SF practice as an application of discursive psychology

Kirsten Dierolf

Abstract

This article attempts to show some of the parallels between Solution Focused practice and the theory of discursive psychology. It suggests that SF practice might be a possible application of discursive psychology and that discursive psychology may be seen as a philosophical backdrop for SF practice. Some of the parallels mentioned are as follows: Both Rom Harré and Steve de Shazer (de Shazer & Dolan , 2007) use ideas from the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein as the underpinnings of their work. Both discursive psychol- ogy and SF practice “do something different”. They both concentrate on interactions and see people as agents in their own lives rather than concentrating on explaining what happens inside a person. Both find it more fruitful to look at observable behaviour than finding out about causes of human behaviour and experience (de Shazer & Berg, 1992). Both approaches are radical post-structural approaches with a Wittgensteinian heritage. They assume the primacy of language or interactions with their ever changing meanings- in-use rather than the importance of assumed underlying structures or interpretations (de Shazer & Berg, 1992; McLaughlin, 2009). They both are keen to avoid the traps into which everyday (traditional) language about human psychology can lead. One example is assuming that a diagnosis is an illness with a root cause that something someone has or is as expressed in the sentences: “I have a depression, I am depressed” (de Shazer & Berg, 1992; de Shazer, 1997; Harré & Tissaw, 2005). Neither assumes a “mind behind the mind”, unconscious cognitive processes, again mostly in congruence with Wittgenstein’s “Private

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