Therapeutic Stances: The Art Of Using And Losing Control: Adjusting The Therapeutic Stance

Over time, therapists have widely debated ideas about control, with views often skewed by theoretical orientation, emotion, and political correctness. According to Whiteside, it is now time to drop the politically correct spins and admit that any time a therapist and a client interact there is a pattern of control that influences the effectiveness of therapy, despite the approach. Today, control should be a way of nourishing better therapy by accepting the needs of the client. Whiteside calls for a new approach to issues regarding control which includes sensitivity to the needs of the client and recognizing the potential biases of the therapist that are likely to occur in sessions. This approach, which he calls transpositional therapy, allows the therapist to evaluate the level of control a client is willing to give the therapist during sessions and allows the therapist to respond in a way that will maximize the effectiveness of therapy and meet the client's needs. The author stresses thatin each phase of therapy, the client's control issues should change the therapist's orientation. Because it is the client who has the control over how much information shared, how cooperative he decides to be or whether or not the therapy will even continue, it is the client who has the ultimate control. The therapist's role is to serve as a tool the client uses to achieve their goals. This kind of therapy should be seen as a superstructure that can be applied with many existing therapeutic models to help increase the effectiveness of therapy.