Book Review
Psychotherapy
The Therapist’s Notebook for Families: Solution-Oriented Exercises for Working With Parents, Children, and Adolescents. Bob Bertolino, Gary Schulteis. New York: The Haworth Clinical Practice Press; 2002. 266 p. US$39.95.
Reviewer
rating*: Good
Review by: Lance Taylor, MSc, Karl Tomm, MD
Calgary, Alberta
This book provides 75 concrete exercises that mental health professionals can use to complement and enhance therapy. It is clearly oriented toward parents and their children, especially adolescents. For the most part, these exercises take the form of 1 to 3 sheets of specific questions with lined, blank spaces for family members to write in their answers. The focus is on enabling preferred reflections and greater awareness of positive developments and (or) possibilities. A few exercises encourage the creation of “certificates” and “letters of evidence” to document valued change.
Many of these exercises are recommended either for use in therapy sessions, where they will be completed by the therapist and family members together, or for use at home by families, where they will be undertaken collectively or individually. Each exercise is presented according to a standard format offering a therapist overview, suggestions for use, and the exercise itself. The authors designed the book to facilitate photocopying the exercises for clients. Most exercises invite clients to bring their answers to the next therapy session, suggesting an interplay between exercise and in-session conversation.
The collection of separate exercises is organized into 5 sections. Part 1, “Getting Clear on the Change You Want,” emphasizes clear, functional goals and exploiting client preferences for the therapy process. Part 2, “Changing the Viewing of the Problem,” offers exercises to help client families change how they think about and talk about their problems by using language that increases possibility and choice. Part 3, “Changing the Doing of the Problem,” has exercises oriented toward deliberate changes in actions. Part 4, “Changing Aspects of Context,” deals with contextual influences, such as culture, sex, ethnicity, and spirituality, that may cause the problem to persist or influence the development of solutions. Naturally enough, Part 5 is about “Keeping the Ball Rolling” and offers exercises to sustain and further positive change.
The book is oriented toward solutions and highlights the future, change, clients’ strengths and successes, the natural process of emotional and behavioural maturation, and the “in-between steps” to solutions. It appears to draw from both problem-solving and solution-building paradigms. One may guess that the authors are influenced by various models, including solution-focused therapy, narrative therapy, and the trans- theoretical model of change. Insight seems to be implicitly valued as a key to changes in perception and action. Most of the exercises are based on good, down-to-earth wisdom regarding how people and families work and how they behave in therapy. Rather than making prescriptive suggestions, many exercises create conditions for clients to discover useful resources and connections on their own. There is a generative workbook atmosphere to this volume. Almost anyone could usefully work their way through the exercises to facilitate some significant perceptual and behavioural shifts, depending on the intensity with which they are engaged.
Possible shortcomings of the book may be that it offers very little theory and that some exercises require a relatively high level of cognitive and linguistic sophistication. At times, the name of the exercise does not quite match the content. As the authors themselves point out, it is important to view the exercises as supportive adjuncts and not the backbone to effective therapy. The authors suggest that the exercises are compatible with a broad range of mental health practices. However, they probably best fit those professionals who believe clients and families have natural resources of their own that are worth identifying and mobilizing to effect therapeutic change.
*Reviewer
Rating Scale/ Échelle d’évaluation du réviseur
Excellent / Excellent
Very Good / Très bon
Good / Bon
Fair / Passable
Not recommended / Pas recommandé
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