ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses some general issues about language and meaning in brief therapy. It focuses on some of the social and cultural implications of brief therapy, particularly how ecosystemic and solution-focused brief therapy encourage clients to adopt constructivist and postmodern orientations to their lives and troubles. Brief therapy is a complex social invention. Similar constructivist socialization is embedded in ecosystemic therapists' questions designed to map clients' problems and social systems, as well as questions that encourage clients to talk about positive changes in their lives. Solution-focused brief therapy pushes the constructivist themes in ecosystemic therapy much further by treating troubles and solutions as narratives. Ecosystemic brief therapists may encourage a similar perspective in asking their clients to describe how their lives are improving, and by routinely using the "first session task" with new clients. In their interactions with brief therapists, clients are introduced to and encouraged to adopt a postmodern orientation of serious play toward their lives and troubles.
