ABSTRACT
Newcomers to postmodern therapies are typically of two types: those who are closet philosophers and share a fascination with theory, and students of a more practical bent who are frustrated with this same tendency toward abstraction! My goal here is to provide just enough orientation to the philosophic frameworks that support constructivist practice to highlight its distinctiveness, taking care to ground some of the loftier concepts in concrete clinical illustrations and methods. Thus, if I sometimes simplify the daunting complexity of postmodern discourse, I hope I can be forgiven. Fortunately, high-level discussions of the theoretical underpinnings of the therapies discussed here are in good supply, and I will point toward some of these throughout the discussion for those readers who want to delve more deeply into the concepts behind the clinical practice.
