ABSTRACT
Gathering good information means asking good questions. A therapist interview process should be theory driven and slow and should reflect the information gathered back to the system.
Resistance is a key component of any family system. For a system to maintain its autonomy, it must resist. That is the whole purpose of the boundary of the system. This boundary regulates the rate of change and exchanges with the environment. In the therapeutic environment, we should expect family systems to resist by regulating the exchanges and the rate of change. Resistance also exists in the therapist’s family system. The context, competing autonomies, elements, and interactions that are happening in a therapist’s family system may create resistance in the therapeutic system – resistance that may be wrongly placed on the clients.
Sometimes questions won’t get us the information we need. To make accurate systemic diagnoses, you are going to need to develop your own way of gathering information other than direct questions. One way might be to employ psychometrically validated instruments into your intake paperwork. Another way to learn how to gather information without asking direct questions is to practice seeing rules and patterns by assessing fictional families.
