The Tactics of Change: Doing Therapy Briefly

As a therapist and as teacher of a graduate level family therapy course, I have used this book for many years. It's 26 years old now, but it remains one of the best therapy books ever. It is full of sound, therapist tested, ultra-practical ideas,and in my experience these ideas really work.

I first encountered this classic in the eighties when I was finishing my graduate work and took a course at the Mental Research Institute - the BEST thing I ever did for myself. The tactics the authors describe could appear to be only for therapy, but I've used them in my coaching practice for more than twenty years. It's fundamental to this approach that problems occurring between people are situational difficulties - all parties are doing something to maintain the problem. Also, it's normal and appropriate to resist attempts by another to "fix" us; such so-called resistance is more usefully labeled as a source of energy with positive potential if you can find a way to use it. I have found a way, in business and personal coaching settings. As with all publications in the Jossey-Bass Social and Behavioral Science Series, this text is golden for anyone doing change work at any level: individual, group, or organizational.

This is not a recent text, published first in 1982, but is one of the BEST on the topic. It explains accurately, with great case examples, the Brief Therapy model developed @ the Mental Research Institute. Am presently in process of developing a doctoral level course for clergy in counseling and will include this text.