ABSTRACT
The challengers are a class of paradoxical intervention tactics that are unsettling to a client’s status quo; in short, they are provocative. In much the same way that a grain of sand causes an irritating challenge to an oyster (thus causing the creation of a pearl), so, too, the strategy behind challengers provides a positive unsettling feeling to a client in the name of therapeutic movement. As “disturbing” as they are to the client’s (maladaptive) status quo, challengers are meant to provoke positive therapeutic movement or prompt a greater sense of prosocial equilibrium to a client in maintaining their symptoms. This group of strategic paradoxical interventions is probably the most difficult to master. They are reserved for those clinicians who have truly grasped the elements of advanced nonlinear thought processes demonstrated by master clinicians (such as inductive reasoning, Socratic questioning, double-binds, second-order change, etc.), have a firm understanding of the other domains of competence, and also feel comfortable using paradoxical interventions.
