Systemic Therapy: A New Brief Intervention Model

S chool counselors have traditionally used psychodynamic, humanistic, and behavioral theories as conceptual frameworks to help students explore and understand their problems and achieve their goals (Corey, 1991; Cormier & Cormier, 1985). One assumption underlying these theories is that counselors and clients have generous amounts of time to work together. However, elementary and secondary school counselors are aware that the number of sessions they can meet with students is often quite limited because of the large number of students they are expected to serve (Amatea, 1989). School counselors need counseling approaches that are specifically time-limited and thus appropriate for the reality of the severe time constraints they encounter daily. ASSUMPTIONS UNDERLYING BRIEF COUNSELINGBeginning in the 1970s with the writings of Watzlawick, Weakland, and Fisch (1974) and continuing into the present (Budman, Hoyt, & Friedman, 1992;Cade & O'Hanlon, 1993;de Shazer, 1985de Shazer, , 1988 de Shazer, , 1990de Shazer, , 1991Fisch, Weakland, & Segal, 1982;Furman & Ahola, 1992;Koss & Butcher, 1986;O'Hanlon &Weiner-Davis, 1989), counselors and therapists increasingly have focused on approaches, strategies, and techniques to speed up the process of client change. O' Hanlon and Wilk (1987) and Walter and Peller (1992) have conceptualized brief counseling as a model with various stages for assisting people with change rather than as a theory of how people change. (The term brief counseling is used through this article even though much of the literature uses the term brief therapy. In a school setting, the term counseling is more descriptive and less threatening than the term therapy). A brief counseling model includes several key assumptions about how people who experience problems can make meaningful changes within shorter periods of time than with traditional psychodynamic approaches. The first assumption is that the problem that clients present when they enter counseling is the problem. Time will not be devoted to searching for an underlying, deeper,

Section: Brief Counseling With Adolescentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Single‐Session Brief Counseling in a High School

Littrell

Malia

Wood

1995

“…An examination of specific techniques useful in achieving these objectives goes beyond the scope of this article, but these techniques are discussed elsewhere (Haley, 1979;Madanes, 1981;Minuchin, 1974). Case examples illustrating how these techniques can be applied to individual college student counseling are also found in Lopez (1983) and Searight and Openlander (1984). Direct involvement of the depressed student's family, when possible, may be the most expedient approach.…”

Section: Treatment Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Family Structure and Depression: Implications for the Counseling of Depressed College Students

Lopez

1986

“…context for examining and revising those shared perceptions and communication patterns that impede cooperative, relationship-enhancing solutions to anger arousal. In situations where family involvement is impractical, counseling approaches that take into account the interactional context of the client's problem (Searight & Openlander, 1984) and encourage the development of assertive communication skills (Alschuler & Alschuler, 1984) may be particularly useful in helping the student cope with family-based sources of anger arousal.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

High‐Trait and Low‐Trait Angry College Students: A Comparison of Family Environments

Lopez

Thurman²

1993

In this study the authors investigated differences in the family environments of high‐ and low‐trait angry college students. High‐trait angry students described their family environments as significantly less cohesive, less emotionally expressive, more conflictual, and more disorganized than did their low‐trait angry counterparts. Implications of the findings to the counseling of students with anger‐related problems are discussed.