SERVICES

I often turn to the so-called “narrative practice” developed by Michael White, David Epston, etc. Their approach is about examining, challenging and reshaping the stories we tell ourselves about who we are in relation to our problems. Based on a separation between person and problem, whereby the problem becomes the problem, not the person, it is aimed at “bringing us home” to our preferred values, desires and goals.
 
I have found this approach to be particularly helpful for individuals and couples who struggle with questions related to identity, meaning and disconnectedness from friends and family either at home, abroad or both.
 
I also sometimes turn to Steve De Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg’s so-called “solution-focused therapy”. After watching together with their colleagues at the Brief Family Therapy Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin tons of recorded therapy sessions, looking for what was actually helpful in therapy, they highlighted a down-to-earth focus on the good intentions and actions, which we are often already engaged in when confronted by a certain problem, but may have lost sight off. Getting in touch with these intentions and actions can become important steppingstones for more steps in the same direction.
 
My conversations will often reflect to some extent the big collection of work known as “third wave” cognitive behavioral therapy. This work – building on Skinner, Beck, Ellis, etc. – is about our relationship to thoughts and feelings. The point of the third and latest wave as developed e.g. by Steven Hayes and his Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is not to change our thoughts and feelings, but to become mindful and more “accepting” of them. By practicing “acceptance, referring here to observation of thoughts and feelings accompanied by a stance of not necessarily having to “buy into” these thoughts and feelings, it becomes possible to make more informed decisions. Again, as in narrative therapy, the aim is to engage in a life more committed to one’s preferred values, desires and goals.