Palo Alto Lights

Stopping the attempted solutions into which we sometimes lock ourselves up

• Indications

Among the difficulties in respect to which the systemic approach (as per the Palo Alto School) most efficiently facilitates improved coping abilities, one finds:

• P.T.S.D. (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder)
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• Interpersonal difficulties
• Systemic disorders of all kinds
• Mobbing and other forms of abuse

 

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In the three sections that follow, I will provide a rather classic account of what the so-called "Palo-Alto" approach (often referred to as the "strategic model") is all about, doing so essentially by referring myself to Professor Giorgio Nardone’s small textbook entitled "The Strategic Dialogue" (2008). This notwithstanding, in the second half of the last of these three sections, or in the section entitled "Methodology", I will develop a rather radically different way of considering this approach, preferring to thinking it out through a "Collaborative" dialogue rather than "Strategic" one.

• Theoretical Framework

Paul Watzlawick (1972) defined as follows the "Palo Alto School": an approach to the study of human beings, their interactions, whether healthy or diseased, pacific or conflicting, and, on the basis of a very pragmatic usage of communication, the concrete steps one may take to resolve the interactional problems stemming therefrom.

Still according to Watzlawick, the first postulate of the pragmatic usage of communication may be summed up in this sentence "Communicating is inevitable; it is impossible to avoid communicating". According to Watzlawick, one must necessarily choose between communicating fortuitously by passively submitting to its inevitability, or choosing to do so with strategy by closely managing it. It is on the basis of this hypothesis that the so-called "Palo-Alto school" was born, an approach whose aim was to apply to interpersonal and therapeutic fields the theoretical formulations pertaining to communication that were developed by the "Palo Alto Working Group".

According to Giorgio Nardone (2008), instead of relying on a theory of human nature to "analyze" behavior, the strategic therapeutic model deals with the ways in which man perceives and manages his reality through communication with himself, others and the world; and should such communication become dysfunctional at any point in time, the aim of the strategic therapeutic model is simple to modify it just enough so that it may once again become functional at the first occasion. According to this perspective, "the problems" of man are the product of the interaction between the subject and his reality. That is why, according to Nardone, attempting to go back to the origins of a problem is much more likely to lead one to “fall astray” than it is to help in finding solutions.

• Aims

The strategic therapist’s task does not entail his focusing on why a problem exists (the "why"), but rather on how it exists (the "how"), and in particular on what needs to be done to resolve it ("the how to"), by leading the person to change not only his behaviors but also his modes of perception and causal attribution. All this happens primarily through dialogue between the therapist and his patient, the first guiding the latter to discover the means through which he can solve his problems – mainly by creating conditions within which he (the patient) can begin to perceive them from perspectives other than pathogenic ones.

The "Attempted Solution" is the fundamental operational construct of this approach. This construct was formulated by the M.R.I. (Mental Research Institute) Research Group, an institute composed of Paul Watzlawick, John Weakland, Dick Fish and Don Jackson. Attempted solutions are the reactions and behaviors that a person puts into place in order to confront difficulties he may be encountering in his relationships with himself, with others and with the world - reactions and behaviors that complicate the situation instead of resolving it and which gradually tend to “stiffen” into dysfunctional modes of interaction with reality. From this perspective, dysfunctional behavior being the response that the subject believes to be the best for a given situation, the problem can only persist by virtue of what is being done to try to resolve it.

According to Alessandro Salvini, clinical psychology professor at the University of Padua, the reactions and behaviors that one may consider as being “dysfunctional” (or psychopathological) are the result of an authoritative and dogmatic way of thinking reality; the individual tends to freeze and make it invasive, redundant and conducive to unsuccessful attempted solutions.

That which such an understanding implies (and this represents my own conclusion), is that the therapist’s (Counselor’s) task within this approach would primarily consist in promoting in his patient (client) ways of thinking reality that would stand to be more fluid and adaptable, and more likely to generate more balanced ways of addressing present and future difficulties.

Promoting a way of feeling things differently (rather than understanding them differently)

According to Nardone, the other aspect that is particularly central to this approach and which differentiates it from most other therapeutic approaches, is the fact that the therapeeutic process is more a matter of learning how to feel differently than it is a matter of understanding things differently. Nardone summarizes in the following words that which he is striving to achieve:

I try to change the perception of things, because if I change perception, I change the emotional reaction, I change the behavioral reaction and, as a final effect, I change the understanding. The vast majority of psychotherapies work on changing understanding, or behavior, emotions. In reality, what triggers any therapeutic process is what we feel and what we perceive; all the rest comes later.

• Methodology

A) The Palo Alto model implemented through a 5 stage “strategic” dialogical process (as formulated by Professor Giorgio Nardone)

According to Nardone, strategic dialogue may be broken down into 5 distinct stages, inclusive of:

1. Questioning to promote an illusion of alternatives
2. Questioning to promote new perspectives
3. Anchoring cognitive changes by promoting feelings
4. Summarizing to promote a redefinition of the problem
5. Prescribing to promote joint discoveries

 

Let's look at these in turn.

 

a) Questioning to promote an illusion of alternatives: this 1^st stage entails that the therapist ask a certain number of questions to his patient in order to make him feel that the difficulties he is confronted with are the result of redundant interactions which he himself has put into play. In Nardone's words: the process of strategic questioning must lead the protagonist (the patient) to discover how he is the craftsman of his destiny, by highlighting "how" he himself feeds his problem through dysfunctional attempted solutions based on erroneous perceptions.

An illusion of alternative question is structured in such a way that the protagonist is faced with two opposite possible ways of responding, the latter having to "decide" which of the two corresponds best to the situation in which he finds himself.

The dialogical questioning process thus proceeds via a series of questions which, as if within a funnel, move the protagonist to arrive, through his answers, at a turning point in relation to his previous assertions, the idea being that thanks to the new perceptions he discovers through the said dialogical process, he begins experiencing the necessity of abandoning his previous positions and replacing them with new ones.

The dialogical questioning process thus aims at dismantling the pathogenic perceptual modalities and their resulting behavioral reactions, by encouraging the protagonist to replace them with other, more flexible, more effective ones. One seeks to pass from solutions that do not work and that feed the problem to solutions that work. However, this substitution is not suggested or prescribed; it is induced by a journey of questions that lead to the discovery of that which solves the problem, after revealing what maintains it.

b) Questioning to promote new perspectives: this 2^nd stage entails that the therapist, after having asked a series of two or three questions, comes to use the answers of his patient to formulate a definition of the problem that makes it possible to verify the accuracy of his understanding. Under no circumstances does the therapist propose an evaluation or an interpretation. On the contrary, his task at this stage consists rather in verifying, with modesty, whether he has in fact understood the functioning of the problem evoked by his patient. He thus for example could say something like: Correct me if I am wrong, but from what you are telling me, it would seem that...

In a subtle way, the rewording of answers to strategic questions opens up for the patient new perspectives hitherto incomprehensible to him (seeing that up until them he was trapped in rigid perceptual schemas) whilst pointing out their dysfunctional nature.

It is thus assumed that specific experiences of corrective discovery are what will most effectively induce an inevitable change in a patient’s reactions to the problematic situations he faces. From this standpoint, the therapist’s solicitation for confirmation represents in fact much more than the mere verification of the accuracy of his diagnosis; it serves to induce change in and of itself, opening the field to a possible new behavioral alternative - an alternative that had previously been perceived by the patient (possibly for years) as something dangerous rather than solution inducing.

In reality, when he gives his confirmation to the strategic therapist who seeks to understand him, it is for the patient as if he were helping a traveling companion not to take an erroneous direction on his path of knowledge. Unconsciously however, the patient would, according to Nardone, rather tend to adhere to the rewording proposed to him, making it his own to the extent of enacting a kind of self-persuasion.

According to this strategic viewpoint, there would thus seem to be an indisputable interdependence between the sequence of illusory alternative questions, focused on dysfunctional attempted solutions, and the rewording which, by apparently merely asking for a confirmation of what is being advanced, is de facto inducing a reframing of one’s perception and reaction to a problem

It is however worth noting the extent to which Nardone emphasizes the necessity for the therapist to accompany a process meant to be delicate, without the latter trying to force anything. On this subject, Nardone evokes as follows the process to be initiated by the therapist:

The process must seem to be a discovery guided by the one who asks for help, not by the specialist. As a result of this, the resistance to change is neutralized; in truth, the change is not being directly solicited. It is only being indirectly induced. This funnel-shaped spiral constituted by questions, answers, rewordings and confirmations generates a process of gradual but rapid change in the way the subject perceives things. It further leads to the modification of previous modalities without such modification ever being directly or arbitrarily prescribed in any way.

c) Anchoring cognitive changes by promoting feelings: this 3^nd stage entails that the therapist seek to anchor the changes he has begun to induce in the two preceding stages, using evocative language. Let us not forget that entering into a strategic dialogue implies for the therapist that he seek to evoke in his patient changes that the latter can be made to feel.

All rhetorical figures and poetic forms may be used for this purpose (quotations, aphorisms, metaphors, poetry, paradoxical evocations, etc.). The important thing is that the wordings used elicit in the patient an aversion towards the attitudes or behaviors the therapist is seeking to interrupt or change, and that conversely they bring about an exaltation of the reactions that the therapist is hoping to encourage or promote.

According to Nardone, it behooves the therapist to bring up the rhetorical expedient most suited to the situation and the person, and that he raise it at the most appropriate moment in the dialogue, in a way that should prove effective both verbally and non-verbally. All this would entail on the part of the therapist that he become a real communication acrobat.

On this point, Nardone goes on to conclude the following with regard to the competences that the strategic therapist would be well advised to develop:

One can learn to ask strategic questions with an illusion of alternative, to reword answers by reframing them, and to use rhetoric to illicit feelings. This will enable us to guide our protagonist towards therapeutic changes. To be efficient therapists, artistic excellence is not an indispensable quality. In fact, most of the time, possessing a good technique is all it takes to obtain excellent results. But to know whether or not one can be an artist, there is only one-way: to continue developing one’s technical skills whilst continually endeavoring to transcend one’s limits.

d) Summarizing to promote a redefinition of the problem: this 4^th stage entails that the therapist, once the investigative-discovery phase is over, take the time to summarize the therapeutic process by placing it into an overall frame. This summary - a structured sequence of the protagonist's responses - aims to conclusively redefine the discoveries that have been uncovered together in respect to the problem, its persistence and above all the ways in which it may be resolved. The solutions are not to be directly enunciated; they are to be brought up as logical consequences to that which the therapist and his patient have discovered together. What the therapist seeks to promote is that the protagonist be led to conclude that change is the inevitable consequence of the new feelings that the therapeutic process will have enabled him to get in touch with.

According to Nardone, this stage entails a “super-duper” rewording whose purpose is to once again emphasize the entire therapeutic process sequence, whilst building a suitable framework all around it. He compares this process to that of emphasizing the value of a painting by placing it within a beautiful frame. In the process of “summing up to redefine” one consolidates and enhances all the effects that one may have succeeded in eliciting up until then, encouraging their convergence in view of promoting change.

Nardone concludes this point by evoking what this stage implies via the following metaphor:

Psychosocial studies on interpersonal influence (Cialdini, 1989) clearly show that sequences of small agreements lead to a great agreement in the end: it is a matter of "putting one's foot in the door and then making room for the whole body ".

e) Prescribing to promote joint discoveries: this 5^th and final stage entails that the therapist, after having reached the end of the session or series of sessions (having, of course, successfully carried out all the previous 4 phases of the process), endeavors to achieve an agreement with his patient as to what stands to be most helpful in ensuring that the changes in perspectives made during the session (s) end up translating themselves into "operational acts".

This prescription stage represents the key to the whole process: it is the moment during which it behooves the therapist to help his patient transform into achievable tasks that which they will have come to agree upon after the first 3 stages of the dialogical process, and that he, the therapist, will have endeavored to summarize during the 4^th stage.

A) The Palo Alto model implemented through a 5 stage “collaborative” dialogical process

The attentive reader will have undoubtedly realized that, contrary to PCA Counseling and the other 2 “voice enhanced” types of Counseling that I pose as representing my basic affiliation, the strategic dialogical process which Giorgio Nardone seeks to promote unambiguously structures itself around a vision of the Counseling process which bases itself on the reactive paradigm rather than on that the actualizing one.

This theme is developed in detail under section “Counseling” (sub-section “Actualizations”)

The strategic dialogue as explained by Nardone indeed clearly articulates itself around the idea that a client encounters difficulties as a result of misperceptions that lead him to behave in a dysfunctional way. On this basis, the task of the practitioner is considered to consist in guiding his client towards more functional ways of meeting the difficulties that confront him.

From a strategic standpoint, the therapist's task is to diagnose his patient's perceptual errors, and then determine how he may strategically orient him so as to enable him to "circumvent these perceptual errors".

In the lines that follow, I will take the time to consider the fundamental systemic issues from another point of view. I will argue in favor of the idea that the Palo Alto model can equally well (possibly even better) articulate itself around a vision of a Counseling process that is based on the actualizing paradigm. To do this, I will, on the basis of the same 5 stages, revisit the dialogical process advocated by Nardone. I will do so by developing how I would envisage structuring these by applying myself to promote a dialogue that is much more collaborative than strategic.

In order to contrast the two methods, I will keep the same titles for each of the 5 stages in question, it being understood that these 5 "revisited" stages will likely structure themselves around entirely different aims.

My aim in this exercise will be to indicate the ways in which the 5 stages in question will structure themselves differently as a result of the dialogical process being structured on the basis of an actualizing vision of the therapeutic process rather than a reactive one. In the sections that will follow, instead of using the term "therapist" to refer to the practitioner, I will instead use the term "Counselor"; and instead of using the term “patient” to refer to he who seeks help, I will instead use the term "client"

a) Questioning to promote an illusion of alternatives: that which will prove to be radically different in this 1^st stage from the moment when the Counselor seeks to promote a collaborative dialogue is the fact that the questions he will put to his client will not be of the "Illusion of alternatives" kind. Rather than asking questions with only two possible opposite answers, the Counselor will ask questions that will be as open as possible and as "multiple choice" as possible in nature. The Counselor will assume that the client will be able to identify, in a completely autonomous way, the elements of his perception that fuel his unsuccessful attempts to manage its interactions (with himself, others, and his environment).

Rather than trying to sort out a dilemma that in reality it behooves his client to resolve in a much more autonomous way (contrarily to what the strategic practitioner does through the use of questions with illusion of alternatives does), the collaborative Counselor will instead simply endeavor to accompany his client onto the grounds of any potentially dysfunctional aspects of his perception-reaction he will deem useful to explore. If I highlight the term "potentially" here, it is to insist that the Counselor will be careful not to determine "alone in his corner" what may be characterized as dysfunctional and what may not be. Any such determination would imperatively need to be jointly undertaken by client and Counselor together.

The process of discovery that this approach will engender, even if it may sometimes take longer, will enable the client, in an equally convincing way at least, to come to feel or apprehend the perceptual errors that tend to lay the ground for his dysfunctional reactions. In this process, the Counselor's main task will entail his accompanying his client onto the field that the later feels he wants to address in relation to the problem that prompted him to consult, whilst displaying facilitating attitudes. At the end of this section, I will once again raise the issue as to the decisive advantage there is in proceeding in this way, in spite of the fact that it may imply a potentially slower therapeutic progression at any given stage.

b) Questioning to promote new perspectives: the Collaborative Counselor will seek to engage this 2^nd stage of the process in a manner substantially identical to that through which the strategic therapist will be inclined to engage. Nardone's approach to this point is perfectly in line with the premises of the "actualizing" paradigm. What is particularly interesting in relation to the elements that Nardone highlights in his analysis of this stage is the fact that he considers it essential to include the client's "expertise" In the process of his "discovery" of new perspectives. Nardone devotes a whole page to underlining this aspect of things with regard to this stage

I am on my side convinced that one of the most crucial differences between the collaborative perspective and the strategic one is that they possess radically different views as to what constitutes “progress” or “evolution”. It is not at all on the same basis that they “interpret” what they see as being the determining factors that bring about change in the lives of those seeking help.

The strategic therapist considers his diagnosis and strategic maneuvers to be the determining factors that serve to bring about the desired changes. He moreover proceeds on the understanding that his client 's involvement in the dialogical process is only a secondary element of minor importance; he in fact considers it to be an illusion that he (the therapist) should "strategically" strive to implement.

The Collaborative Counselor, on the other hand, considers his client's involvement in the dialogical process (based on "Person-Centered" accompaniment) as the determining factor for a therapeutic movement to take place. He moreover proceeds on the understanding that any change that would have been induced by strategic maneuvers by the practitioner may not be conclusive in the long term, and that these maneuvers may even produce counterproductive side effects.

c) Anchoring cognitive changes by promoting feelings: according to Nardone himself, as useful and convincing as this stage may be in the overall context of the strategic therapeutic process, it is not essential. In keeping with this point of view, I would tend to believe that the Collaborative Counselor would only enact this 3^rd stage to the extent that the "communication acrobatics" to be implemented correspond to something both the Counselor and his client would feel inclined to experiment, much like a game. In any case, the Counselor would initiate nothing in this sense without the express approval of his client and without the latter clearly perceiving the usefulness that such an experimentation might possibly imply. And if client and Counselor jointly decided to explore such a dimension, it is of course together that they would do so. And it would also be understood that it the client (rather than the Counselor) who would be encouraged to “take the lead" in such an exploration.

d) Summarizing to promote a redefinition of the problem: the observations which I could be prompted to make in relation to this 4^th stage being essentially the same as those which I made in connection with stage 2, that is to say of the "questioning to promote new perspectives" stage, it is not necessary that I spend any more time on this point.

e) Prescribing to promote joint discoveries: this 5^th stage, a prescription stage, as Nardone himself points out, represents a stage during which it behooves practitioner and patient to join forces in effecting a "joint discovery". Such a standpoint being in fact fully compatible with that which the collaborative approach advocates, I have no further comments to make in relation to this stage

C) Summary to redefine the Palo Alto model implemented collaboratively

The collaborative approach considers that a person learns in a much more conclusive way when he/she "self-induces" his/her own learning, than when he/she is persuaded by points of view induced by any "outside expert", whatever the talent of the latter may be. Thus, unlike the strategic therapist, the Collaborative Counselor will not, by means of strategic maneuvers or any other means, seek to obtain from his client that he adopt “more functional ways of behaving”.

The Collaborative Counselor assumes that a person engaged in a therapeutic process carries within himself all the resources he needs so as to gravitate towards the “sufficiently functional” behaviors he may wish to achieve, always provided he may benefit from:

• Someone “willing and able” to listen to him whilst displaying the facilitating conditions formulated by Carl Rogers (founder of the Person-Centered Approach)
• An accompaniment which strives to help him engage in a co-constructive (collaborative) and in-depth explorations of issues in certain key areas (such as, for example, the perceptions-reaction field evoked by systemic psychologists)

 

While agreeing with Paul Watzlawick and Giorgio Nardone when they claim that in any therapeutic process that one engages "one cannot avoid influencing", I believe that there are assuredly ways that are more convincing than others to go about helping others proceed towards positive and enduring change, self-sufficiently maintained. In truth, I am not at all convinced that "strategic" ways of influencing others are systematically warranted and appropriate that’s all.

Rather than seeking to take on the role of a strategic influencer, I would rather adopt the role of someone who simply wishes to accompany his clients in the exploration of places that are somewhat in the dark "and that I would have lit with my flashlight". My role is primarily to point the lamp's radius at certain directions and asking my clients to tell me what they see at the various places I will have thought fit to illuminate. This is what a “collaborative” approach is all about.

And even if I can at times allow myself to participate in the dialogue by contributing what I see on my side (in the spirit of thereby providing "food for thought"), it is by far not the most important role that is mine to play. And if my client should not wish to explore the areas which if felt like “lighting up”, it's quite OK. My first role is to be a fellow traveler engaging on a road which is firstly and foremostly my client’s role to designate as he sees most fit.

In adopting such a posture, I am not implying that the "strategic" approach is not capable of producing excellent results – one only needs to take note of Nardone’s very high degree of success in using his strategic approach. I am in fact saying something else; I simply wish to ask the following questions:

Would it not be conceivable to imagine that Nardone's success in adopting the methodology he chooses to adopt stems far more from the very high quality of the relationships he engages with his clients than it does as from the various strategic maneuvers he engages and to which he attributes his successes? Is it not possible, paradoxically, that Nardone, a therapist who at times applies himself to impressing his clients with a certain number of beliefs which he considers to be "useful fictions," is not, paradoxically, himself under the spell of an illusory perception as to the nature of the elements that are his most important therapeutic assets?

To conclude this long reflection (and to revert back to the "determining advantage" mentioned above in section B), I would like reaffirm the idea that the main task for both the strategic therapist and the collaborative Counselor consists in making it easier for the client to adopt more fluid and adaptable ways of thinking his reality and, as a result thereof, more likely to deal in more balanced ways with any difficulties he stands to encounter at any time thereafter.

Being able to successfully resolve as quickly as possible the difficulties that our client evokes is good thing. It is even better to be able to promote enduring changes as mentioned immediately above. From such a standpoint, the fundamental difference between the strategic approach and the collaborative approach may be possibly be seen as follows:

The strategic therapist’s 1^st priority is to bring about the resolution of the specific problem for which the client consults. Accessorily, his 2^nd priority is to help his client progressively acquire greater fluidity in his ways of thinking his reality whilst displaying a good degree of behavioral adaptability.

The Collaborative Counselor’s 1^st priority is to relate to his client on the basis of a climate of trust (established via his facilitating attitudes) so as to help his client progressively acquire greater fluidity in his ways of thinking his reality whilst displaying a good degree of behavioral adaptability. Accessorily, his 2^nd priority is to help his client to progressively find more autonomously solutions to his unsuccessful attempted solutions (by providing a collaborative form of accompaniment).

It is up to each Therapist / Counselor to choose the approach that suits him best, depending on the person he is.

• Professional affiliations

I followed my basic training and my complementary training in this field with 3 different training institutes specialized in the systemic approach as inspired by the Palo-Alto research group. Today, it is primarily on the basis to the support that I find by working with the Cabinet LACT that I able to continue refining my training and carrying out my supervisions, whilst also participating in the research program instituted by the Cabinet LACT.