Supporting Clients’ Solution Building Process by Subtly Eliciting Positive Behaviour Descriptions and Expectations of Beneficial Change

Visser, C.F. & Schlundt Bodien, G. (2009). Supporting Clients’ Solution Building Process by Subtly Eliciting Positive Behaviour Descriptions and Expectations of Beneficial Change. InterAction I (2), 9-25

SF co-developer Steve de Shazer wrote, in his classic publications Keys to Solution in Brief Therapy (1985) and Clues: Investigating Solutions in Brief Therapy (1988), that SF practitioners should help their clients create an expectation of beneficial change by getting a description of what they would do differently once the problem was solved. Also, he claimed subtle and implicit interventions by the SF practitioner would work best. At the time, de Shazer did not support these claims with empirical evidence. This article provides evidence for each of the assertions made by de Shazer. Only part of the evidence presented here was already available at the time of de Shazer’s writing. Evidence is discussed from diverse lines of research like Rosenthal’s Pygmalion studies, Dweck’s research on self-theories, Fredrickson’s broaden-and-build theory, research on Winograd’s prospective memory, Jeannerod’s research on the perception-action link, Wilson’s research on brief attributional interventions, research on Brehm’s reactance theory, and Bargh’s research on priming. The article closes with some reflections on what these research findings imply for SF theory and practice.

Full article: Supporting Clients’ Solution Building Process by Subtly Eliciting Positive Behaviour Descriptions and Expectations of Beneficial Change

Interview with Keith Stanovich

By Coert Visser

Dr. Keith Stanovich, Professor of Human Development and Applied Psychology of the University of Toronto, is a leading expert on the psychology of reading and on rationality. His latest book, What Intelligence Tests Miss: The Psychology of Rational Thought, shows that IQ tests are very incomplete measures of cognitive functioning. These tests fail to assess rational thinking styles and skills which are nevertheless crucial to real-world behavior. In this interview with Keith Stanovich he explains the difference between IQ and rationality and why rationality is so important. Also he shares his views on how rationality can be enhanced.

In your book, you say that IQ tests are incomplete measures of cognitive functioning. Could you explain that?

I start out my book by noting the irony that in 2002, cognitive scientist Daniel Kahneman of Princeton University won the Nobel Prize in Economics for work on how humans make choices and assess probabilities—in short, for work on human rationality.  Being rational means adopting appropriate goals, taking the appropriate action given one’s goals and beliefs, and holding beliefs that are commensurate with available evidence—it means achieving one’s life goals using the best means possible.  To violate the thinking rules examined by Kahneman and Tversky thus has the practical consequence that we are less satisfied with our lives than we might be.  Research conducted in my own laboratory has indicated that there are systematic individual differences in the judgment and decision making skills studied by Kahneman and Tversky.

It is a profound historical irony of the behavioral sciences that the Nobel Prize was awarded for studies of cognitive characteristics that are entirely missing from the most well-known mental assessment device in the behavioral sciences—the intelligence test, and its many proxies, such as the SAT.  It is ironic because most laypeople are prone to think that IQ tests are tests of, to put it colloquially, good thinking.  Scientists and laypeople alike would tend to agree that “good thinking” encompasses good judgment and decision making—the type of thinking that helps us achieve our goals.  In fact, the type of “good thinking” that Kahneman and Tversky studied was deemed so important that research on it was awarded the Nobel Prize.  Yet assessments of such good thinking—rational thinking—are nowhere to be found on IQ tests.  Intelligence tests measure important things, but not these—they do not assess the extent of rational thought.  This might not be such an omission if it were the case that intelligence was a strong predictor of rational thinking.  However, my research group has found just the opposite—that it is a mild predictor at best and that some rational thinking skills are totally dissociated from intelligence.

You write about three types of thinking processes, the autonomous, the algorithmic and the reflective mind. Could you briefly explain these and explain how they are related to intelligence and rationality?

In 1996, philosopher Daniel Dennett wrote a book about how aspects of the human mind were like the minds of other animals and how other aspects were not. He titled the book Kinds of Minds to suggest that within the brain of humans are control systems of very different types—different kinds of minds. In the spirit of Dennett’s book, I termed the part of the mind that carries out Type 1 processing the autonomous mind.  The difference between the algorithmic mind and the reflective mind is captured in another well established distinction in the measurement of individual differences—the distinction between cognitive ability and thinking dispositions.  The algorithmic mind is indexed by measures of computational power like fluid g in psychometric theory.  The reflective mind is indexed by individual differences in thinking disposition measures.

The term mindware was coined by psychologist David Perkins to refer to the rules, knowledge, procedures, and strategies that a person can retrieve from memory in order to aid decision making and problem solving. Perkins uses the term to stress the analogy to software in the brain/computer analogy.  Each of the levels in the tripartite model of mind has to access knowledge to carry out its operations.  The reflective mind not only accesses general knowledge structures but, importantly, accesses the person’s opinions, beliefs, and reflectively acquired goal structure.  The algorithmic mind accesses micro-strategies for cognitive operations and production system rules for sequencing behaviors and thoughts. Finally, the autonomous mind accesses not only evolutionarily-compiled encapsulated knowledge bases, but also retrieves information that has become tightly compiled and available to the autonomous mind due to overlearning and practice.

Rationality requires three different classes of mental characteristic. First, algorithmic-level cognitive capacity is needed in order that autonomous-system override and simulation activities can be sustained.  Second, the reflective mind must be characterized by the tendency to initiate the override of suboptimal responses generated by the autonomous mind and to initiate simulation activities that will result in a better response.  Finally, the mindware that allows the computation of rational responses needs to be available and accessible during simulation activities. Intelligence tests assess only the first of these three characteristics that determine rational thought and action.  As measures of rational thinking, they are radically incomplete.

That society, educators, psychologists, and personnel managers put so much emphasis on intelligence seems strange and unjustified given that intelligence tests cover only one of these three important mental processes. Could you say something about how individuals, organizations and, perhaps, society as a whole, might benefit from focusing more on raising rational thinking skills?

The lavish attention devoted to intelligence, raising it, praising it, worrying when it is low, etc., seems wasteful in light of the fact that we choose to virtually ignore another set of mental skills with just as much social consequence—rational thinking mindware and procedures.  Popular books tell parents how to raise more intelligent children, educational psychology textbooks discuss the raising of students’ intelligence, and we feel reassured when hearing that a particular disability does not impair intelligence.  There is no corresponding concern on the part of parents that their children grow into rational beings, no corresponding concern on the part of schools that their students reason judiciously, and no corresponding recognition that intelligence is useless to a child unable to adapt to the world.

I simply do not think that society has weighed the consequences of its failure to focus on irrationality as a real social problem.  These skills and dispositions profoundly affect the world in which we live.  Because of inadequately developed rational thinking abilities—because of the processing biases and mindware problems discussed in my book—physicians choose less effective medical treatments; people fail to accurately assess risks in their environment; information is misused in legal proceedings; millions of dollars are spent on unneeded projects by government and private industry; parents fail to vaccinate their children; unnecessary surgery is performed; animals are hunted to extinction; billions of dollars are wasted on quack medical remedies; and costly financial misjudgments are made.  Distorted processes of belief formation are also implicated in various forms of ethnocentric, racist, sexist, and homophobic hatred.

It is thus clear that widespread societal effects result from inadequately developed rational thinking dispositions and knowledge.  In the modern world, the impact of localized irrational thoughts and decisions can be propagated and magnified through globalized information technologies, thus affecting large numbers of people. That is, you may be affected by the irrational thinking of others even if you do not take irrational actions yourself.  This is why, for example, the spread of pseudoscientific beliefs is everyone’s concern.  For example, police departments hire psychics to help with investigations even though research has shown that their use is not efficacious.  Jurors have been caught making their decisions based on astrology.  Major banks and several Fortune 500 companies employ graphologists for personnel decisions even though voluminous evidence indicates that graphology is useless for this purpose.

Unfortunately, these examples are not rare. We are all affected in numerous ways when such contaminated mindware permeates society—even if we avoid this contaminated mindware ourselves.   Pseudosciences such as astrology are now large industries, involving newspaper columns, radio shows, book publishing, the Internet, magazine articles, and other means of dissemination.  The House of Representatives Select Committee on Aging has estimated that the amount wasted on medical quackery nationally reaches into the billions.  Physicians are increasingly concerned about the spread of medical quackery on the Internet and its real health costs.

It seems that sometimes high rationality can irritate some people. For instance, you can sometimes here people saying things like: "don't be so rational!" Do you think there can be such a thing as being too rational?

Under a proper definition of rationality, one consistent with modern cognitive science, no.  It certainly is possible for a person to be “too logical” but being logical is not synonymous with being rational.  Psychologists study rationality because it is one of the most important human values.  It is important for a person’s happiness and well-being that they think and act rationally.  The high status accorded rationality in my writings may seem at odds with other characterizations that deem rationality either trivial -little more than the ability to solve textbook-type logic problems- or in fact antithetical to human fulfillment -as an impairment to an enjoyable emotional life, for instance. These ideas about rationality derive from a restricted and mistaken view of rational thought—one not in accord with the study of rationality in modern cognitive science.

Dictionary definitions of rationality tend to be rather lame and unspecific (“the state or quality of being in accord with reason”), and some critics who wish to downplay the importance of rationality have promulgated a caricature of rationality that involves restricting its definition to the ability to do the syllogistic reasoning problems that are encountered in Philosophy 101.  The meaning of rationality in modern cognitive science is, in contrast, much more robust and important.  Cognitive scientists recognize two types of rationality:  instrumental and epistemic.  The simplest definition of instrumental rationality, the one that emphasizes most that it is grounded in the practical world, is: Behaving in the world so that you get exactly what you most want, given the resources (physical and mental) available to you.  The other aspect of rationality studied by cognitive scientists is epistemic rationality. This aspect of rationality concerns how well beliefs map onto the actual structure of the world.  The two types of rationality are related. In order to take actions that fulfill our goals, we need to base those actions on beliefs that are properly calibrated to the world.

Although many people feel (mistakenly or not) that they could do without the ability to solve textbook logic problems (which is why the caricatured view of rationality works to undercut its status), virtually no person wishes to eschew epistemic rationality and instrumental rationality, properly defined. Virtually all people want their beliefs to be in some correspondence with reality, and they also want to act to maximize the achievement of their goals.  Psychologist Ken Manktelow, in his book Psychology of Reasoning, has emphasized the practicality of both types of rationality by noting that they concern two critical things: What is true and what to do. Epistemic rationality is about what is true and instrumental rationality is about what to do.

Nothing could be more practical or useful for a person’s life than the thinking processes that help them find out what is true and what is best to do. This stands in marked contrast to some restricted views of what rationality is (for example, the rationality=logic view that I mentioned above).  Being rational (in the sense studied by cognitive scientists) is NOT just being logical.  Instead, logic (and all other cognitive tools) must prove its worth.  It must show that it helps us get at what is true or helps us to figure out what it is best to do.  My philosophy echoes that of Jonathan Baron, in his book Thinking and Deciding (4th Edition), when he argues that “the best kind of thinking, which we shall call rational thinking, is whatever kind of thinking best helps people achieve their goals.  If it should turn out that following the rules of formal logic leads to eternal happiness, then it is rational thinking to follow the laws of logic, assuming that we all want eternal happiness.  If it should turn out, on the other hand, that carefully violating the laws of logic at every turn leads to eternal happiness, then it is these violations that we shall call rational” (p. 61).

A similar admonition applies when we think about the relation between emotion and rationality.  In folk psychology, emotion is seen as antithetical to rationality.  The absence of emotion is seen as purifying thinking into purely rational form.  This idea is not consistent with definition of rationality that I (and most other cognitive scientists) adopt.  Instrumental rationality is behavior consistent with maximizing goal satisfaction, not a particular psychological process.  It is perfectly possible for the emotions to facilitate instrumental rationality as well as to impede it.  In fact, conceptions of emotions in cognitive science stress the adaptive regulatory powers of the emotions.  Emotions often get us “in the right ballpark” of the correct response.  If more accuracy than that is required, then a more precise type of analytic cognition will be required.  Of course, we can rely too much on the emotions.  We can base responses on a “ballpark” solution in situations that really require a more precise type of analytic thought.  More often than not, however, processes of emotional regulation facilitate rational thought and action.

Writer Malcolm Gladwell, in his bestselling book Blink, adopts the folk psychological view of the relation between emotion and rationality that is at odds with the way those concepts are discussed in cognitive science.  Gladwell discusses the famous cases of cognitive neuroscientist Antonio Damasio where damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex caused nonfunctional behavior without impairing intelligence.  Gladwell argues that “people with damage to their ventromedial area are perfectly rational.  They can be highly intelligent and functional, but they lack judgment” (2005, p. 59).  But this is not the right way to describe these cases.  In my view, someone who lacks judgment cannot be rational.

In the book, you explain the lack of rationality is associated with three things: 1) an overreliance on the autonomous mind, relying on unconscious heuristics where deliberate thinking would have been asked for, 2) a mindware gap, lack of rational tools, procedures, knowledge, strategies, and 3) being infected with contaminated mindware, which refers to beliefs, rules, strategies, etc that are not grounded in evidence but which are potentially harmful and yet hard to get rid of, like a computer virus. Now, I can imagine that bridging the mindware gap can be accomplished largely by education. The other two seem a bit harder to me. Could you share some ideas about what might help to prevent an overreliance on the autonomous mind and about how to fight contaminated mindware?

You are correct that irrationality caused by mindware gaps is most easily remediable, as it is entirely due to missing strategies and declarative knowledge that can be taught (your category #2 above).  But keep in mind that often category #1 (overriding the tendencies of the autonomous mind) is closely linked because override is most often done with learned mindware, and sometimes override fails because of inadequately instantiated mindware.  In such a case, inadequately learned mindware should really be considered the source of the problem (the line between the two is continuous—As the rule is less and less well instantiated, at some point it is so poorly compiled that it is not a candidate to override the Type 1 response and thus the processing error becomes a mindware gap).

Other categories of cognitive failure are harder to classify in terms of whether they are more dispositional (category #1) or knowledge-like (category #2).  For example, disjunctive reasoning is the tendency to consider all possible states of the world when deciding among options or when choosing a problem solution in a reasoning task.  It is a rational thinking strategy with a high degree of generality.  People make many suboptimal decisions because of the failure to flesh out all the possible options in a situation, yet the disjunctive mental tendency is not computationally expensive.  This is consistent with the finding that there are not strong intelligence-related limitations on the ability to think disjunctively and with evidence indicating that disjunctive reasoning is a rational thinking strategy that can be taught.

The tendency to consider alternative hypotheses is, like disjunctive reasoning, strategic mindware of great generality.  Also, it can be implemented in very simple ways. Many studies have attempted to teach the technical issue of thinking of P(D/~H) [the probability of the observed data given the alternative hypothesis] or thinking of the alternative hypothesis by instructing people in a simple habit.  People are given extensive practice at saying to themselves the phrase “think of the opposite” in relevant situations.  This strategic mindware does not stress computational capacity and thus is probably easily learnable by many individuals. Several studies have shown that practice at the simple strategy of triggering the thought “think of the opposite” can help to prevent a host of the thinking errors studied in the heuristics and biases literature, including but not limited to: anchoring biases, overconfidence effects, hindsight bias, confirmation bias, and self serving biases.

Various aspects of probabilistic thinking represent mindware of great generality and potency.  However, as any person who has ever taught a statistics course can attest (your present author included), some of these insights are counterintuitive and unnatural for people—particularly in their application.  There is nevertheless still some evidence that they are indeed teachable—albeit with somewhat more effort and difficulty than strategies such as disjunctive reasoning or considering alternative hypotheses.  Aspects of scientific thinking necessary to infer a causal relationship are also definitely teachable.  Other strategies of great generality may be easier to learn—particularly by those of lower intelligence.  For example, psychologist Peter Gollwitzer has discussed an action strategy of extremely wide generality—the use of implementation intentions.  An implementation intention is formed when the individual marks the cue-action sequence with the conscious, verbal declaration: “when X occurs, I will do Y”.  Finally, research has shown that an even more minimalist cognitive strategy of forming mental goals (whether or not they have implementation intentions) can be efficacious.  For example, people perform better in a task when they are told to form a mental goal (“set a specific, challenging goal for yourself”) for their performance as opposed to being given the generic motivational instructions (“do your best”).

We are often making choices that reduce our happiness because we find it hard to predict what will make us happy.  For example, people often underestimate how quickly they will adapt to both fortunate and unfortunate events.  Our imaginations fail at projecting the future. Psychologist Dan Gilbert cites evidence indicating that a remediating strategy in such situations might be to use a surrogate—someone who is presently undergoing the event whose happiness (or unhappiness) you are trying to simulate.  For example, if you are wondering how you will react to “empty nest” syndrome, ask someone who has just had their last child leave for college rather than trying to imagine yourself in that situation.  If you want to know how you will feel if your team is knocked out in the first round of the tournament, ask someone whose team has just been knocked out rather than trying to imagine it yourself. People tend not to want to use this mechanism because they think that their own uniqueness makes their guesses from introspection more accurate than the actual experiences of the people undergoing the event.  People are simply skeptical about whether other people’s experiences apply to them.  This is a form of egocentrism akin to the myside processing.  Gilbert captures the irony of people’s reluctance to adopt the surrogate strategy by telling his readers: “If you are like most people, then like most people, you don’t know you’re like most people” (p. 229, 2006)

Much of the strategic mindware discussed so far represents learnable strategies in the domain of instrumental rationality (achieving one’s goals). Epistemic rationality (having beliefs well calibrated to the world) is often disrupted by contaminated mindware. However, even here, there are teachable macro-strategies that can reduce the probability of acquiring mindware harmful that is to its host.  For example, the principle of falsifiability provides a wonderful inoculation against many kinds of nonfunctional beliefs.  It is a tool of immense generality.  It is taught in low-level methodology and philosophy of science courses, but could be taught much more broadly than this.

Many pseudoscientific beliefs represent the presence of contaminated mindware.  The critical thinking skills that help individuals to recognize pseudoscientific belief systems can be taught in high-school courses.  Finally, I think that the language of memetic science itself is therapeutic—a learnable mental tool that can help us become more conscious of the possibility that we are hosting contaminated mindware.  One way that the meme concept will aid in cognitive self-improvement is that by emphasizing the epidemiology of belief it will indirectly suggest to many (for whom it will be a new insight) the contingency of belief.  By providing a common term for all cultural units, memetic science provides a neutral context for evaluating whether any belief serves our interests as humans.  The very concept of the meme will suggest to more and more people that they need to engage in mindware examination.

I recently heard someone say: "I'm just a simple man doing a simple job. What's the harm in me being not so rational?" This made me wonder, is there anything known about what characteristics of a task, role or context determine the criticality of rationality? How can we know when rationality is critical and when it is a bit less important or even completely unimportant?

Your question relates to an issue I have written about in my book The Robot’s Rebellion.  The simple man with the simple job might be protected from his irrationality by living in a rational cultural, in which he is, in effect, a cultural freeloader. Cultural diffusion that allows knowledge to be shared short-circuits the need for separate individual discovery. In fact, most of us are cultural freeloaders--adding nothing to the collective knowledge or rationality of humanity.  Instead, we benefit every day from the knowledge and rational strategies invented by others.

The development of probability theory, concepts of empiricism, mathematics, scientific inference, and logic throughout the centuries have provided humans with conceptual tools to aid in the formation and revision of belief and in their reasoning about action.  A college sophomore with introductory statistics under his or her belt could, if time-transported to the Europe of a couple of centuries ago, become rich "beyond the dreams of avarice" by frequenting the gaming tables or by becoming involved in insurance or lotteries.  The cultural evolution of rational standards is apt to occur markedly faster than human evolution.  In part this cultural evolution creates the conditions whereby instrumental rationality separates from genetic optimization.  As we add to the tools of rational thought, we add to the software that the analytic system can run to achieve long-leash goals that optimize actions for the individual.  Learning a tool of rational thinking can quickly change behavior and reasoning in useful ways--as when a university student reads the editorial page with new reflectiveness after having just learned the rules of logic.  Evolutionary change is glacial by comparison.

Thus, in an astonishingly short time by evolutionary standards, humans can learn and disseminate--through education and other forms of cultural transmission--modes of thinking that can trump genetically optimized modules in our brains that have been driving our behavior for eons.  Because new discoveries by innovators can be conveyed linguistically, the general populace needs only the capability to understand the new cognitive tools--not to independently discover the new tools themselves.

Cultural increases in rationality itself might likewise be sustained through analogous mechanisms of cumulative ratcheting.  That is, cultural institutions might well arise that take advantage of the tools of rational thought, and these cultural institutions might enforce rules whereby people accrue the benefits of the tools of rationality without actually internalizing the rational tools.  In short, people just learn to imitate others in certain situations or “follow the rules” of rationality in order to accrue some societal benefits, while not actually becoming more rational themselves.

Cultural institutions themselves may achieve rationality at an organizational level without this entailing that the individual people within the organization are themselves actually running the tools of rational thought on their serial mental simulators.

Could you tell me about some of the questions that currently fascinate you? What are some of the research questions you would like to explore in the near future?

I am constantly asked about the possibility of a standardized rational thinking test.  I respond that there is no conceptual or empirical impediment to such an endeavor—just the will, money, and time.  I have begun, in ongoing writings, to sketch out a framework for the assessment of rational thought.

***

Further reading

• What Intelligence Tests Miss: The Psychology of Rational Thought
• Stanovich, K. E. (2009, Nov/Dec).  The thinking that IQ tests miss. Scientific American Mind, 20(6), 34-39. Stanovich_IQ-Tests-Miss_SAM09.pdf
• Stanovich, K. E. (2009). Distinguishing the reflective, algorithmic, and autonomous minds: Is it time for a tri-process theory? In J. Evans & K. Frankish (Eds.), In two minds: Dual processes and beyond (pp. 55-88). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stanovich_Two_Minds.pdf
• Stanovich, K. E. (2009).  Rationality versus intelligence. Project Syndicate.  link
• Stanovich, K. E, & West. R. F. (2008). On the relative independence of thinking biases and cognitive ability.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94, 672-695.  JPSP08.pdf

The Thinktank That Created The Solution-Focused Approach - Interview with Eve Lipchik

By Coert Visser

Eve Lipchik was one of the original core members of the Brief Family Therapy Center in Milwaukee, which created solution-focused therapy in the beginning of the l980's. She worked at the BFTC until l988, when she cofounded ICF Consultants. She is the author of the book Beyond Techniques in Solution-Focused Therapy: Working with Emotions and the Therapeutic Relationship and numerous chapters and articles. In this interview she looks back on the time the solution-focused approach was developed and she shares her memories of the process of developing the approach and of the people involved. She tells about the essential shift the team made from gathering information about the problem to focusing on constructing solutions with clients. Also, she reflects on recent developments and she explains the importance of describing the approach as encompassing both philosophy and techniques. Finally, she tells about some of her current interests and activities.


Coert: Could you tell me about some of your memories of the early times of the Brief Family Therapy Center? How did you get involved with that and how did you experience that starting period?

Eve: In l978, I decided to sign on to a two year, 40 hour a week training in Marriage and Family Therapy at Family Service of Milwaukee. That is where I met Insoo Berg, who was my supervisor. As a result, I learned about some experimental work she, Steve de Shazer, and some other people at Family Service were doing after hours. They were experimenting with ideas they had learned at the Mental Research Institute (MRI) in Palo Alto, and from the literature of Jay Haley, the Milan Group, and other therapists on the cutting edge at the time. Before the Brief Family Therapy Center (BFTC) was founded in l979, some therapists from Family Service would meet at Insoo and Steve's house after work, video-taping therapy sessions of friends of friends who volunteered as clients. They would then analyze and discuss these sessions until late at night. I soon became part of that group and eventually joined BFTC in l980, after finishing my training. Interestingly, only people who were not the sole breadwinner of their family had the freedom to join, because we started out without a client base and knew it would take a year or two to build up enough business to provide salaries for everyone.

The BFTC group always saw cases as a team, with on therapist conducting the interview and the others behind a one-way mirror. The lack of business in the early days was a huge bonus. We would spend our whole day at the office and had the luxury of discussing a case for hours, because often there wasn't another one for a long time, if at all. It seems like yesterday that we would gather excitedly after a client family left, while Steve positioned himself at a blackboard to make notes about what we were saying. The purpose, after all, was to notice and understand why we did what we did,  and what worked, so that we could do more of it.

That certainly was an exciting time, and I am most grateful to have had the opportunity to experience it. I could never have imagined that a collaborative process could feel so individually creative!  Everyone's ideas were of equal value, even those of visitors who might drop by to sit behind the one-way mirror. When a message for clients was finally developed, or a new idea about what had just happened in a session was born, one could feel satisfaction as an individual, as well as a member of a group.

Coert: That sounds like an exciting and fulfilling work environment. A lot has been said and written about the important contributions of Steve de Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg to the development of the solution-focused approach. But I think many people relatively new to the field, are less aware of how much the development of the solution-focused approach has been a collective effort and of how different individual members with their own specific interests and qualities have all contributed importantly. Could you tell a bit more about some of those people and how they contributed?

Eve: When I think back upon the collaborative process we were all engaged in, it is really hard to separate out individual contributions. We did, however, have very different personalities and backgrounds. The five people who were the original core group at BFTC in l980, were Jim Derks, Elam Nunnally, Marilyn LaCourt, Insoo Berg, Steve de Shazer and I.

Jim Derks was a Master Degreed Social worker who had been trained in  behavioral therapy. He, like Insoo, also studied at the Chicago Family Institute, which had a psychodynamic bent, but also introduced its students to the new developments in Family Therapy. Jim had a most unusual way of thinking. First, he tended to explain his ideas by using a lot of metaphor, which added another dimension to the discussion. Secondly, his thinking was “outside the nine dots.” One could say his contribution to discussions was like a pattern interruption. We would be going over and over a point and he would come left field with a totally different perspective, or a metaphor, that would allow for a new direction of thinking.

Elam Nunnally was a Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee at the School of Social Work. His PhD was in Family Studies, so he contributed a lot about stages of family development, family relationships, and, in particular, family communication. His thoughtful, quiet manner often grounded the group when imaginations would run wild.

Marilyn LaCourt had a Masters Degree in Communications and a background in education. She had not had any therapy experience before training at the Family Therapy Training Institute at Family Service. That was an advantage for the group because she was not prone to get involved in speculations like some of us did, but evaluated situations at face value. In this respect she and Steve were of one mind and could understand each other before some of us understood them. Her thinking contributed a lot to the minimalist aspect of Solution-Focused Therapy.

I had a Bachelor's Degree in English Literature and spent some time after college working in television production. After I married and had my children, I worked in a research project at the University of Rochester, N.Y.  There I did play therapy and studied for a Masters Degree in Human Services before moving to Milwaukee and getting a Masters Degree in Social Work.

One of our first students at BFTC was Alex Molnar, a Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Education. He was adding a Masters Degree in Social Work to his PhD in Education, and came to us for his Practicum. He was instrumental in analyzing our therapeutic process and in helping to construct decision trees to illustrate it.

Later, Wallace Gingerich, also a Professor Social Work at the University of Milwaukee-Wisconsin, spent time at BFTC. His expertise in research and interest in computers contributed greatly toward articulating the process of solution construction in academic terms.

Michele Weiner-Davis, who was a trainee at BFTC originally, later joined the research team and is credited with having introduced the notion of pre-session change to the Solution-Focused approach.

Last, but far from least, we all learned from, and with, our many visitors. BFTC had not been established very long before we began to attract the attention of therapists interested in innovative ideas through a home publication called the “Underground Railroad.” We all contributed articles to it about what we did at BFTC. Soon we had a parade of visitors like Lyman Wynn, Brad Keeney, Bill O'Hanlon, Carl Tomm, Michael White, Yvonne Dolan, Brian Cade, John Weakland, and many others. They sat behind the mirror with us and shared their thoughts and ideas during lengthy discussions and even longer dinners at Insoo and Steve's house, or mine. Steve cooked great Chinese food and made his own beer. I liked to cook, too, so we shared feeding and putting up our guests at our respective homes.

Coert: Thank you. I'd like to hear a bit more about your own role if that is okay. One of the people who got involved with BFTC, in l984, was Gale Miller. In a recent interview, he said: “I cannot stress enough how important Eve Lipchik was – she was willing to go the extra mile to make sure I understood what she was doing.” Could you tell  a bit about your own role and specific style, interests and views?

Eve: Well, for one, the group called me “the psychodynamic one” when we first got together. That changed very quickly though, as we worked together and increasingly began to look for the same things and think along similar lines. However, I do think that I continued to be the one in the group most inclined to bring emotions into the case discussions, particularly at times when we seemed uncertain or stuck.

As I mentioned before, we started out without any client base. It was, therefore, decided that one of us had to go out into the community and find referral sources. I was unanimously elected to do this job even though I had never sold anything before in my life. I think I succeeded in this role only because my genuine enthusiasm for our group, and our work, must have come across to people , and they figured it may be worthwhile to give us a try.

As for Gale Miller's nice comment about me – by the time he came to BFTC I was aware that our core group had become so close, and the communication so idiosyncratic, that it must be difficult for an outsider to understand what is going on. So I tried to help him bridge that gap.

I also developed an interest in spouse abuse in l981, while consulting with a womens' shelter. What I observed there made me question the dominant theory that women should always leave the men who abuse them. I noticed that the level of abuse occurred on a continuum, and that the majority of situations did not fit the stereotypical domestic violence case in which the man could be categorized as severely character disordered and power hungry. The majority of situations ranged from mutual pushing and name-calling to physical fighting, which many woman said they started. In other words, many of these cases looked a lot like the relationship problem cases we treated at BFTC. I began to wonder whether a client centered, future oriented approach like the Solution-Focused one might not help improve these relationships and save families, as long as we knew how to assess the safety of the women. Once again, I went out into the community. This time I talked with District Attorneys and Probation and Parole officers about my ideas. To my surprise they all agreed with me that couple treatment, rather than separation, is the better way to go in many of the situations. They began to refer cases to us and we were very successful in assessing and treating them. I then began to publish this work and to present our ideas nationally and internationally. One thing that really surprised me in the course of these presentations was the violent language often used against me when therapists, who treat violence, disagreed with my ideas.

In terms of my role in the development of Solution-Focused Therapy, I think that my specific contribution was in terms of the interviewing process. From the very beginning of my association with the group I questioned the belief that change occurred primarily as the result of the intervention message at the end of the session. The general understanding was that the interviewing therapist's job was to “gather information for the team behind the mirror so it can compose the intervention message!” This really confused me. I could not understand how to connect with clients in front of the mirror while I had my head behind the mirror with the team. I kept insisting that the interview is an intervention, as well, and began to explore this idea on my own. This difference of opinion became a mute point when we shifted from gathering information about the problem (Brief Family Therapy) to focusing on constructing solutions with clients (Solution-Focused Therapy). Solution construction undeniably occurred during the interview and the message at the end of the session served mainly to reinforce what had been constructed so far.

Coert: That's very interesting. I consider that insight and shift in focus essential because it made the approach more client-centric and effective. Now, could you tell a bit about your last few years at BFTC and the time and the reasons you founded your own practice, ICF Consultants?

Eve: During the last few years I spent at BFTC, our goal of developing a model, and teaching it nationally and internationally had been achieved. The close collaboration that produced such creative energy was no longer necessary. The core group had shrunk down to Steve, Insoo and me, with Elam Nunnally part time, and the research team meeting separately. Jim Derks and Marilyn LaCourt had left. My practice was very busy and I began to run the training program because Insoo and Steve started traveling more and more. The development of the approach had been incredibly exciting, but we also had expended a lot of time and energy on it. I began to feel that I want to cut back and spend more time with my family. It was very difficult for me to leave, particularly because Insoo and Steve asked me to stay and offered me various options. However, in l988, I decided to look for an office to rent somewhere where I could have a small private practice. Coincidentally, Marilyn Bonjean, who had a small private practice at BFTC, and had become a friend, decided to leave her full time job because of a change in management. When I mentioned that I was looking for office space she shared that she had decided to try building a full time private practice rather than looking for another job. She asked whether I would like to share office space. That seemed like a fine idea, and that is how ICF Consultants was born.

My intention to cut back my work schedule did not exactly work out as planned. My practice began to flourish rapidly and I received many invitations to talk about Solution-Focused Therapy, especially in the area of spouse abuse. It was very gratifying to be affirmed on my own, not only as part of an established group.

Coert: I can certainly imagine that. And just like you and the other core members have evolved, so did the approach, I guess. I am curious about your thoughts and feelings on how the solution-focused approach has evolved in, say, the last decade. Do you see any interesting new trends, insights or innovations? And what are your thoughts about the fact that SF is so well-known and broadly applied nowadays, also in many fields outside therapy?

Eve:  Originally, the Solution-Focused approach was considered to be process oriented and therefore, applicable to any type of case. I believe that is still true. However, as time went on, people began to apply it to specific problems, as I did with spouse abuse. Over the past ten years I have noticed increasingly varied applications of the approach, such as for group work, for children, for addictions, for child welfare, etc. My impression is that at this time people's thinking has evolved in two directions: either, that Solution-Focused Therapy is foremost a philosophy that guides thinking about how to help people achieve their goals, or, that it is a model that has specific techniques that, when applied correctly, achieves that goal. The majority of books I have seen seem to fall into the second category. However, I am pleased that the Treatment Manual that the Research Committee of the Solution Focused Brief Therapy Association issued in 2008 clearly described the approach as encompassing both philosophy and techniques.

As for your comment that the Solution-Focused approach has been well accepted and propagated, my sense is that that may be more the case in Europe and other parts of the world than in the United States. The term "strength based" is used generically in many applications that obviously originated from Solution-Focused thinking but I do not see BFTC or Solution-Focused Therapy credited too often. I was recently asked to endorse a book written by a psychiatrist about his manner of Life coaching, which he said is rooted in Solution-Focused Therapy. He devoted two sentences to it, and I had to ask him to revise those two sentences because they did not describe the approach correctly. Also, if you look at the programs of therapy conferences lately, there are very few presentations listed about Solution-Focused Therapy and its applications, and Narrative Therapy, too, for that matter. Motivation interviewing, which is so similar to Solution-Focused interviewing, is currently gaining more and more attention, as is Mindfulness, and, of course, Neuroscience and its application to therapy. I think therapies tend to go "out of style" more in the US than they do in Europe and other countries. But it is quite possible that I am missing a lot of information about the legacy of BFTC in the US and elsewhere. I sincerely hope so!

Coert: Could you tell me about your current interests, activities and plans?

Eve: One of my current interests is Neuroscience. I was trained and certified in EDMR about twelve years ago and that opened up my mind to very different thinking than I was used to. I didn't seek this training, it was offered to me free of charge, and I thought it might be fun to experience. To my surprise, I was fascinated by it and wanted to know more and more about how the brain works. My subsequent studies of Neuroscience made me want to examine whether, and how, it can fit with Solution-Focused thinking. [See article in the reference list-CV]. I believe a valid connection is possible in some respects, particularly with regard to the regulation of emotions, a core concept in neuroscientific work. Another example would be in the area of the plasticity of the brain. Neuroscientific findings suggest repetition creates new neuronal pathways, e.g. new thoughts and behaviors. Therefore, Solution-Focused therapists could suggest to clients that they repeat exceptional behaviors or thoughts, or “miraculous” behaviors or thoughts that are already happening, on a daily basis, perhaps even several times a day.

Aside from my clinical practice, I supervise Masters Degree practitioners, as well as people who are working toward AAMFT Approved Supervisor certification. For the past decade, I have also worked for an organization that has a number of community based programs for emotionally disturbed children, such as treatment foster care, school based programs, a day treatment program and a residential program. My mission there is to give all the therapists a good grounding in Solution-Focused thinking and then to act as a consultant. The cases we work on are systemically so complex, and the therapists are often so green, that I have found that it is most effective to instill the Solution-Focused philosophy first, using basic assumptions, and then to start demonstrating the value of the techniques. The assumptions help them develop the relationship with clients that is such an essential underpinning for the success of Solution-Focused Therapy, as all therapy, for that matter. 

My future? I would like to keep doing what I am doing as long as I can keep doing it.
Thank you for choosing to interview me.

References:

•  List of publications by Eve Lipchik
•  ICF Consultants
• Lipchik, E., Becker, M., Brasher, B. Derks, J., & Volkmann, J. (2005). Neuroscience: A New Direction for Solution-Focused Thinkers? Journal of Systemic Therapies (8) 49-70.

Also read:

• A Brief History of The Solution-Focused Approach

A closer look at rationality

Keith Stanovich has written an interesting book titled What Intelligence Tests Miss. The book is about the fact that IQ tests are incomplete measures of cognitive functioning. There is, as studies have show, in fact only a low to medium correlation between rational thinking skills and IQ test performance. And because rational thinking skills and IQ are largely independent it is not surprising that intelligent people can easily behave irrationally and hold false and unsupported beliefs. Several things are really interesting about this book. One is the authors insight that we do not need to stretch to non-cognitive domains (to notions as emotional intelligence or social intelligence) to see the lacunae in IQ tests. Another is the very specific and research based analysis of the topic matter.


The tripartite framework of cognitive functioning
The author presents an elegant and rather comprehensive model of cognitive functioning in which three types of major thinking processes and their interrelations are described: the autonomous mind, the algorithmic mind and the reflective mind.

The autonomous mind refers to rapidly executed, non-consciousness requiring mental processes which are often quick and dirty. The algorithmic mind refers to conscious efficient information processing and is linked to what is usually referred to as fluid intelligence. The reflective mind is linked to rational thinking dispositions and deals with questions such as which goals to choose and why, and what action to take given those goals. As the figure shows, conscious thinking can override unconscious thinking, which is a good thing given the quick and dirtiness of the autonomous mind. The algorithmic mind is required for executing this override and thus very important. But the reflective mind is the process which initiates such an override. People with high IQ may be quite capable of overriding false beliefs and erroneous judgments but it takes the rationality of the reflective mind to initiate such an override.

Intelligent but irrational
Although many laymen and psychologists seem to think IQ tests do measure rationality, they actually don’t. In fact, intelligence, as measure by IQ tests correlates only low to moderately with rational thinking skills. According to Stanovich, this explains why it is not strange to see intelligent people behave irrationally and hold false and unsupported beliefs. Some real world examples are: intelligent people who fall prey to Ponzi scheme swindlers like Bernie Madoff, a highly educated person who denies the evidence for evolution, a United States president who consults an astrologist, and so forth. Below, I will try to summarize how Stanovich explains rationality and lack of rationality.

What is rationality?
Cognitive scientists distinguish two basic forms: 1) INSTRUMENTAL RATIONALITY, behaving in such a way that you achieve what you want, and 2) EPISTEMIC RATIONALITY, taking care that your beliefs correspond with the actual structure of the world. Irrational thinking and behaving is associated with three things.

The first is an overreliance on the autonomous mind which subconsciously and automatically uses all kinds of heuristic to come to conclusions and solve problems. The autonomous mind is fast and very valuable but also very imprecise. It is prone to all kinds of biases. Thinking deliberately instead of letting the autonomous mind make judgments cost much more time and energy which is why it is temping no resist.

The second thing which is associated with irrationality is what is called a mindware gap. The term ‘mindware ‘ refers to the rules, knowledge, procedures, and strategies that a person has available for making judgments, decisions and solving problems. Lack of such knowledge, etc hinders rationality.

The third thing which is associated with irrationality is something called contaminated mindware, beliefs, rules, strategies, etc that are not grounded in evidence and that are not good for the one who holds them (the host) but which can still spread easily throughout a population. There are several reasons why they can spread easily: 1) they are often packaged in an appealing narrative which promises some kind of benefit to the host, 2) they sometimes ride on the back of other popular mindware which may be more valid by copying superficial characteristics from that mindware, 3) they contain self-replication instructions (‘send this mail on to 10 different people’), 4) they may have evaluation-disabling properties (for instance by claiming that evidence is not relevant or possible, by making belief which is unsupported by evidence into a virtue, by encouraging adherents to attack non-believers, etc). You might think that intelligence would guarantee a good protection against contaminated mindware but this turns out to be wrong. By making narratives complex, highly intelligent people can even become extra attracted to them. Further, studies have demonstrated that intelligent people may be more capable of creating ‘islands of false beliefs’ or ’webs of falsity’ by using their considerable computational power to rationalize their beliefs and to ward off the arguments of skeptics.

Some deliberations on the desirability of rationality
Here are some thoughts and questions about what the view presented in the posts might imply. Let me start by saying that I find the basic ideas presented in Keith Stanovich's book convincing, namely that: 1) Intelligence as measured by IQ tests and rationality are largely independent, which explains why intelligent people may behave and think irrationally, 2) IQ tests don't measure rationality and contrast between the strong focus on IQ testing and the very limited attention to measuring and teaching rational thinking is a bad thing, 3) rational thinking could be taught more and this would lead to social benefits. Here are some additional thoughts and questions on the desirability of raising rationality.

Perfect rationality is out of the question. That this is so can be understood from an evolutionary perspective. As Stanovich explains in his book, evolution does not lead to perfect rationality because natural selection does not specifically favor maximizing truth or utility. Instead it favors genetic fitness in a local environment. This means developing rationality is a matter of optimization instead maximization. Spending extreme resources on building rationality does not guarantee evolutionary advantage because those resources might also have been spent on other useful things. As Richard Dawkins says in his latest book: "Perfection in one department must be bought in the form of a sacrifice in another department".

That maximal rationality is undesirable and impossible also follows from Stanovich's tripartite model of the brain which consists of the autonomous mind, the algorithmic mind and the reflective mind (further explanation here). It is true that the autonomous mind works with rough heuristics which work in a quick and dirty way and which may frequently miss the mark. An override by the deliberate part of the brain (which consists of the algorithmic brain plus the reflective brain) can help to correct the inaccurateness of the autonomous mind and make judgments and decisions more rational. But because deliberate thinking demand so much attention it would be impossible to let deliberate thinking make all judgments and decisions. So much of everything we do and think has been 'delegated' to the autonomous mind that this would be unthinkable. Some division of labor between the autonomous mind and the deliberate mind is efficient. The question is how to divide it most effectively. How often and when should the deliberate mind override the autonomous mind? How can we recognize situations which ask for such overrides? When must we demand rationality from ourselves and from others?

Another perspective on the question of how much rationality follows from looking at its advantages and disadvantages. It seems logical that increasing ones rationality is usually beneficial, both for the individual and for society. After all, increasing instrumental rationality means that one becomes better and goal directed thinking and acting. And increasing epistemic rationality means that ones maps of the world become more realistic; in other words ones beliefs about reality correspond more closely to the actual structure of reality. But there may be som disadvantages, too. I am not talking about the stereotype of Mr. Spock, the assumption that there is a trade off between rationality and social or emotional competence. I would predict that rationality and social or emotional competence are largely independent (in the same that rationality and intelligence are largely independent). In am talking about the possibility that increasing your rationality may be aversive to others and might lead to some extra social barriers, like social rejection. History shows many examples of people who are now considered to be ahead of their time in terms of rationality who were punished by their contemporaries. People challenging widely held beliefs (never mind if they are true or not) can be considered as a threat to power positions, to the stability of institutions, or can be viewed as disloyal, crazy or arrogant. There are many examples of people who have been ridiculed, isolated, imprisoned, banned, imprisoned, convicted to death and murdered because of their ideas which later turn out to be true. The paradox seems to be: it requires rationality to appreciate it.

How to fight contaminated mindware
This leads me to the question of how to fight contaminated mindware. Contaminated mindware refers to a belief system which is not true and potentially harmful to the person who holds it and others but which can still spread quickly through a population due to some of its characteristics. The question is whether a head on attack of popular contaminated mindware will leads to its demise or runs the risk of making it even more popular. A head on attack might lead to further publicity for the contaminated mindware, thus exposing more people to its attractiveness. And it may lead to more attacks on its opponents (because contaminated mindware often contains an instruction to attack opponents, non-believers). Or might a different approach work better? For instance an approach of teaching people to recognize contaminated mindware more easily and protect themselves better against it?

Missing link in Dawkins' work effectively removed - Review of Richard Dawkins´ The Greatest Show On Earth- The Evidence For Evolution

Richard Dawkins' book The Greatest Show on Earth is currently high on bestseller lists in many countries. The book removes what was the missing link in Dawkins' oeuvre because in all his others books he started from the assumption that evolution was true. In this one he presents evidence. Let's walk through the book in some big steps.

In Chapter 1, Dawkins introduces the word THEORUM as a replacement of the word 'theory' which in everyday use often just means hypothesis. The word 'theorum' (inspired by the word 'theorem' from mathematics) would do justice to the fact that evolution is massively supported by evidence and therefore by no means just a hypothesis. Chapter 2 describes how we can sculpt gene pools through artificial selection (for instance dog breeding), a practice which has been known to men, of course long, before Darwin to the scene.
Chapter 3 explains differences between artificial, sexual, and natural selection. Chapter 4 shows we know for SURE how old the earth is. It presents two of the three methods (tree rings and radioactive clocks). Chapter 5 shows examples of evolution we can see before our very eyes (for instance with bacteria and with guppies). It is also a powerful explanation of how the existence of evolution has been experimentally demonstrated through experiments. And experiments are of course an indispensible part of doing science because of their power to show causal relations.

Chapter 6 and 7 are is about fossil evidence for evolution and it debunks some common misunderstandings, like the one that intermediate fossils are still missing which would prove that evolution would not be true. The chapter shows that not only intermediate fossils aren't missing, even if they would be missing that would not disprove evaluation at all. In fact, even without any fossil evidence, the evidence for evolution would be watertight. So fossil evidence serves to underline all the other evidence. Also, the fact that no fossil has ever been found in the 'wrong' time period (which would work to disprove evolution) further strengthens the case.

Chapter 8 explains how embryology is a matter of self-assembly-processes all the way which goes against the idea that humans grow according to some kind of blueprint. Chapter 9 is about 'islands' or the powerful biogeographic evidence for evolution. Chapter 10 deals with tree of cousinship and molecular evidence (and molecular clocks). Chapter 11 shows how bodies aren't designed but gradually evolved and seem like imperfect patchworks. Chapter 12 is about evolutionary arms races and their apparent futility which is another reason why creationism is so very unlikely and illogical. Chapter 13 is one big reflection on the last poetic paragraph of Darwin's On the Origin of Species. 

Reading the book, I came across many little details I did not know and also some more fundamental insights  and facts that I was not fully aware of. While reading the book I thought how paradoxical it seems how people expressing some very uninformed and outdated opinions and views can actually play a very useful role. Perhaps were it not for them doing this and for the influence they surprisingly have, people like Dawkins would not take the trouble to keep on explaining scientific findings in such accessible ways. I am convinced that almost any part of this book can be rather easily understood by the majority of people and I am happy to see how many people are interested enough to actually buy it.

On Amazon: Missing link in Dawkins' work effectively removed

Can we get smarter? Yes we can!

Review of Nisbett, R. (2009). Intelligence and How to Get It: Why Schools and Cultures Count. New York and London W.W. Norton, 282 pages, $17.79 hardcover

by Coert Visser

Did you read the book The Bell Curve (Hernnstein and Murray, 1994)? Did it make you feel uneasy because you did not (want to) agree with its conclusions but did not exactly know how to refute them? Among the conclusions were (loosely formulated): 1) that intelligence is highly important in many areas of life, 2) that differences in intelligence are largely responsible for societal stratification, 3) that differences in intelligence are largely heritable, and 4) that intelligence gaps between (racial) groups are hard to close (if that is possible at all).

If you feel uneasy about these conclusions read this book by psychologist Dick Nisbett (2009). You will probably like this book because it will provide answers to your questions. Not in a vague way but in a very specific, well reasoned and research based way. Here are some conclusions from the book:

1. There is no fixed value for the heritability of intelligence. If the environment is very favorable to the growth of development of intelligence, the heritability of intelligence is fairly high, maybe up to 70%. If however the environment is highly variable, differing greatly between individual families, then the environment is going to play the major role in differences in intelligences between individuals (as is the case with the poor).
2. Aside from the degree to which heritability is important for one group or another in the population, heritability places no limits whatsoever on modifiability,for anybody.
3. Intelligence is developable and schools can make children smarter, for instance by using computer-assisted teaching and certain types of cooperative learning. Genes play no role at all in race differences in IQ, environmental differences do.
4. Believing that intelligence is under your control is a great start for developing intelligence.
5. Certain habits and values in cultures can be highly beneficial for learning and developing intelligence.
6. Parents can do a lot to increase the intelligence and academic achievement of children (both biological and didactic factors matter).

Intelligence and How to Get It contains many very interesting citations of studies. Here are just a few examples. One example is the work by researchers like Urie Bronfenbrenner, Mike Stoolmiller and Eric Turkheimer, whose combined studies show how the famous twin studies systematically overestimate estimates of heritability. Another interesting example is the description of the famous Flynn-effect which shows how IQ-scores can increase rapidly over generations Also the book mentions the work by Carol Dweck, on fixed and growth mindsets. A fixed mindset is a way of viewing intelligence (and other personal characteristics) as unchangeable; either you’ve got it or you don’t. A growth mindset is one in which personal characteristics are viewed as modifiable. Dweck’s work shows that a fixed mindset leads to disregarding learning while a growth mindset leads to the tendency to put effort into learning and performing and into developing strategies that enhance learning and long term accomplishments. The book contains many more interesting findings, for instance about effective educational interventions, including evidence for which strategies work well in raising kids to be intelligent, strategies for bridging performance gaps between different ethnic groups, and more.

I think the content of this book will resonate well with many SF practitioners and researchers. This is why. In the SF approach a dynamic rather than a static view of personal characteristics is held. Às Thorana Nelson and Frank Thomas (2007), authors of Handbook of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy, remind us: “Change is constant and inevitable; just as one cannot not communicate, one cannot not change.” (p. 10) This optimism about change is applicable both to one’s personal circumstances as to one’s behavior and characteristics. This is why a growth mindset fits better with an SF approach than a fixed mindset.

Until now, a dominant view in psychology had been that characteristics like intelligence and personality traits were largely unmodifiable. But the shift that now seems to be happening is that psychologists are discovering more and more that they have been too pessimistic and deterministic. People are far more capable of development than psychology has long thought. A case in point is the human brain. Scientists had long thought that the adult brain was incapable of significant structural change. Now, it has been proven that the brain is far more flexible than that and it is beyond dispute that the brain constantly changes itself as a consequence of experience. This phenomenon is called neuroplasticity. It is even possible for the brain to relocate brain activity associated with a certain function from one area to another, for instance in the case of brain damage. What is also now proven and was long thought to be impossible is neurogenesis, the generation of new cells in the adult brain. Researcher Tracy Shors (2009) and her colleagues have shown that thousands of new cells are created every day.

Beside the shift to a more optimistic view, there also seems to be a shift in psychology’s attention from a purely individualistic to a more systems oriented view of human functioning. Traditional ‘hereditarians’ downplayed the role of the environment, of efforts of schools, parents and society. The view presented in this book acknowledges the importance of such environmental factors. This is an example of how psychology may shift from a rather individualistic to a more interactional and situational perspective.

The research based perspective offered in this book allows for an optimistic stance about educational and societal issues. It justifies an attitude of not giving up in trying to improve efforts to design better learning environments, educational designs and teaching approaches. In several ways the book justifies the optimistic, interactional and contextual view on human functioning that SF practice uses.

This book is great. Let's hope it will inspire many parents, educators, policymakers and scientists. It has the potential.

References

• Hernnstein, R.J. and Murray, C. (1994). The Bell Curve: Intelligence and class structure in American life. New York: Free Press.
• Nelson, T. & Thomas, F. (Eds), (2007). Handbook of solution-focused brief therapy: Clinical Applications. New York: The Haworth Press.
• Shors, T.L. (2009). Saving new brain cells. Scientific American, March 2009. http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=saving-new-brain-cells

Coert Visser is a solution-focused trainer, coach, blogger and author. He can be reached at coert.visser@planet.nl