This is the most comprehensive study of the role of time in psychotherapy. It illustrates how time is experienced in different ways - individual time, family time, and social time - and how time can act as an invaluable metaphor in shaping clinical practice within a systemic approach, while maintaining connections with other approaches, such as psychoanalysis and cognitive therapies. A seminal volume on this topic, the book looks at issues such as the duration of therapy; the relevance of past, present, and future in therapy; and the balance of memory and oblivion. It also includes a discussion of how time is framed in other disciplines, including sociology, history, and psychopathology, whilst exploring the concept in practical terms through case vignettes and complete case histories, including the transcripts of actual sessions. The reader is thus given a set of guidelines for dealing with time issues in therapy from a systemic perspective. Originally published in 1993, the book has been updated to create a dialogue with contemporary theoretical debates, as well as social and technological changes. It will fascinate all psychotherapists, particularly those interested in a systemic practice.

In recent years, systemic theory and practice adopted a dialogical orientation, centred on the persons of the therapist and client. This has led to a growing attention toward emotions, which, in this book, is developed in terms of emotional systems. An emotional system in therapy may be viewed as the sum of the emotions existing and interacting in people's lives. Relevant changes in life happen when emotional stances and sequences change within the system, leading, for example, to a greater sense of agency or hope, or to a different perception of the situation. This book looks at emotions within human systems in terms of dominant and silent emotions, which shape and are shaped by human relationships, and may be played in several ways according to reciprocal emotional positioning. The therapist uses his or her own feeling, and understanding of the emotions within the therapeutic dialogue, in order to create hypotheses and new dialogues which allow change.

This is the most comprehensive study of the role of time in psychotherapy. It illustrates how time is experienced in different ways - individual time, family time, and social time - and how time can act as an invaluable metaphor in shaping clinical practice within a systemic approach, while maintaining connections with other approaches, such as psychoanalysis and cognitive therapies. A seminal volume on this topic, the book looks at issues such as the duration of therapy; the relevance of past, present, and future in therapy; and the balance of memory and oblivion. It also includes a discussion of how time is framed in other disciplines, including sociology, history, and psychopathology, whilst exploring the concept in practical terms through case vignettes and complete case histories, including the transcripts of actual sessions. The reader is thus given a set of guidelines for dealing with time issues in therapy from a systemic perspective. Originally published in 1993, the book has been updated to create a dialogue with contemporary theoretical debates, as well as social and technological changes. It will fascinate all psychotherapists, particularly those interested in a systemic practice.

In recent years, systemic theory and practice adopted a dialogical orientation, centred on the persons of the therapist and client. This has led to a growing attention toward emotions, which, in this book, is developed in terms of emotional systems. An emotional system in therapy may be viewed as the sum of the emotions existing and interacting in people's lives. Relevant changes in life happen when emotional stances and sequences change within the system, leading, for example, to a greater sense of agency or hope, or to a different perception of the situation. This book looks at emotions within human systems in terms of dominant and silent emotions, which shape and are shaped by human relationships, and may be played in several ways according to reciprocal emotional positioning. The therapist uses his or her own feeling, and understanding of the emotions within the therapeutic dialogue, in order to create hypotheses and new dialogues which allow change.

The authors describe the work they are doing with individual clients in Milan. Locating themselves clearly within the tradition of the Milan approach and more recent social constructionist and narrative influences, and articulating continually a broad systemic framework emphasizing meaning problems in context and relationship, they introduc

In this book, the author describes the dialogic therapist as someone whose therapy is guided by the use of systemic hypotheses, helping the readers understand how the ideas and techniques can take their place among the vast array of ideas in the systemic field.

The authors describe the work they are doing with individual clients in Milan. Locating themselves clearly within the tradition of the Milan approach and more recent social constructionist and narrative influences, and articulating continually a broad systemic framework emphasizing meaning problems in context and relationship, they introduce a range of ideas taken from psychoanalysis, strategic therapy, Gestalt therapy and narrative work. They describe the therapy as Brief/Long-term therapy and introduce new interviewing techniques, such as connecting the past, present and future in a way that releases clients and helps them construct new narratives for the future; inviting the patient to speak to the therapist as an absent family member; and working with the client to monitor their own therapy. The book is written with a freshness that suggests the authors are describing "work in progress", and the reader is privy to the authors' own thoughts and reactions as they comment on the process of their therapy cases. This is a demystifying book, for it allows the reader to understand why one particular technique was preferred over another.

Several good books exist about systemic understanding in therapy and a few about dialogic understanding. However, none exist that try to bridge the gap between these two world views, which have some similarities, but also a whole array of differences. The most striking difference between these two world views is the very vantage point for observation each of them holds. According to systemic theory, we exist only in and because of the network of relationships we are embedded in. In dialogic theory, we inhabit different worlds, and we need dialogue in order to make them communicate with each other. Putting these different views together poses problems but is a good dialogic exercise as well. The author found it increasingly necessary to undertake this exercise as he felt more and more uncomfortable with the more conventional versions of Batesonian systemic wisdom he had adopted in previous years, while at the same time he could not feel convinced by some of the new ideas about dialogue.