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Published Online: 1999, pp. 143–282

Don’t Ask Questions: A Psychotherapeutic Strategy for Treatment of Involuntary Clients

Stanley L. Brodsky, Ph.D., and Bronwen Lichtenstein, Ph.D.Authors Info & Affiliations

Publication: American Journal of Psychotherapy

Volume 53, Number 2

https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.psychotherapy.1999.53.2.215

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Abstract

This article puts forth the proposition that asking questions is detrimental to successful therapy with unwilling clients. The utility of three commonly used approaches is examined by asking:

Does continuing questioning impede therapy with involuntary clients?

Are therapists asking questions primarily as a means of coping personally with sullen and silent, or angry and abrasive client behavior?

Is it correct to assume that asking “why” is a particularly poor therapy intervention because it brings therapists and clients into a futile search for causation of behaviors?

It is recommended that statements, instead of questions, should be introduced as the preferred therapeutic modality with reluctant and unwilling clients.

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Information & Authors

Information

Published In

American Journal of Psychotherapy

Volume 53 • Number 2 • 1999, pp. 143–282

Pages: 215 - 224

PubMed: 10415990

History

Published in print: 1999, pp. 143–282

Published online: 30 April 2018

Authors

Details

Stanley L. Brodsky, Ph.D.

Professor, Department of Psychology, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0348

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Bronwen Lichtenstein, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294-3350.

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Notes

Many of the ideas in this paper were presented in 1998 workshops on “Psychotherapy with the Reluctant and Involuntary Client,” in Portland and Eugene, Oregon, led by the senior author under the sponsorship of the Oregon Forensic Institute.

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Don’t Ask Questions: A Psychotherapeutic Strategy for Treatment of Involuntary Clients

Abstract

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