Two Approaches To Adlerian Brief Therapy - Buncombe County ...

Adlerian Brief Therapy 10
much like going back.” Such a statement suggests that having someone take care of
the client may be one of the goals of the depression.
A second strategy is actually an investigation: U stands for understanding
the client’s underlying rules of interaction. Adlerians believe that all behavior is
social in nature: It is enacted in social systems and gains meaning in interaction.
The client’s rules of interaction guide the client’s movement or style of living
through daily life; these rules also comprise the client’s perspective on self,
others, the world, and life, itself. Since the rules of interaction start to form when
people are very young, Adlerians use birth order and family constellations,
developmental processes and life task assessments, and early recollections, to
name a few, as avenues of investigation (Carlson & Slavik, 1997; Mosak &
Maniacci, 1998; Sweeney, 1998). Whatever the assessment process, meaning is
shared with the intent of a conscious consideration of the function of underlying
rules, past and present, through a process Nicoll (1999) calls “active wondering.”
“I’m not sure here, but I can’t help but wonder if perhaps sometimes your
depressive episodes don’t also work for you a little in helping you avoid difficult
situations and mobilizing others to take care of you” (Nicoll et al., 2000, p. 236).
R stands for re-orientation. Re-orientation is the process of helping clients
to consider a new perspective. It aims at enlarging the awareness of clients so
that they can think about and intend solutions in a manner that is different than
the thinking that generated “the problem” in the first place. Reframing, re-