ABSTRACT
Why does a book that is ostensibly oriented to the practice of individual psychotherapy have a chapter on systemic strategies and interventions? There are at least three reasons. First, solution-focused therapy (SFT) is the most commonly practiced form of systemic therapy both in family therapy and in individual therapy contexts. In fact, some therapists utilize SFT exclusively with individual clients. Second, many therapists who were trained primarily for the practice of individual therapy will occasionally consult with family members or spouses of their individual clients. Typically, this is a single meeting to gather collateral information, enlist the spouse or member’s support in the client’s treatment, or make a focused intervention. To the extent to which therapists have some degree of competence with a few systemic interventions, they are more likely to be effective and condent in such consultative sessions. Third, and most importantly, there are a number of systemic interventions that can be effective adjunctive treatments with individual clients. One of these, called the interventive query strategy, is equally effective in both individual therapy and systemic therapy contexts. Although originally developed and utilized in the systemic therapies, it can be incorporated as an effective adjunct with any therapeutic approach. For example, the scaling question-one form of this query strategy-is commonly utilized by many individual therapists of most theoretical orientations often without the awareness that it is a systemic intervention.
