French television in 1973.
The second half of this illuminating volume, . . . includes the "dossier on the institutional debate." The papers it comprises—such as the July 1953 report from the president of the International Psychoanalytical Association [IPA], Heinz Hartmann—document some of the controversy that swirled around Lacan for the last thirty years of his teaching, including his expulsion from the IPA in 1953, his "excommunication" in 1963, and his key responses in the form of letters and talk.
For anyone hoping to understand the institutionalization of Freudian thought and the challenge Lacan represents, this is an essential work. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The First Edition of this contemporary classic can claim to have put ‘consumer culture’ on the map, certainly in relation to postmodernism. Updated throughout, this expanded new edition includes a fully revised preface that explores the developments in consumer culture since the First Edition. Among the most noteworthy areas discussed are the effect of global warming on consumption, the rise of the new rich, changes in the North/South divide and the new diversity of consumer culture. The result is a book that shakes the boundaries of debate, from one of the foremost writers on culture and postmodernism of the present day.