ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the perspective component of the purpose, perspective, and process model and describes how the perspective chosen influences the course of the enquiry that unfolds. It proposes that a safe, effective, and sophisticated approach to formulation entails having a clear appreciation of the perspectives that inform the practitioner's choice. The contrast to the rule-based reductionism of biomedical diagnosis lay in the broader scope of Adolf Meyer's biopsychosocial model, governed by a multi-factorial and holistic perspective that gave rise to an approach to human distress that could be both humanistic and scientific. Tracing the history of many frameworks in psychology from the perspective of the social matrix of human action, L. Krasner and L. P. Ullman point to the way theories act as key influencers on the type of knowledge that is collected and the way it is organized to constrain behaviour.
