ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that relevance requires predominantly cognitive skills, cooperation requires predominantly emotional skills and coherence requires both. In ordinary conversation the role of questions is similar to their role in psychotherapy: to gather information. The raw material out of which relevance has to be teased is initially contained in clients' troubles-tellings. Therapists take the initiative in deciding what is or is not relevant in the troubles-telling sequence by virtue of their professional knowledge. By the same token, therapists have the responsibility for creating a comfortable environment that makes it easier for clients to cooperate. Clients' responses to therapists' candidate elaborations can be acceptance or rejection, or they can be clients' elaborations of therapists' candidate elaborations. The chapter shows the process of clients learning to 'be their own therapists' as a consequence of the kind of cooperation where both participants make an active contribution.
