1 — Directiveness

In the strategic-resolutive approach, the intervention is founded on a principle of directiveness, in the sense that the therapist takes on the fact that his intervention produces an effect on the client system. The practitioner thus assumes the responsibility that falls to him in organizing the process of change.

2 — Non-neutrality

Although a number of therapeutic approaches insist on the therapist’s neutrality, in the strategic approach there is a conceptual abandonment of any pretension to neutrality. This position follows in the wake of Heinz von Foerster’s second-order cybernetics: since the mere presence of the therapist instantly modifies the configuration of the exchanges, given that he himself takes part in the process being described, it would be illusory to think that any neutrality could be achieved.

And leaving this chimerical position inevitably goes hand in hand with taking on responsibility, since it becomes impossible to attribute the entire responsibility for the failure of the therapy to the client. While this allows for greater involvement on the therapist’s part, a stone is added to the edifice of the meaningful encounter.

3 — Temporality

Traditionally, we tend to consider that the past shapes the present. This is why most therapeutic approaches focus their attention on the genesis of problems, on the elements that — in causalist thinking — explain the difficulties of the present, with the idea that knowing what explains the problem will make it possible to treat it in its present construction. Some approaches even hold that it is precisely the encounter between the subject’s consciousness and the buried causes of his ills that has a therapeutic effect in itself, through an operation the most devout would attribute to the Holy Spirit.

The postulate developed here may seem surprising and, in a way, counter-intuitive. Yet it is by grasping its various implications that its power is revealed for the field that concerns us. It could be formulated as follows: it is the state of the present that shapes and connotes the past. Consequently, changing representations in the present has a retroactive effect on the connotation and perception of past events, and can thus give them a completely different meaning and transfigure their appearance.

One need only imagine the effect that the revelation of a spouse’s infidelity can have on the other’s perception of the past to picture this phenomenon. In the same way, a significant piece of information or experience in the present can modify and positively color the events of the past. To take an example from popular culture: in J. K. Rowling’s saga, Professor Severus Snape is presented throughout the first six volumes of Harry Potter’s adventures as a fierce antagonist, before revealing himself to be driven by entirely different intentions thanks to a piece of information disclosed in the seventh and final volume — thus allowing every reader to revisit all of this character’s behaviors in a much more positive light.

It is also possible to say that the future conditions the present, insofar as the representation of what lies ahead provides information about what the current situation could become.

4 — Brevity

In the continuity of this reflection on temporality, a few clarifications are needed regarding the temporality of the therapeutic process itself. In a few words: while one might believe that treatment time correlates with results, this is in all likelihood not the case. It is, at any rate, the postulate on which the strategic approach — and, more generally, all forms of brief therapy — rests. One need only see how quickly Milton Erickson’s patients obtained therapeutic results to be convinced.

In other words, a process extended over time is not decisive for obtaining good results, and a good result can be obtained through a short process. This observation thus calls into question the idea that results might be tied to the length of the therapeutic process.

5 and 6 — Resolvability and functionality

The principle of resolvability is to the therapeutic process what GPS is to the driver who wants to reach their destination as efficiently as possible. This principle rests on the idea that it falls to the therapist to mark out the therapeutic path so that his client takes routes that lead somewhere, through an intelligible exchange between the two protagonists.

Every family is part of a life cycle, some of whose stages are general in nature (Caplan, 1964), others specific — such as the stages linked to the disability of one of the members of the family system (Merucci, 1999) —, and every family must adapt to the crises brought about by the passage from one state to another. It is therefore essential to always work towards preserving and supporting the family’s capacity to devise solutions suited to accompanying its growth.

It is this capacity of each entity to adapt that is defined as functional capacity, in the sense that the functional character of a system is its ability to reinvent itself through the events that disturb its stability. It is essential to preserve this quality throughout the entire therapeutic process, with the ever-present concern of not becoming — as a therapist — an indispensable element of the family’s equilibrium.

7 — Prevention

Prevention refers to the action of anticipating and avoiding the emergence of a disorder, an illness or a severe dysfunction in a vital or formal organization. The strategic therapist’s action takes place at different levels of the prevention process. Four can be defined:

The intervention of the strategic therapist — also called an “agent of change” in the strategic-resolutive method — can take place at each of these four levels of prevention.

These seven key words are also presented in the video below — in French.