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

Adlerian Brief Therapy 9
well as the quality of the contact the client has with self, with others, and with
the environments in which he or she lives. The constructs of awareness and
contact are well defined within the work of the Gestalt therapists, Erv and
Miriam Polster (1973, 1999). E stands for experience, which both flows from
relationship and provides the interventions and transitions for therapeutic
change. It is not uncommon for a focus on purpose, awareness, or contact to
evolve into therapeutic interventions, strategies for change, experiments,
enactments, or even homework, any of which may lead to the integration of new
experiences in the client’s life.
The question of what makes a new experience useful or even therapeutic
can be addressed through another acronym, BURP, which has been described in
greater detail by Nicoll et al. (2000). B stands for strategies related to behavioral
descriptions. From an optimistic interest in presenting issues [“What would you
like to see going better in your life?”] to recurrent patterns, Adlerians focus on
what people do, how they feel, and the results of these processes in interactive
experiences. Such questions as “when was the last time this occurred?” or “what
happens when you feel . . . ?” or “who is most affected when you feel . . . ?” focus
the client on movement and process rather than helplessness.
Individual purposes are often revealed in the responses that others have
to what the client does. “I was depressed all the time at the university. When I
went home, my parents took care of me, and I slowly got better. I don’t feel