rofessional style would remain the same, no matter what the therapeutic setting might be.
When I saw the first videotape in class, Over the Hump, in which Insoo Kim Berg and Peter DeJong employed solution-focused therapy to deal directly with the patient's problems and the family's methods of providing solutions, I was startled. I was not shocked by the team's quiet approach. Instead, I was surprised at my personal reactions. I am quite different from Berg and DeJong, and I had my first real understanding of the importance of the therapist's individual personality, his or her own humanity, in the treatment process.
Reading about psychological philosophies often obscures the theorist's own voice. Few psychologists can match Salvador Minuchin's vivid personal style, a manner of writing that keeps the reader aware of the writer; for instance, he describes family therapy as a process of entering "the labyrinth that is the family, and [producing] Ariadne's thread" (Minuchin, 1981, p. 2), a metaphor that serves to illuminate both the work and the worker. Yet most theoretical writings manage to make the writer the frame through which a particular philosophy can be viewed. Many theoretical attempts try to make the therapist into a cipher or a neutral entity, distanced from the work of creating change. Many writings about theoretical attempts also establish such distance between writer and reader.
Videotaped therapy sessions transform the event by adding the presence of the therapist, even when that presence consists only of an off-camera voice. Suddenly, another human being is sitting in the room, and the first videotaped session I saw brought this home to me with a jolt. Suddenly, I was working toward becoming that extra person, not simply as another body but as the motivator, catalyst, and trained professional member of the team. I saw how the therapist's own humanity and personality become factors in the process. Being...