Encouragement and Actionable Hope: The Source of Adier's … · 2020-01-07 · Encouragement and Actionable Hope: The Source of Adier's Clinical Agency Frank O. Main and Shelly R

Encouragement and Actionable Hope:The Source of Adier's Clinical Agency

Frank O. Main and Shelly R. Boughner

Abstract

The authors examine Alfred Adier's innovative therapeutic use of encourage-ment with families in the public forum. In addition, they examine parallels betweenAdier's approach to encouragement and Weingarten's (2010) characterization of thetherapist's spirit and presence during therapy. Adier's extraordinary capacity to createhopeful, egalitarian clinical relationships is explored. Adier's specific use of languagein distinguishing between encouragement and hope was intended to emphasize theaction and responsibility required of the therapist to restore hope to families. Thenuances of the clinical relationship that emphasize the personal intimacy requiredbetween the therapist and family to restore hope are illustrated here. The essentialelements involved in assisting families to redevelop hope in their lives are catego^rized here as generative therapeutic actions and therapist actions are categorizedas community witness. This article focuses on the latter, the therapist's actions as acommunity witness, traced through case examples.

Eor Alfred Adler, encouragement was the foundation of psychotherapy,and it included development of social interest on the part of the client(Ansbacher & Ansbacher, 1978). Adler maintained tbat "Courage is foundonly on the side of life that advances the community" (as cited in Ansbacher& Ansbacher, p. 399). When speaking of encouragement, Adler did not usethe German phrasing Hoffnung erwecken, to raise hope or to hope {hoffen).Rather, he clearly used Ermutigung, to encourage through action. This dis-tinction is emphatic: Encouragement is the action required by the therapistto inspire or instill "courage" in the client, particularly courage to engage thecommunity. Adler understood that hope absent of action was not a plan—nor was it accessible to clients. The therapist's charge is to inspire "courage,"to call the client into action, to engage the community and serve others.

Tbe therapist's responsibility is to plan and create a cognitive/emotionalcase for courageous behavior and action. It is the client's responsibility toexpress his or her Gemeinschaftsgefühl—sense of community. This articlefocuses upon the common elements of hope required in public and pri-vate family counseling. In each setting, hope {Hoffnung erwecken) mustbe raised.

rhe lournal of Individual Psychology, Vol. 67, No. 3, Fall 2011©2011 by the University ofTexas Press, PO Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819

Editorial office located in the College of Education at Georgia State University.

270 Frank O. Main and Shelly R. Boughner

Affective Aspect of Therapy

Adier's entire therapeutic approach was optimistic and wholly depen-dent upon inspiring engagement and courage in individuals, children, andfamilies. This positive, hopeful, action-oriented approach is striking in itssimilarity to the contemporary collaborative and constructivist approachesto therapy (Duncan, Miller, & Sparks, 2004; Q'Hanlon, 2006; Watts, 2003).Those who followed Adler (e.g., Dreikurs, 1967; Ansbacher & Ansbacher,1964) defined encouragement as the affective aspect of therapy. They felt itwas difficult to translate Adier's therapeutic presence to the printed page, yetthey emphasized that Adier's clinical, healing influence was commandingand inspirational:

The liveliness, spontaneity, and openness of Adier's comments would be char-acterized as trying to make the group (observers) witness, as far as possible,what happened between him and the patient. Thus, they could watch hismethod in action and see that it was much more than theory. On the otherhand, they perceived how intimately many details of his method were con-nected with his own personality. (Ansbacher & Ansbacher, 1964, p. 359)

From Adier's perspective, the process of encouragement was not a linearprocess; the path to courage was circuitous and required great patience (ascited in Ansbacher & Ansbacher, 1956). "References to fables and historicalcharacters, and quotations from poets and philosophers help to strengthenthe confidence in Individual Psychology and in its views" (Ansbacher &Ansbacher, 1956, p. 346). Adler implored would-be therapists to structurea cooperative and equalitarian therapeutic relationship. According to Adler(Ansbacher & Ansbacher, 1956), therapists should use all resources at theirdisposal to maintain equality in the therapeutic relationship:

One of the most important devices in psychotherapy is to ascribe the work andthe success of the therapy to the patient at whose disposal one should placeoneself in a friendly way, as a co-worker. For successful treatment, it is abso-lutely necessary that the physician have a great deal of tact, renounce superiorauthority, be equally friendly at all times, be alertly interested, and have thecooi-headed feeling that he is facing a sick person with whom he must notfight, but who is always ready to start a fight, (p. 338)

In this passage, Adler offers some of his most explicit instructions to thera-pists about how they must position themselves with regard to the client'sdiscouragement and oppositional tendencies.

A girl of twenty-seven who came to consult me after years of suffering said: "\have seen so many doctors that you are my last hope in life."

"No," I answered, "not the last hope. Perhaps the last but one. There maybe others who can help you too." (as cited in Ansbacher & Ansbacher, 1956,p. 339)

Encouragement and Actionable Hope 271

Here, Adler notes the scrupulous effort it takes to maintain equality with cli-ents; in the above interaction, Adler takes a one-down position to ensure thatthe client doesn't place him [Adler] in a superior position. Others have fur-ther developed these indirect and paradoxical positions to foster hope andresilience (Main & West, 1987; Mozdzierz, Macchitelli, & Lisiecki, 1976;Mozdzierz, Peluso, & Lisiecki, 2009; West & Main, 1986). Mozdzierz et al.(1976) were the first to draw attention to Adier's early pioneering use of in-direct and paradoxical strategies. Later, Main and West (1987; West & Main,1986) used Mozdzierz's work and the work of Weeks and L'Abate (1982) toillustrate how the therapist's position can use the client's "reactance" anddiscouragement as a therapeutic aid to foster hope and resilience. Adler alsoillustrates how quickly and subtly clients wax between hope and hopeless-ness and autonomy and dependence.

Isomorphically, as therapists attempt to develop their influence with cli-ents, their own sense of confusion and discouragement may fall victim tothe client's despair. The complexity of these dynamic client-therapist inter-actions are described by West and Main (1986), and they suggest that twointersecting beliefs create four general client-therapist relationships. In thefirst belief orientation, the client may believe that the origin of his or hersymptoms is either voluntary or involuntary. If the former is true, then theclient thinks the symptoms can be changed; if the latter is true, then the cli-ent may think that the symptoms are beyond personal control. In the secondbelief orientation, the client may hold that the therapist is either capable orincapable of providing help. If the former is true, then the client is recep-tive to the therapist's influence; if the latter is true, then the client resists theinfluence of the therapist. These two intersecting beliefs establish four differ-ent therapeutic emotional relationships:

• The first emotional position is one in which the client believes thetherapist can help and also believes that they can change the symp-toms. In these circumstances, the therapist enjoys a rare moment intherapy when clients are likely to respond to therapist compliance-based interventions.

• The second emotional position is one in which the client believesthey can change the symptoms but they also believe that the thera-pist is unable to help. When clients are reactant to change from thisposition, therapists do not have direct influence and must use indi-rect interventions and avoid overt tasks or prescriptions.

• The third position is one in which the client believes the therapistcan help, but he or she also believes that the symptoms are out-side personal control. When clients show a weak locus of control,the therapist must use indirect interventions and explore how the


symptom may be a gift that serves the client's interests in someway. Therapists can explore these symptomatic gifts as a partof treatment.

• The fourth emotional position is determined by the client's belief thatthe therapist cannot help while also believing that the symptoms arebeyond control. In these circumstances, clients are deeply discour-aged and reactant to the therapist's influence. Therefore, the therapistmust use paradoxical or indirect strategies that challenge the client'scapacity to comply and cooperate with the therapist. If the clientdoes comply, then the symptom wil l come under the client's control;if the client refuses to comply, the symptom may disappear.

For intermediate therapists, this linear explanation seems complexand difficult to navigate. As counselor educators, we have often used artto help counselor trainees access change. To accomplish this we have usedthis beautifully written passage from A River Runs Through It by NormanMaclean (1976), as he tells the story of a father and an eldest son who try tosave the last-born son. The passage offers one of the most precise descrip-tions of client reactance and the complexity of "helping" relationships thatwe have encountered:

He tried to tell me. He spoke in the abstract, but he had spent his life fittingabstractions to listeners so that listeners would have no trouble fitting his ab-stractions to the particulars of their lives. "You are too young to help anybodyand I am too old," he said. "By help I don't mean a courtesy like servingchokecherry jelly or giving money. Help," he said, "is giving a part of yourselfto somebody who comes to accept it willingly and needs it badly. So it is," hesaid, using an old homiletic transition, "that we can seldom help anybody.Either we don't know what part to give or maybe we don't like to give any partof ourselves. Then, more often than not, the part that is needed is not wanted.And even more often, we do not have the part that is needed. It is like theauto-supply shop over town where they always say, 'Sorry, we are just out ofthat part'" (Maclean, 1976, pp. 127-128).

This brief passage and the story that surrounds it offer counselors aglimpse of one family's struggle to save their son. Maclean attempts to standas witness to the family's success and failure. This effort to stand as witnessto the brother's loss seems to activate a different level of consciousness foreveryone. Once therapists see client's circumstances through stories, novels,films, and prayers, they come to understand how these indirections can alsobecome a source of hope and possibility for the clients who might otherwiseresist the therapist's influence.


Therapeutic Tactics

A great deal has been written about the direct and indirect prescriptiveelements of therapy. Most recently, Mozdzierz et al. (2009) have providedan authoritative summary of prescriptive compliance-based and paradoxicalinterventions that includes the long-deserved credit to Adier's pioneeringwork in action-oriented treatment interventions. Indeed, Adier's compli-ance-based and paradoxical techniques have been described extensively(Carlson, Watts, & Maniacci, 2006; Main & West, 1987; Mosak & Maniacci,1998; Mozdzierz, Macchitelli, & Lisiecki, 1976; Weeks & L'Abate, 1982;West & Main, 1986). However, what is unique about Adier's comments re-garding disarming the patient is their focus on nonlinear, nonprescriptiveelements of the therapeutic process that can best be described as emotionalor inspirational.

The therapist, in cooperation with the client, must co-create an emo-tional case for change. This emotional case is best anchored in the client'ssense of belonging, usefulness, equality, and agency. This co-created emo-tional case is conceived in the therapist's deep belief in the family's ability tocontribute to their community. Once the family believes in this possibility,they are able to risk change. These activities could be viewed collectivelyas indirect messages of hope, inspiration, or encouragement. None of thesetactics are prescriptive, and none overtly invoke the client to action or at-tempt to challenge a client's oppositional inclinations. They are nonetheless,indirectly, action-oriented.

Fables evoke or provoke emotions, convey moral messages, and offeraction stories about success and failure. Poetry is the synthesis of emotion,cognition, and action, which conveys the intimate details of personal exis-tence, and philosophy offers perspectives that permit new understandingsand support action. Finally, references to historical characters offer heroic,poignant anchors for clients as a source of informed inspiration. Indeed,therapeutic change and the actions that must be taken by clients rest uponthe emotional case the therapist and the client co-create. The emotionalcase for change is solely dependent upon the extent to which the clientbelieves he or she has access to actionable hope, the extent to which theclient believes he or she is entitled to equality. These indirect methods ortherapeutic tactics can put clients in touch with enduring cultural touch-stones that can engender hope, encouragement, or inspiration in clients'particular situations.

Encouragement and hope. Encouragement and overt prescriptive ac-tions are perhaps the most chronicled activity in Adierian practice and areembedded in the lifestyle summary, useful and useless goals, and the re-counting and use of assets and strengths (Dinkmeyer & Dreikurs, 1963).


Main (1986) used goals suggested by Corsini and Ignas (1979) to provideparents with specific positive parenting objectives to serve as swift antidotesto Dreikurs and Soltz's (1964) mistaken goals of children. More recently,Bettner and Lew (1990) focused exclusively on the actions of encourage-ment. In spite of this emphasis on providing parents with knowledge andinformation, even beginning family therapists quickly become aware ofthe fact that participants do not thirst so much for information as they thirstfor motivation, resolve, or the courage to cbange. This fact led Dreikurs(1967) to say that we are in the business of motivation modification not be-havior modification. Parents and children take action and put knowledgeinto practice once they are sufficiently inspired to believe or hope that theycan change the course of their lives. Eamily members become courageousthrough a delicate balance of learning how to act and believing that they can.

Family counseling and family therapy. The distinction between fam-ily counseling and family therapy is most often made by theorists with aforensic point of view. Some systems epistemologists claim that the Adierianmodel lacks complexity and does not appropriately address the relevantfamily subsystems. Some cite the public nature of open-forum family coun-seling, dismissing it as an "educational" rather than a "clinical" experience.Neither of tbese positions speaks to the theoretical assumptions and thera-peutic tactics fully delineated by Adierians (Sherman & Dinkmeyer, 1987).More recently. Bitter (2009) noted that procedures for open-forum familycounseling can be effectively delivered in private sessions. Eor some, publicsessions are not possible or have been compromised through dysfunctionalsymptoms or extraordinary marital circumstances.

Recently, Mozdzierz et al. (2009) integrated seven clinical domainswith Stoltenberg's model for therapist development, which culminates witha level III (master) therapist who has mastered all seven domains. Masterpractitioners, having worked through levels I and II, understand that the formand process of therapy is not as important as the relationship co-created bythe therapist and clients. Master therapists engage clients through emotionalcontact, encouragement, and hope—and "are able to balance perspectivesbetween the micro and macro issues of therapy" (p. 308). They are comfort-able using any format that offers the best hope of symptom resolution.

Parent education/C-group family counseling for inmates. In 1990, asan extension of the Counseling and Eamily Therapy Center at the Universityof South Dakota, we engaged in a 3-year funded demonstration project (HHSgrant #90cw0925) set in the coeducational medium-security penitentiaryin Springfield, South Dakota (see Main, 1990). The grant objectives weretwofold: to deliver parent education to all men and women who sought toparticipate and expected to resume responsibilities as a custodial parent, andto offer family therapy to inmates, upon request, based upon documented


symptomology across two or more family subsystems. It is fair to say thatparticipants in both groups would meet the clinical definition of dysfunc-tional; all participants were incarcerated in a medium-custody facility.

C-group family counseling and parent education for these inmateswas conducted publicly in coeducational groups. These groups were bothtypical and atypical of participation nationally: more women than men at-tended, though male participation far exceeded groups normally conductedoutside of a correctional facility. These C-groups were conducted in a man-ner similar to those on the outside with one exception: Group memberswere far less responsive to written and cognitive materials. The group mem-bers seemed to require graphic emotional enactments during the group inorder to entertain change. In this setting, it appeared that hope was far moredifficult to foster and encouragement was less actionable. The practice andmastering of new parenting skills and techniques were limited to monthlyvisitation with their children.

Still, some parents changed; participants who did change shared a ther-apeutic "reference experience," usually anchored in their own childhood.These reference experiences evolved through emotional enactments of theirchildhood. These experiences provided a powerful emotional anchor, whichserved to remind and rekindle participants' resolve to treat their children asthey wish they would have been treated. The reference experience was alsoa powerful catalyst for change. In this setting, group members seemed to beable to share their childhood experience around the issue of parenting with-out embarrassment, shame, or risk of persecution.

Private family therapy. These inmates all shared a common theme:Their circumstances were such that their symptoms or the symptoms ofimmediate family members were shameful, humiliating, and violent—andappeared to damage the souls of the clients. Indeed, multiple levels andgenerations of sexual abuse, addiction, depravity, and abandonment werethe norm for these participants. Participants themselves sought the relief andshelter of private family interventions. Some participants also sought shelterfrom their circumstances by committing a felony egregious enough to en-sure incarceration; in this sense, incarceration provided a means of escape.The signature of these private family therapy sessions was intense emotionalpain, fear, humiliation, and loss. In particular, the issue of abandonmentwas almost universal. Encouragement (Ermutigung), as prescribed by Adler,was at times insufficient because the injuries to the client's soul were soprofound. Indeed, Madanes (1995) refers to these injuries as "spiritual dam-age." Hope in these circumstances appeared in a myriad of unexpectedand indirect ways. For women, it often came through the voice of a grand-mother, even a great-grandmother, or through a "terrible" question offeredby the therapist (see Selvini, 1986).


These clinical experiences led us to focus specifically on the range,scope, and nature of therapist-generated or co-created hope. Though theirclinical demeanor was tactically and perhaps spiritually different in the pub-lic (C-group) and private settings, encouragement and hope were essentialto both processes.

The elements of hope. As former colleagues at the University of SouthDakota, we worked collaboratively in the Counseling and Family TherapyCenter and began to systematically explore the elements of hope in ther-apy. It became apparent that if hope emerged, four elements seemed to bepresent as successful therapists engaged families, allowing them to reclaimtheir sense of agency and resilience. We characterize these four elementsas: (a) the person-spirit of thé therapist; (b) risk, naming the discouragementhonestly; (c) authentic caring which is notable because of its credibility,comfort, and acceptance; and (d) renewed agency and locus of control.

Person-spirit. In 1935, Adler was at his professional peak. His healingpowers were recognized internationally, and his capacity to connect withhis patients was legendary. This capacity to connect and join was, perhaps,tied to his own painful struggles, for it was at this time that he was learningthat he had, in all likelihood, lost his first-born child to the Russian gulagarchipelago (Hoffman, 1994).

Therapists acquire a sense of person-spirit on their journey through life.Every therapist must understand through personal experience the loss, fail-ure, and powerlessness that are endemic to human existence, and they mustbe able to recall the peaks and valleys of life. Therapists must understandand be able to retrieve the sense of despair and loss that accompanies thedire times that we all must face.

Most therapists are motivated by a need to help, which transcendsthe bounds of "clinical" practice. While therapists cannot suspend theircommitment to clients, they humbly accept the limits of care. Therapistswith a balanced sense of faith are able to express genuine reverence forclients who entrust them with their stories. The capacity for reverencefor ordinary people, prisoners, and children ensures civility and the ab-sence of hubris—arrogance which leads therapists, ministers, politicians,and others to believe they can, and are entitled to, control people's lives(Woodruff, 2001). Further, therapists must be keenly aware of and publi-cally acknowledge their present and past failures, while continuing to havefaith in their intentions. Effective therapists are deeply grateful to thosethey serve for the personalized instruction their clients provided with graceand generosity.

Risk. There is considerable risk required of clients to change; there isalso considerable risk on the therapist's part in identifying and naming thedespair that has led to the loss of courage. Assigning a name to the client's


condition and psychological state is essential; the name assigned, by its verynature, is darkness in its most primitive form. Yet, this process, by neces-sity, is always best accomplished in juxtaposition to the opposing dialecticalend of this continuum. For example, a divorced father, deep in the jawsof despair, described his relationship with his children as "pathetic, weak,confused, and paralyzed." He could only generate this dismal view by com-paring himself to the person he was prior to the divorce. That person was"engaged, self-assured, strong, decisive, and robust." Once this dialecticalcontinuum was established, the only thing left to do was identify the goal heset for himself that would lead out of his despair. Naming his psychologicalstate, although painful, was simultaneously infused with hope.

The therapist, in providing this candid reflection of the client's state, posi-tion, and situation is demonstrating both trustworthiness and understanding.The therapist names something that is mutually known in its inchoate state,and by so doing, allows it to be acknowledged, considered, and discussed.There is a willingness on the part of the therapist to accompany the clientinto the darkness and an assurance that the therapist can handle what isfound there (Weingarten, 2004). The therapist is demonstrating a deep trustin the client and his or her ability to hear, face, and handle the darkness thatis at least, in part, their own personal truth. The therapist trusts the client'sability to "handle the truth" about themselves and their lives, and this is ex-perienced by clients as sustaining and honoring.

Authentic credible caring. Authenticity is only derived from thetherapist's candid, accurate, and dispassionate rendering of the client'scircumstances. Authenticity is noted by clients when family members experi-ence therapist reflections, characterizations, interpretations, and declarationsas understanding with compassion. Authenticity cannot be mimicked; it canonly be experienced as real if it emanates from the therapist's person-spiritand is unique to the present counseling situation.

Renewed agency. Finally, the therapist must model the sense of pos-sibility, purpose, and action required for change. That is, the therapist mustpossess sufficient hope to infect clients with a renewed sense of access andagency. Recently, Ward and Wampler (2010) made a parallel and empiricallycompelling case for similar components of hope. Through a well-designedqualitative research study, they arrived at the following properties central toa continuum of hope: "Action, Option, Evidence, and Connection" (Ward& Wampler, 2010, p. 217). They included subprocesses that roughly paral-lel those that have been described here. Weingarten (2010) also createda model for fostering hope among social work clients who have fallen tothe bottom of the social service or court system and into profound dispair.Absent a sense of hope, Weingarten outlines strategies to marshall hopethrough empowered awareness.


Two General Therapeutic Processes Required to Raise Hope

There appear to be two distinct processes available to the therapistseeking to engender hope in clients. First, the therapist can instill or restorehope (Hoffnung erwecken) by serving as the community's witness to thefamily's entitlement to acceptance, equality, and service. Second, the thera-pist can engage in generaf/Ve tactics, including reflexive questions, designedto stimulate insight and/or emotional enactments; to solicit family emotionalmemories (early recollections) that generate emotional understanding andconnection; and to initiate in-session interactions among family membersthat trigger enactments of symptomatic or solution-focused family inter-action patterns that can be used as teaching devices. For the purposes of thisarticle, we focus exclusively on the first of these two processes: the thera-pist's role as a community witness.

Witnessing. Adler recognized that therapists had a unique opportunityto serve as the community's witness to the family's hardship and discourage-ment as well as their resilience and courage. Central to Adier's theory is therelationship of life and family problems to Gemeinschaftsgefühl.

All the problems of human life demand, as I have said, capacity for coopera-tion and preparation for it—the visible sign of social feeling. In this disposition,courage and happiness are included, and they are to be found nowhereelse. . . . All errors in childhood and in adult life, all faulty character traitsin the family, at school, in life, in relationships with other persons, in work,and in love originate in a lack of social feeling (Adler as cited in Ansbacber &Ansbacher, 1964, p. 284).

Not surprisingly then, social interest found its isomorphic expressionin the format and methods that Adler created for treatment delivery. Adlerencourages patients to connect with others and find joy in service; he wasan exemplary model of fellow feeling, and he abborred those who placedthemselves above their patients and fellow human beings. Adier's contentionwas that, "A basic principle for the therapist is never to allow the patient toforce upon him a superior role such as that of teacher, father, or savior, with-out contradicting and enlightening the patient" (Ansbacher & Ansbacher,1956, p. 339).

Adler threw himself into parent education, family counseling, and abroad dissemination of his ideas to the "common people," as well as theexpansion and internationalization of his ideas. Adier's passionate belief inreorienting parents and teachers was deeply connected to his certainty thatif societies failed to cultivate social interest, they were doomed to fail. Atthe height of the post-World War I depression. Otto Glöckel, head of theVienna schools, commissioned Adler to prepare the teachers of Vienna inhis methods. To accomplish this training, Adler demonstrated his approach


with students and parents referred by the teachers. These public demon-strations became the format for his treatment delivery and his educationalmodel. More importantly, it was the first known use of the family as the unitof therapy as well as the first known occasion when therapy was deliveredpublically. Adier's approach was not simply innovative; it was radical andraised considerable criticism (Terner & Pew, 1978):

The Freudians decried his violation of the sanctity of counseling in private.However, Adler had discovered unexpected benefits from counseling before agroup: "I found that treating the child as part of his group was often very effec-tive. It made the child realize that no man liveth unto himself alone, and thatthe mistakes of every individual affect many lives and are of public concern.The boys and girls could be brought to see themselves as social beings, not asisolated." (Terner & Pew, 1978, pp. 63-64)

Adler was a natural performer, and he seized immediately upon the power-ful impact the therapist and audience had on the family in a public format.By seeing the entire family in public with teachers and members of thecommunity, everyone involved served as community witnesses, offeringaffirmation, encouragement, or solace. Of equal importance, participantscould welcome the family and its members into their neighborhood, school,church, or synagogue and celebrate their resilience and courage.

Adier's concept of the therapist as a public contributor to tbe commu-nity parallels Weingarten's (2000, 2007, 2009, 2010) notion of witnessingas part of the therapist's work in "doing hope" with clients in family ther-apy. Witnessing, for Weingarten (2000), consists of standing with a clientas he or she experiences the effects of painful or traumatic experiences,while simultaneously maintaining one's own perspective. Eurther, the wit-ness finds words to represent faithfully what has been sbared from thisjointly inhabited position. Witnessing, from this perspective, is a deep shar-ing between the client and therapist that results in the two inhabiting bothperspectives at one moment in time. Eor Weingarten, giving voice to thiscomingling of perspectives permits victim and witness to take charge of thepainful experiences that up until then have had control of them—either inliving life or in making progress in therapy. Witnessing, in a sense, makesmovement possible.

According to Terner and Pew (1978), in Adier's public, hope-filled,open-forum family counseling, the audience members did not remain pas-sive observers. Adler often turned to tbem, asking whether anyone hadexperienced similar difficulties to those of the child before tbem. The ad-mission of childhood difficulties by the now successful adults was not onlyencouraging to the child, but also belped the adults understand the purposesof children's behavior. Adier's dream was to generate a true community ofparents and teachers who would work together to foster courage and social


responsibility in youth. And before long, the teachers' enthusiasm did infectthe parents, especially through the parents' associations. As a result, a num-ber of child guidance centers were opened to the general community forparents and others.

The contemporary practice of family therapy and family counseling usesboth the practice of witnessing and hope-generating activities as vehicles ofencouragement. These practices, Hoffnung erwecken, have been carefullyhoned by therapists but not often described in detail. There are multiple in-terventions for the generation of hope that fall under the heading of therapistas community witness, such as providing end-of-session messages, usingnondenominational prayers and spiritual stories, and using stories, meta-phors, art, poetry, and film. By way of illustration, hope-generating activitiesare presented below that occurred in tandem with therapeutic processes ofwitnessing in clinical cases.

End-of-session messages and therapist declarations. Public, group, andprivate Adierian family counseling was prescriptive from the outset. Adler andDreikurs developed a very precise model for delivering a public diagnosis,identifying family assets and strengths, and generating prescriptions to en-courage the family and disrupt the mistaken behavior of children in schoolsand in the home (Terner & Pew, 1978). Today, there are many formats. Someof these include the traditional, open-forum parent education (Dreikurs,Corsini, Lowe, & Sonstegard, 1959); C-groups (Dinkmeyer, Dinkmeyer, &Sperry, 1987); videotaped educational courses, such as Active Parenting(Popkin, 2002) and Systematic Training of Effective ftrenf/ng (Dinkmeyer &McKay, 1976); and individual family counseling sessions (Bitter, 2009).

Adier's provision of specific prescriptions to clients reflected his clini-cal genius and has been well chronicled. Lifestyle assessment (Eckstein &Baruth, 1996; Powers & Griffith, 1987; Shulman & Mosak, 1988) was per-haps one of the most influential tools of intervention and diagnosis to beintroduced to therapeutic practice during the last century. The specific tac-tics to spring from Adier's clinical influence have been matched in scope bya small handful of gifted healers. Carich (1990) carefully described these tac-tics, which share much in common with some of the other great innovationsin the last century. He offered these general categories: cognitive-orientedtasks, cognitive/behavioral tasks, behavioral tasks, metaphorical/symbolictasks, strategic/paradoxical tasks, absurd/ambiguous tasks, and social direc-tives. All of these devices were used by Adler and have been developed andchampioned by others.

Contemporary end-of-session messages are often generative ratherthan prescriptive, and they do not require compliance or paradoxical re-bellion. These messages are anchored in the family's spirit and incorporatethe therapist's sense of the family's character and gravitas. Each strategyhas diagnostic and intervention components focused on enhancing social


interest clinically and spiritually. The therapist's job is to provide a path tobelonging through service for children and families.

Adier's processes, demeanor, and attention to interpersonal details werechronicled through passing comments or wistful admiration. For example,Adier's note cited earlier, regarding the use of poems, stories, and quota-tions, alludes to these spiritual or relational elements or skills required tosolidify the connection with the family. All of these devices establish a senseof intimacy in the process of therapy and make the boundary between secu-lar and spiritual intervention more diffuse.

Adler developed the brief yet very powerful tools of lifestyle assessment,which included co-created summaries that condensed yet amplified the cl i-ent's strengths specific to their social interest and challenged the interferingideas that might sabotage their capacity to express their social interest. End-of-session messages share many ofthe elements ofthe lifestyle summary butfocus overtly upon the family's assets and strengths while indirectly address-ing interfering ideas. Consider the following brief example for a family offour, seen in a teaching clinic.

The family included mom, Lettie; dad, Jake; and two daughters, Liz, age 3,and Emily, a 1 year old. Lettie and Jake had been married for 7 years, but theyhad been together for 14 years. We learned in the first session that both sets ofgrandparents were divorced. Their primary complaint was that Liz, the Queenof the family, had changed dramatically in the past 6 months. Up until Emily's6-month birthday, she had been a perfect child, but then she had become de-manding, sassy, stubborn, and prone to temper tantrums. Lettie and Jake wereat the end of their rope, and Liz was unmanageable. Prior to this, Lettie ran thefamily with a very firm hand. Jake tended to rely heavily upon punishment and"time out" to attack Liz's temper tantrums, but this had had limited success.Jake and Lettie had a heated argument, which is what brought them to thepublic parenting C-group.

During the first two sessions, Jake and Lettie described the tensions thatLiz's temper tantrums seemed to produce in their relationships. Liz's uselessgoals were quickly identified, and Jake and Lettie quickly recognized theirpower struggles. Yet, neither Jake nor Lettie were convinced that "they" neededto change. During the second session, we asked several reflexive questions:What does Liz learn from the two of you about recovering from mistakes? Whoin the family has the most invested in being right—rank order the four of you?What initially attracted you to each other during the early days of courtship?What have you done as a family for fun that you would like to continue todo or do?

These questions allowed Jake and Lettie to retrieve positive memoriesabout their good moments as a couple and as parents. They also understoodimmediately that their relationship could be a powerful negative or positivemodel for Liz. At the close of the third session, we shared two messages withJake and Lettie that were witnessed by all the members of the C-group.


Co-therapist: We think the four of you should celebrate the balance you havewith one another. It was a joy to see Lettie's respect and tenderappreciation for the security, safety, and love that Jake providesto everyone with a good heart. And it was wonderful to see howmuch comfort Lettie offers to Jake and everyone through the ten-derness and the emotional shelter that she provides.

Co-therapist: We sense that, without question, the four of you are far moreinvested in being happy than right in the decades to come.

Co-therapist: We would like Jake and Lettie to create a weekly celebration ofthe balanced love that they share between them and with thefamily; a celebration that Liz and Emily will recognize, but onein which Liz and Emily will not always be included.

The results were striking and almost immediate. During the followingsession, Jake and Lettie thanked the group for their encouragement and re-ported that they left the previous session feeling understood and supportedby the group. They were moved by the fact that the group believed that Jakeand Lettie would be successful at marriage where their parents had failed.They had enjoyed two celebrations between sessions, one that included thegirls and one that just involved the two of them. Jake and Lettie said theyrecognized that it was entirely possible that Liz's temper tantrums may havebeen modeled by their own inability to show the kids how adults recoverfrom mistakes. Eollowing these courageous acknowledgements, Jake andLettie quickly changed their entire approach to parenting and treated oneanother with far greater respect and appreciation.

In this case of parent education, the life task of love and intimacy asapplied to family was addressed. The marriage was indirectly and directlyaffirmed through therapists' declarations and indirect open-ended prescrip-tions. Secondly, having raised the question of recovering from mistakes, thecounselors invited Jake and Lettie to consider the fact that their marital in-teractions may have been affecting the children. Indeed, we believe thatmarriage, regardless of its legal status, is a powerful parenting tool. Whetherparents are gay, lesbian, or heterosexual—coupled, married, separated, ordivorced—is irrelevant. How the couple models equality, respect, and re-silience is what is essential to their children. The end-of-session messagewe delivered was open-ended or indirect: It attempted to create space inwhich the couple's relationship is publicly affirmed, but it allowed them tochoose freely between including the children and preserving their privacy inthe marriage. The first two messages were the shared vision of the therapistsoffered before a community of the parental peers. The therapists served asencouraging witnesses to Jake and Lettie's "better angels."

Non-denominational prayers and spiritual stories. Adier's sense ofspirituality has been a source of considerable reflection. Hoffman (1994)recounted Adier's conversion to Christianity in 1904 as a typical political ac-commodation: Jewish conversion to Christianity was a common practice for


those who hoped to be upwardly mobile professionally and wanted to avoidanti-Semitism. Although Adler baptized Valentine, Alexandra, and Kurt,"decades later when Kurt was asked if he ever went to church or receivedChristian Education, he burst out laughing" (Hoffman, 1994, p. 53). In com-menting on Adier's dialogue with Earnst Jahn, Ansbacher and Ansbacher(1964) noted that "For Adler, God was a human idea; for Christians, God isrevealed" (p. 274). Specifically, Adier's belief was

The idea of God and its immense significance for [bu]mankind can beunderstood and appreciated from the viewpoinf of Individual Psychology asconcretization and interpretation of the human recognition of greatness andperfection, and as commitment of the individual as well as of society to a goalwhich rests in [humanity's] future and which in the present heightens the driv-ing force by enhancing tbe feelings and emotions. (Ansbacber & Ansbacber,1964, p. 276)

Although Adler did not include spirituality in his original life tasks, exis-tential questions often permeate the other life tasks of community and socialrelations, work or occupation, and love and intimacy. For Adler, the mostsignificant challenge to humankind was the challenge of creating "pure so-cial interest." In this sense, salvation is acquired through social interest.

Just as . . . a man must know himself to be before God in order to become amember of society in the highest sense, so in Individual Psycbology the err-ing human being stands before the common sense and what is recognizedas the "right" ideal of an ultimate society, the measure of all purified action.(Ansbacher & Ansbacher, 1964, p. 284)

Hoffman (1994) noted that "In German, the term [Gemeinschaftsgefühl]carried an ethical, almost religious connotation, that seemed at odds withthe iconoclastic physician they (friends) had long known" (p. 101).

We believe that change is the result of any or all of four life experi-ences: conversion love, civilian catastrophe, war, or good psychotherapy.For us, psychotherapy is a spiritual process, and prayers from any of thegreat myth systems of^en speak to the particulars of clients' lives. One suchprayer, which is at the core of the Christian gospel and the spiritual and ethi-cal core of social interest, has been attributed to St. Francis in The Book ofCommon Prayer (Bishops, the Clergy, and the Laity of the Episcopal Protes-tant Church, 1789):

Lord, make us an instrument of your peace. Wbere there is hatred, let us sowlove; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where thereis doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light;where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be con-soled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love.For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; andit is in dying that we are born to eternal life. (p. 833)


We have used this prayer as a springboard for couples who have been reluc-tant to attempt to use Gottman's behavioral exercises (Gottman, Gottman, &Declaire, 2006). We have used the prayer, or stanzas from it, to aid grievingfamilies, and we have used it to help and encourage estranged children orparents. The prayer of St. Erancis is not intended to be universally prescrip-tive; we offer it here as an example of prayers or proverbs that are generalenough and yet still speak to the particulars of people's lives: Therein reststheir utility and brilliance. Of course, prayer from any myth system can serveas a catalyst for hope.

Stories and metaphors, art, poetry, and films: Identifying practices thatoffer actionable hope. Most therapists have long understood, as did Adler,that events themselves do not shape a person's convictions, but rather his orher view of tbose events. Our constructions of the world and ourselves aresocial and shared but also unique. Art often speaks specifically to the sensesof despair and resilience that are endemic to human existence. Indeed, hu-man beings used the oral tradition of stories and metaphors to teach anduplift others prior to the written word (Campbell, 1991). Therapeutical ly,the counselor/therapist must somehow determine which art form may gen-erate tbe hope that is needed. We have found the following guidelinesto be helpful:

• The story, metaphor, artwork, poem, or film must be connected tothe particular struggle or impasse that clients experience.

• The material used must accurately and honestly name the despairand describe what people must overcome in their own nature tobreak through.

• The presentation "normalizes" client circumstances and tbereforehelps people join with others who suffer a similar plight: It helpsclients feel connected to others.

• The presentation provides a relevant emotional anchor for experienceand through exception or suggestion entertains a sense of agency.

Art amplifies human expression and relationships. It has the capacity tospeak to us through parables, metaphors, or documentary narratives thatmight otherwise be only vaguely accessible. Erank Pittman (1989) has usedfilms and books in his workshops for decades. Adler prescribed art, poetry,and quotations as means of joining with and encouraging clients, and in-deed normalizing their difficulties. Both of these men engaged tbeir clientsin an effort to generate actionable hope.

Plays can expose family secrets and also reveal paths to redemption.Such is the case with plays like ¿ove Person by Aditi Brennan Kapil (2010) orThe Homecominghy Harold Pinter (1994). A play, book, or film, when it isdone well, may be difficult, perhaps even embarrassing or painful, to watchor read. Their power is in connecting to human experience and providing


opportunities for people to be moved—and on occasion, to provide a path-way for reaching even very discouraged people.

The following case illustrates the use of art as the inspiration for move-ment. The case will identify the therapeutic components needed to makethe clinical decisions necessary to ensure that what the therapist elects towitness on behalf of the community empowers, encourages, and affirms allmembers of the family.

Some years ago, a 12-year-old boy was referred to a university coun-seling and family therapy center. The boy had vandalized the school buswhile riding home after school, and the vandalism was the last in a series ofdestructive acts he had committed in the previous month. The principal wasconsidering an out-of-district placement for the boy, which would have re-sulted in a suspension for the rest of the year and a criminal charge broughtagainst him by the district. As a last resort, the family asked if this final out-come could be avoided if the boy and, if necessary, the rest of the familysought family counseling. The principal agreed on the condition that the boymust not commit another act of vandalism or violence during the remainderof the year.

When the family arrived for the session, we learned that it was a highlyrespected farm family from a school district some distance away. The familyincluded the mother, Chris; the father, Ronnie; the first-born, 17-year-olddaughter. Barb; the middle daughter, Hattie, age 15; the youngest daughter,Tilley, age 13; and Ben, age 12. The family was open about their involve-ments: Barb was a starter on the girls' basketball team and an all-state playerbeing heavily recruited by regional colleges; Hattie was also an excellentbasketball player, a starter on the varsity team as a sophomore; Tilley wasa runner and a gifted student. All three girls were good students, althoughTilley was truly gifted. Ben was not a good student, and he did not intend togo to college. Rather, he intended to follow in his dad's footsteps and farm.The women were the spokespersons during the early part of the session.Mom contributed to a generally positive narrative, but Dad said nothing.

We asked how the family felt about coming to therapy, and the womenin the family offered socially appropriate platitudes, but again, Ronnie saidlittle. Their reactions covered the spectrum: Mom and Barb both expressedanger and disappointment; Mom was also confused and mystified by Ben'sbehavior. It was totally out of character for the family, and Ben's behaviorwas the center of gossip across the entire county. Still, Dad said nothing. Toavoid a waterfall of blame, the therapists tried to explore possible hypoth-eses for Ben's radical behavior. We asked each family member to identifythe one thing about which they were most worried. It did not matter if it hadanything to do with Ben. We left the prompt open-ended and invited anyoneto start, but no one did. Finally, we asked Ben if he would like to lead off.The following transcript is a segment of the session that followed:


Ben: I worry about Dad working around all those chemicals all the time.

This description seemed very reasonable and benign given the con-temporary farming practices, yet no one volunteered to follow up on Ben'scomment or launch into their own narrative about worry: no one else of-fered anything. Gradually, the team in the observation room noticed thatevery family member was crying with the exception of Ben. All three girlswere quietly crying under their caps, and Mom sat quietly as tears ran downher face. Dad still said nothing.

At this point, about 45 minutes had transpired, so the team took a breakand came back to the observation room to discuss what was happening. Theteam was stumped about how a reasonably benign question about worriessilenced the family and left them all in tears. Eventually, it was hypothesizedthat chemicals might have a metaphorical and dual implication; perhaps thechemicals implied a general problem with chemicals. There was consider-able concem, however, about exposing Dad and losing his participationand cooperation, so we moved forward with the following declaration fromthe therapists, bearing witness to the family's good name and intentions.

Co-therapist: We're very aware of how much pain you're all experiencing.We're not certain about what is causing all of this pain at thispoint, but there's no question that you're struggling with it. Benseems to be the only one able to put it into words. We appreci-ate his effort.

Co-therapist: Ben, we appreciate the effort you have made. In a strange way, itlooks to us that you took it upon yourself to get your family somehelp, and you have succeeded. Your job is finished. You got yourfamily here, and we will do our best to help your family. So asfar as we're concerned, you don't need to destroy anything elseor put yourself at risk. If you think your family is continuing tocover things up, then do what you think you have to do, but wethink we can take it from here.

Co-therapist: We would like to see all of you every other week, and on the off-week, we would just like to see Mom and Dad. What are yourthoughts about this proposal?

The family was in general agreement. Dad gave his nonverbal approvalbut still said nothing. The following week, we saw Mom and Dad with-out the kids. It became clear through Mom's guarded disclosures that Daddrank too much, but she wasn't willing to characterize it as a problem.Dad did begin to open up and describe serious insomnia, which was wellfounded and anchored in the farm business. He was sharing about 40% ofthe farm with his mother-in-law. Although Ronnie owned or was buyingpart of the farm, much of what he farmed was owned by Chris's mother,Helen, and she was actively involved. This cross-generational business wasextremely trying, and Ronnie was sleeping less than four hours a night. He


used alcohol as his sedative, but he rarely got to sleep before 2 a.m., and hewas up at 5 a.m. Chris and Ronnie did not call Ronnie's drinking a problem,but Ronnie's drinking aftected everyone. Chris could not understand whyRonnie could not cooperate with her mother. She understood farming, andRonnie should, too.

It appeared to us that Chris's view was built over a lifetime of living withher mother, father, and two brothers (who also farmed), and she couldn'tside with Ronnie or she would lose her family—and perhaps 40% of thefarm. Ronnie was making the best of a bad situation, and alcohol was a wayto get through the day: It wasn't a problem.

The team was aware that they did not have adequate farm credentialsand therefore had weak credibility. Eventually, the team decided to try touse art to move Chris and Ronnie through their impasse. We suggested thatthey read A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley (1991). We asked them not todiscuss the book until they both had finished it. Then, we asked them tobring their first discussion of the book to their next private counseling ses-sion. Two weeks later, they came to the session ready to talk about it—andto talk about the strong comparisons they found to their own lives. Theywere quick to note that incest and attempted murder were part of the book,but not part of their story. They did acknowledge, however, having expe-rienced just about everything else. This exchange took place during thecounseling session:

Ronnie: If Helen doesn't let go of things, we're going to—she's going to loseeverything, just like they [the book characters] did. She's got to seethis, and you, Chris, have to see it! This is exactly what happened tothe women in this story.

Chris: I don't know if I'm capable of, or even want to, stand up to my mom.The women weren't totally at fault; you can't blame them. The menwere disgusting idiots. I know we can't continue to live a lie. We can'tact like everything's perfect when the whole county knows we're not.Secrets killed that family [in the book]. We have problems, but ourproblems don't have to kill us. We have to try to face these things, orwe'll end up just like them!

These salvos marked the beginning of therapy. The solutions tookover a year to emerge fully and were complicated. As it turned out, therewere deep family secrets in Chris's family, and her mother, Helen, was notabout to suffer a public airing of this ugly history. The fiscal resolution ofthe farming operation was difficult and expensive. Ronnie's drinking was along-standing effort at self-medication obscured by the immediate financialand seemingly intractable familial issues. But A Thousand Acres shook loosetheir fears and generations of secrecy. Chris and Ronnie had not spokendirectly about Helen's tyrannical control or Ronnie's alcohol since Barb en-tered kindergarten.


Eventually, Ronnie started to attend AA meetings, and we helped themprepare for negotiations with Helen. We offered to invite her to a session,but Ronnie and Chris declined. However, they were able to negotiategreater financial business independence by working through their attorneysand a neutral accountant. They also negotiated greater day-to-day indepen-dence and less micromanagement. Until Ronnie and Chris read A ThousandAcres, neither had the courage to talk about their problems, fearing thatsuch discussions would permanently fracture their marriage and their farm.Perhaps the most dramatic result was that after the first session, Ben's behav-ior became exemplary. He continued to make reasonable and courageouscontributions throughout therapy until we terminated with the family. Hebecame cooperative and successful in school and worked more closely withhis father than he had before.

Art can serve as a source of hope and encouragement when the follow-ing conditions exist or might be produced:

• Tbe medium must be familiar to the family and fit some of the par-ticulars of their life.

• The story/film must fit their language system and sense of place.• The artistic work does not need to prescribe a solution, but solutions

should be apparent.• The art need only offer space, perhaps through inference or gen-

erative questions that make an emotional case for risking change,i.e.. If things continue as they are, what will your circumstances belike five years from now? If suddenly the problem was resolved andyou woke up tomorrow and the problem was gone, how would youknow? What would you notice? What things would have happened?

• The artistic device should access a different level of consciousnessthan that which has prevailed throughout problem production.

• The artistic work might offer a counter-intuitive path to redemption.• The artistic work might project a problem-saturated future if things

continue as they are.

Artistic stories, films, and poetry create a different emotional awarenessby placing families in a meta-position, allowing them to look into their ownlives while being apart from them.

Summary

Adler often used several terms to describe a concept, the most notable ofthese being the various words and phrases he used for social interest. Adier'slanguage, however, was consistent and precise when he described encour-agement. We believe his use of language in this instance was intended to


emphasize the action and responsibility required of the therapist to move ormotivate the client to join his or her fellow humans. Yet, as others describehis spirit and presence during therapy, and as he spoke parentheticallyabout it, Adler clearly went to extraordinary lengths in creating a clinicalrelationship based on equality. This led him to describe the nuances of theclinical relationship that emphasize the personal intimacy required to in-spire hope and possibility in clients' lives. We believe the elements involvedin generating hope are essential to the journey of the therapist and clienttoward change. We have named and described the two major categoriesas generative therapeutic actions and therapist actions designed to serveas community witnessing for families. We have focused this discussion onthe latter element, the therapist as community witness, and we have of-fered case examples to describe tbe specific elements of hopeful witnessand to illustrate the processes involved in enacting these practices in ther-apy. Einally, we have identified Adier's early use of public demonstrationsand consultation as a pioneering effort to witness on behalf of families in amanner that resonates with Weingarten's therapeutic innovations. The caseexamples illustrate how these efforts to witness the family's struggles serveto illuminate resilience, and tbe necessity for public affirmation, protection,and inclusion.

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