Strategic approach · Fundamentals
The strategic approach in systemic therapy
I recently realized that the word strategy carried very different connotations depending on who I asked. By the way, for you, is strategy a good thing or a bad thing? Do you ever play strategy games? And what do you think of using this word when it comes to human relationships — and more particularly to therapy?
It is the strategic approach in therapy that I would like to talk to you about here. Pragmatic, unorthodox and unafraid of controversy, this approach is founded on the idea that therapists must work in an active, directive and skillful way. Rooted in the work of Milton Erickson and the “Bateson project”, then developed by Jay Haley and Cloé Madanes, strategic therapy has kept evolving over the last thirty years and remains today one of the most influential psychotherapeutic models in the field of systemic therapies.
“As for the practice of strategic therapy, it emphasizes the fact that the therapist must be active, directive and skillful, while at the same time warm and respectful. It falls to the therapist not only to plan what he would like to see happen in therapy, but also to take the initiative. In case of failure, the responsibility lies with him.”
Mony Elkaïm, Panorama des thérapies familiales
I present this approach in more detail in the video below — in French.
How to cite this article
Besse, J. (2021, November 29). The strategic approach in systemic therapy. Complexe Systémique. https://app.complexe-systemique.com/en_GB/articles/the-strategic-approach-in-systemic-therapy
To go further
- The strategic approach in systemic therapy explained simplyThe expanded version: principles, techniques and clinical illustrations of the strategic approach.
- The 7 key words of strategic systemic therapyDirectiveness, non-neutrality, temporality… seven notions that map out the strategic-resolutive intervention.
- The strategic-resolutive method: a therapeutic intervention processHow a course of therapy designed to reach its goal is organized, step by step.
- The ordeal technique that cured this man's insomniaWhen Erickson and Haley treat a case of insomnia with a most surprising prescription.
Related training courses
Short course
Training in the Strategic Resolutive Method
Training in the Strategic Resolutive Method: analysing how problems persist and building strategies for change. Online, delivered in French.
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