ABSTRACT
From the psychoanalytic perspective, which includes the work of paradigmatic psychotherapists, we have inherited the descriptors "antisuggestion," "going with the resistance," "joining the resistance," "reflecting" (or "mirroring") the resistance," "siding with the resistance," "paradigmatic exaggeration," "supporting the defenses," "reductio ad adsurdum," "reenacting an aspect of the psychosis," "mirroring the patient's distortions," "participating in the patient's fantasies," "outcrazying the patient," and "the use of the patient as consultant." From the vantage point of behavior therapy, we may appreciate paradoxical elements in such procedures as "blowup," "implosion," "flooding," "instructed helplessness," "massed practice," "negative practice," "paradoxical intention," "stimulus satiation," and "symptom scheduling." In gestalt therapy, an approach where the term paradox is rarely employed, the attempt to foster change paradoxically may be recognized in the therapist's cruel-to-be-kind suggestions to "stay with the (negative) experience," or to "exaggerate the feeling" (sensation, experience, speech, movement, etc.). (p. 20)
Seltzer's (1986) theoretical analysis led him to develop a metatheory of paradox in psychotherapy. His metatheory can be further distilled to a theory based on social psychology developed by Strong and Claiborn (1982). Seltzer (1986) devotes considerable attention to the issue of how different schools of therapy are defined. He believed, like Weeks (1977), that the apparently sharp, theoretical differences among approaches begin to disappear when the clinician is viewed in the here-and-now context of seeing client(s). This idea is one that has been heard in clinical circles for many years. He argues that paradoxial strategies are present in all systems of therapy. These strategies share the common element of defying the clients' expectations and involve some form of reframing and/or symptom prescription.
