ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses three postmodern/poststructural/social construction approaches: collaborative therapy of Harlene Anderson and Harry Goolishian, narrative therapy of David Epston and Michael White, and solution-focused therapy of Insoo Berg and Steve de Shazer. Collaborative therapy evolved from the twenty-year joint work of Anderson and Goolishian and their colleagues and students, and has further evolved through Anderson’s work beginning in the 1970s at the University of Texas Medical School and later in what is the Houston Galveston Institute. The conversational partnership is characterized by a joint activity of shared or mutual inquiry: an in-there-together, doing-with, back-and-forth process in which two or more people put their heads together to puzzle over and address the situation at hand. A therapist respects and honors the client’s story, listens to hear what is important for the client, and takes seriously what the client says and how they say it.
