The Handbook of Constructive Therapies

Abstract

The Handbook of Constructive Therapies Michael F. Hoyt, ed. 480 pp., $49.95. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc. Website: www.JosseyBass.com The Handbook of Constructive Therapies is a stimulating and informative book, containing clinical insights and wisdom for the practicing psychotherapist. It is a well organized and edited book which, despite its diverse voices, has a coherent and intelligent character. The central conceptual themes pivot around constructivism and social constructionist approaches to therapy. The overarching framework threading its way through each chapter can best be identified as postmodern. Constructivism is identified as a meaning-making epistemological view in which human agency is the generative motor that shapes our environment and social lives. The social constructionist paradigm emphasizes interpersonal relatedness and the dialogical process through which we construct our visions and versions of reality within a social matrix. The self is, itself, construed as social and communal. Embracing the postmodern motif leads to an emphasis on local knowledge, giving voice to otherwise marginalized groups, celebrating diversity, deconstructing sacred assumptions, and the formation of egalitarian, nonhierarchical therapeutic relationships. The key focus with clients is on their strengths and resources, with a deemphasis on diagnosis and pathologizing. The book has definite political and ideological implications by striking a blow against society' s silencing of marginalized groups and adopting an advocacy stance on behalf of oppressed minorities. The therapist's role as presented here is divested of power, but not potency, and a multiperspectival view of persons and cultures is encouraged. Of course, not every chapter in the book gives equal emphasis to all of the themes cited above, but the overall range of the book definitely encompasses them. I found the Handbook to be reader friendly and would anticipate that it will be of value to both beginning and experienced therapists, which is one of the intentions of the editor, Michael Hoyt. The background and experience brought by the reader to each chapter will influence the meaning he or she makes out of what is encountered, just as a great play can be seen several times over a lifetime and generate new meanings each time depending upon the developmental stage of the viewer. The Handbook is actually a culmination of two previously edited books by Michael Hoyt (1994,1996) and is intended to enlarge upon the depth and range of the earlier works. The contributors to the current book were invited by the editor to present the theory undergirding their constructivist approach and to convey to the reader how that approach would unfold upon being put into practice. In effect, each contributor was encouraged to evoke curiosity in the reader, to stimulate interest, to engender grounds for discussion, to elaborate upon skillful interventions that go beyond fundamentals to impart novel ideas and methods; in brief, to be creative. In my opinion, the authors admirably rose to the occasion. The Handbook is divided into three sections: Theoretical Perspectives, Conversations and Songs, and Specific Clinical Applications. Given the size of this book, which contains 22 chapters, it will not be feasible to cover each one in this review. Therefore, I shall choose selections from each section. Anderson and Levin provide a fascinating and useful discourse on "Generative Conversations" in therapy from a postmodern perspective. Therapeutic conversations in their view are transformative. They raise what I would consider the central question of all verbal psychotherapies: "How can therapists create the kinds of conversations with their clients that allow both parties to access their creativities and develop possibilities where none seemed to exist before?" Their chapter is an attempt to answer this question. Albert Ellis attempts to develop the argument that his rational emotive behavior therapy is decisively a constructivist model of therapy. …