The encounter between a therapist and those who seek his help implies the confluence of two lives in the common enclave of the practice, where an experience that treasures within itself a transforming potential unfolds.

Traditionally, the therapist has been perceived as an expert who has the key to open the doors to the wellbeing of others, so that the client will only have to adhere to what he decides to “recommend” in order to ventilate the spaces that are tainted by emotional pain.

What is really true, however, is that the client must be the key piece in the puzzle that is presented to him throughout the treatment, so that his experience and point of view will be the basis on which the whole process is based.

This is the idea of collaborative psychotherapy, an approach that moves away from the obsolete vision of the omnipotent and omniscient therapist , to emphasize the direct protagonist of the experience: the client and the words that are shared with him/her.

Basics of collaborative psychotherapy

Collaborative psychotherapy is a form of intervention proposed by Harlene Anderson and Harold Goolishan , which emerges directly from the systemic paradigms and assumes as its basic model constructivism. It upholds an approach that contemplates the person within the framework of the social influences provided by his/her direct environment, without which it is impossible to approach with precision the way he/she acts and feels.

In this way, constructivism, which starts from the idea that knowledge is formed from the individual experiences of each one , would extend to the social dimensions of the person. It would understand it as the active and generative receptor of the whole complex system of beliefs, expectations, desires, traditions and taboos that are formed around the family and social unit; that in some way will influence its development as an individual, despite being susceptible to reflection and particular analysis. All this has been accommodated under the general heading of “social constructivism”.

Mental disorders and other problems of a psychological nature cannot be explained by the internal dynamics of the person, but by the way in which he or she relates to the other links that make up the machinery of his or her environment, which will define all the mechanisms that initiate or maintain the internal conflict over time. The pattern of interaction therefore becomes the basic unit of analysis of collaborative psychotherapy, as an element built through the shared experiences of the whole.

Although this form of intervention poses a scenario that is based on postmodern thinking and rethinks the level of authority of the therapist , who is conceived as a collaborator (hence the very nomenclature of the procedure) in the understanding of the family event, this does not mean that the traditional strategies of psychological evaluation (such as the interview or observation) are denied or ignored, but rather that they are reformulated in order to adapt them to the epistemological (constructivist) substrate that characterizes it.

The language used in all cases (between the therapist and the client) is articulated in a colloquial register, which avoids technicalities and assimilates the information shared within the framework of an ordinary conversation. This reduces the verticality of the exchange and the professional is placed in a situation of total equality, avoiding value judgments and making public (for the client) the conclusions that can be reached throughout the process.

Operation of the intervention and sessions

From collaborative psychotherapy, an individual’s knowledge is understood through the way he or she exchanges information in the social setting, while language becomes a symbolic entity through which he or she can explore reality and even transform everything he or she knows. From this base, which arises from its systemic and constructionist foundation, a form of therapy emerges that makes use of open and sincere conversation through the simplest possible verbal code .

In this conversation, the parties involved do not adopt privileged positions, but unite with the common aim of sharing points of view on the same issue and promoting the whole process of reflection to which it may give rise, without necessarily reaching a consensus. As new ways of seeing the problem are constructed, always in close collaboration between the therapist and his or her client, the shared product motivates new descriptions of the problem and of the agents who may be involved.

In collaborative psychotherapy the therapist does not act in a directive manner, nor does he exhibit secrecy in his dissertations , but shares them with his client from an extreme honesty and maintains an attitude of openness to the modification of his internal discourse on the issue. Everything arises from the principles of bidirectionality, making the client and his way of seeing the world the protagonist of the entire decision-making process.

This model also distances itself from drawing up a psychopathological diagnosis, preferring in any case to understand the unique experience of the other person without labels that motivate unnecessary generalization . This perspective allows us to face the therapeutic situation with the nakedness of someone who enters an unknown territory, discovering at every step the places that unfold before his sight.

In the following, and as a general summary, the elements to be taken into account from the prism of this form of psychotherapy and the position that the person who makes use of it has to adopt will be shown.

Basic elements

These are the pillars of collaborative psychotherapy.

1. Joint research

Both the therapist and the client assume that their relationship is social in nature and subject to the laws of reciprocity. That is why research is chosen as a metaphorical format that describes the common advances that both parties facilitate , as the interactive process is shown to both. It is therefore essential that responsibilities are assumed and an attitude of open interest in the other and in his/her daily life is evident.

2. Relational equilibrium

Collaborative psychotherapy flees from the classical model, of biomedical origin, which formulated the implicit authority of the therapist in the choice of the contents to be addressed and in the rhythm in which these were incorporated into the interaction. In this case, a relationship of tacit balance is assumed, where knowledge is a sort of shared project in which the contribution of the therapist and the client have the same value and relevance.

3. Opening position

The therapist constantly reveals what he thinks about during the session, without sparing words or veiling conclusions, showing an attitude of necessary openness to the reaction that all this could generate in the client. It is also key that the encounter is experienced from the full acceptance of the narrative that the other person unfolds , since it is the privileged testimony of the one who lived in first person the events that are being dealt with.

4. Uncertainty

The therapist does not show preconceived ideas when entering therapy, but neither does he manage to formulate them as the therapy progresses, since it is the language itself that defines to what extent the new meanings are acquired. This fact implies that the final outcome of a session should not be anticipated, since the knowledge that is derived from it cannot be foreseen from the perspective of only one of the parties that form the relationship.

5. Colloquiality

In addition to having a sort of tabula rasa on the subject (the position of the one who “doesn’t know”), the therapist should use the simplest words possible when conveying his part of the conversation. In any case, the most important thing is to avoid technical words or those whose degree of abstraction could interfere with or hinder what really matters: the investigation that is assumed with the client. It is therefore necessary to adopt a record that is accessible to both parties.

6. Emphasis on the client

The accent of the intervention must always be placed on the client. This is because the client is the one who knows the most about the issues involved throughout the therapy and considers himself to be the true expert on the subject . For this reason the therapist will direct the attention and interest towards his or her individual experience, which will become the source of basic information in moments of uncertainty in which it is necessary to open up a new horizon.

Emphasis on potential

Just as traditional biomedical practice has been oriented towards evaluating, diagnosing and treating a condition (also in the clinical field of psychology), constructivist models have preferably been concerned with identifying and enhancing the positive aspects that every human being harbours , even in circumstances of severe emotional difficulty. From this point of view, all the resources available to the person would be strengthened, and the construction of new ones would be encouraged.

8. Practice orientation

Since the issues dealt with in consultation orbit around real, everyday facts of the client’s life, it is elementary to provide a pragmatic and applied view of the problems that arise . On many occasions all the effort will be directed towards resolving some interpersonal conflict, it being essential to provide communicative tools aimed at this end; while in other cases the issue to be dealt with will be of an emotional and intimate nature.

Bibliographic references:

  • Agudelo, M.E. and Estrada, P. (2013). Narrative and Collaborative Therapies: A Look through the Lens of Social Constructivism. Journal of the Faculty of Social Work, 29(9), 15-48.
  • Ibarra, A. (2004) What is collaborative psychotherapy? Athenea Digital: Journal of Thought and Social Research, 1(5), 1-8.