The Language of Change: Elements of Therapeutic Communication

by Paul Watzlawick

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Although communications emerging in therapy are ascribed to the mind's unconscious, dark side, they are habitually translated in clinical dialogue into the supposedly therapeutic language of reason and consciousness. But, Dr. Watzlawick argues, it is precisely this bizarre language of the unconscious which holds the key to those realms where alone therapeutic change can take place.Dr. Watzlawick suggests that rather than following the usual procedure of interpreting the patient's show more communications and thereby translating them into the language of a given psychotherapeutic theory, the therapist must learn the patient's language and make his or her interventions in terms that are congenial to the patient's manner of conceptualizing reality. Only in that way, he shows, can the therapist effectively bring about genuine changes and problem resolutions. Drawing on the work of Milton H. Erickson, he supports his findings with many (and often amusing) examples.This book, then, is a virtual introductory course to the grammar and language of the unconscious. show less

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Las características esenciales del lenguaje de la comunicación terapéutica, ya conocidas por los presocráticos, han sido objeto, a lo largo de las últimas décadas, de penetrantes investigaciones en diversos aspectos de la vida y de la experiencia humanas. Lo que aflora a la superficie, procedente de aquellos ámbitos que por su singular y extraño carácter se consideran zonas profundas de nuestra mente, se traduce posteriormente en la conversación terapéutica al lenguaje de la razón y de la conciencia. Según Watzlawick, es este oscuro y, a menudo, extravagante lenguaje el que ofrece la llave hacia aquellas zonas en las que verdaderamente puede producirse el cambio terapéutico.

El autor, una de las figuras clave en el show more desarrollo de la Teoría de la comunicación humana y referente imprescindible en el campo de la terapia familiar y sistémica, ofrece al lector una gramática introductora que permite captar la esencia de este lenguaje del cambio y aplicarlo posteriormente a aquellos pacientes que sufren bajo el peso de su concepción del mundo. show less

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Genres
Nonfiction, General Nonfiction
DDC/MDS
616.8914Applied science & technologyMedicine & healthDiseases, Allergies, Skin ConditionsNervous Disorders: Autism, Anorexia, OCDMental disorders: bi-polar/schizophreniaTherapyPsychotherapy
LCC
RC480.5 .W34MedicineInternal medicineInternal medicineNeurosciences. Biological psychiatry. NeuropsychiatryPsychiatryTherapeutics. Psychotherapy
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