Client Strengths and Resources: Helping Clients Draw On What They Already Do Best
Have you ever noticed that the field of psychotherapy is egocentric or, more to the point, therapist centric? Therapist theories and models fill textbooks and journal articles, dominating everyday practice procedures. From the first days of training, students learn about superstar theorists and therapists. Meanwhile, seasoned clinicians seek out expert led workshops on the latest techniques. Where does the other half of therapy, the client, come in? True, client problems are well represented in the literature. But the talk is mostly about what we do or what we do to them. In this drama, clients are little more than passive recipients of therapist interventions, or their contributions are characterized by problematic transference, resistance, cognitive distortions and the like (Bohart Wade, 2013; Duncan, 2014) This chapter challenges this view and makes the case that clients are the centrepieces in the counselling process; therapists' interventions succeed to the degree they engage clients and their inherent abilities. To do this, the chapter explores the empirical