On the shoulders of giants

we build our craft

Developed by Steven Hayes as an empirically based approach, it is grounded in mindfulness. The problems that emerge in the complexities of a client's life are accepted, not pathologized and all the while the client maintains a commitment to working toward living out their value-based life.

"We as a culture seem to be dedicated to the idea that ‘negative’ human emotions need to be fixed, managed, or changed—not experienced as part of a whole life. We are treating our own lives as problems to be solved as if we can sort through our experiences for the ones we like and throw out the rest…Acceptance, mindfulness, and values are key psychological tools needed for that transformative shift." ~ Steven Hayes - Psychology Today.

Dr. Murray Bowen, is probably the most important person in family therapy. From his studies of Schizophrenia, he started placing the entire family in therapy. Bowen housed his clients and their entire family in his inpatient facility. He looked at the disordered family as a fused system. The entire family identity is so wrapped up into each other that they cannot separate their own identities. Amongst the entangled family mess in therapy, we build our ability to self-differentiate and go back to the family to renegotiate roles and identity.

“The overall goal [of counseling] is to help family members become ‘systems experts’ who could know [their] family system so well that the family could readjust itself without the help of an expert.”

~ Dr. Murray Bowen

UNDOUBTEDLY THE MOST POPULAR APPROACH IN THE NATION. CBT’S ORIGINAL THEORISTS, AARON BECK AND ALBERT ELLIS ENCOURAGED THEIR CLIENTS TO ENGAGE IN CONSTRUCTIVE DIALOGUE, APPRECIATE A RATIONAL APPROACH TO LIFE AND DEVELOP THE STRENGTH TO EXAMINE OUR OWN IRRATIONAL THOUGHT PATTERNS THAT LEAD US TO BAD DECISION MAKING.

"The stronger person is not the one making the most noise but the one who can quietly direct the conversation toward defining and solving problems."

~ Aaron Beck

ESTABLISHED BY STEVE DESHAZER AND INSOO KIM BERG. AS AN EVIDENCE BASED APPROACH, IT IS NON-PATHOLOGIZING AND FOCUSES ON CLIENTS’ GOAL CLARIFICATION, STRENGTHS, AND REALISTIC STEPS TOWARD ACHIEVEMENTS.

Problem talk creates problems, Solution talk creates solutions.

~ Steve de Shazer

Influenced by Gregory Bateson, Jay Haley and Cloe Madanes, the Strategic therapist recognizes that all social interactions are systems of dynamics of which people are hardly aware. The goal of Strategic therapy is to recognize maladaptive interactions, retire them, and in their place develop alternative patterns that lead the client to the life they desire.

"Therapy can be called strategic if the clinician initiates what happens during therapy and designs a particular approach for each problem"

Jay Haley

Established by Salvador Minuchin, the entire family is treated and their patterns of interactions aids the therapist in uncovering and understanding issues that arise in families and individuals within the family's structure.

“I describe family values as responsibility towards others, increase of tolerance, compromise, support, flexibility. And essentially the things I call the silent song of life -the continuous process of mutual accommodation without which life is impossible.”

~ Salvador Minuchin