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Philosophical underpinnings: constructivism
DOI link for Philosophical underpinnings: constructivism
Philosophical underpinnings: constructivism book
Philosophical underpinnings: constructivism
DOI link for Philosophical underpinnings: constructivism
Philosophical underpinnings: constructivism book
ABSTRACT
Here, de Shazer was most likely speaking literally, because he was adopting a constructivist position, one based on the philosophical viewpoint that reality is invented rather than discovered; it involves a shift away from objectivism (de Shazer 1991: 46). This view is most controversial in relation to diagnosis in mental health. Much of psychological medicine up to the current time has been spent on attempting to defi ne ever more closely the ‘conditions’ from which people suffer. This is based on structuralist thinking that there is a reality ‘out there’ (for example, ‘depression’) that can be defi ned and then treated. For post-structuralists such as practitioners of solution focused work, there is the worry that talk about, for example, depression, objectifi es depression. Depression then becomes as much a reality, a given, for the client as is the fact they are male or female, white or black. Gale Miller argued that people talk themselves into problems and therapy is ‘the process of talking clients out of their troubles’ (Miller 1997: 214).