Therapist's Notebook on Strengths and Solution-Based Therapies

Bob Bertolino, PhD, is a licensed marital and family therapist and assistant professor of rehabiltation counseling at Maryville University in St. Louis, Missouri.Michael Kiener, PhD, is a certified rehabilitation counselor and action research associate in the Center for Teaching Excellence at Maryville University in St. Louis, Missouri.Ryan Patterson, MSW, is a licensed clinical social worker and director of clinical services at Youth in Need, Inc., in St. Louis, Missouri

• Part I: Becoming Strengths and Solution-Based (SSB): Creating a Context for Change. The Philosophical Inventory: Expanding Awareness and Impact of Beliefs. Dismantling Your Status Quo: Challenging Assumptions and Gaining Insight. Creating New Meaning: All Our Actions are Meaningful. Taking the ic Out of the Person: Seeing the Core Within. Composing Your Theoretical Worldview: What I Believe. Me, Myself, and I: Understanding Personal Strengths. How I Describe What I Do: Examining Personal Theory and Principles of Change. The Key is Collaboration: Working with Clients. Expectations and Next-pectations: Learning Clients’ Preferences for Therapy. The Body Knows: The Influence of Words. What are Words for? Terminology as a Pathway of Connection. Individuality, Uniqueness, and Strength: Working with People Who Have a Long List of Labels. Becoming the Hero of Your Own Story: Changing Narratives and Lives through a Creative Process. Part II: Getting Focused: Exploring Strengths and Solutions in Information-gathering. It’s Your Life: Creating Space for the Client’s Story. Hello, My Name is: Meeting Yourself Again. Lowering Walls and Building Bridges: Initial Steps in Creating Collaborative Relationships. Stone Soup: Acknowledging Strengths, Potential, and Contributions to Change. Stenographer: I Said What?. What’s the Effect? Exploring the Influences of Problems. What Does That Look Like? Translating Ambiguity Through Action-Talk. G-O! Focusing on Goals and Outcomes. Goals for Goal Setting: Charting a Clear Course. From Problem-Talk to Solution-Talk: Creating Possibilities Through Language. Future Screening: Creating a Vision for the Future. Destination Imagination: Envisioning the Future Through Miracles, Dreams, and the Extraterrestrial. I Can See Clearly Now: Developing a Future Focus. From Here to Where? Service Planning for Change. In Many Ways: Mapping Paths of Change. The Spokes of Life: Cultivating Resources. What Tips the Sca

"Bertolino, Kiener and Patterson, out of the depth of their considerable combined experience, have written a must have resource to help clinicians eager for success to find tools in this book to achieve that success in a very effective, positive, and encouraging process. They demonstrate that being a clinician can be creative fun as well as a challenge. Their succinct summary of theory buttressed by over 100 practical carefully described techniques is a new special asset for clinicians."- Robert Sherman, EdD, professor emeritus, Queens College, New York "This book is a wonderful accompaniment to Bertolino et al.'s Therapist Notebook for Families, which was a good selling volume. This one is the more general strengths and solutions focused Notebook that probably should have come first, but will be a good addition at this point."- Terry S. Trepper, Ph.D.