ABSTRACT
Ecosystemic team members' activities change significantly when interviewing therapists join them behind the mirror to construct intervention messages for clients. A major change is that these discussions are not provisional. Another major change is the centrality of the therapist's role in the deliberations. Ecosystemic therapists negotiate the terms of intervention messages with team members, sometimes taking as long as fifteen minutes to construct them. The most pervasive element of ecosystemic brief therapy intervention messages is compliments for clients. Constructing compliments is seldom a matter of disagreement or extended negotiation among Northland Clinic therapists and team members, perhaps because they assume that more compliments are better than fewer. The first-session task is the preferred response of Northland Clinic therapists and teams in dealing with new clients' problems. The Northland Clinic staff also modifies the first-session task and fit their intervention messages with clients by sometimes adding other concerns the first-session task.
