Change-Oriented Therapy With Adolescents and Young Adults: A New Generation of Respectful and Effective Processes and Practices

Bob Bertolino

Overview – Introduction (PDF)

In Change-Oriented Therapy With Adolescents and Young Adults, Bob Bertolino writes with an eye toward the issues faced by contemporary therapists who, confronted with the pressures of running a clinical practice and dealing with managed care, are often compelled to keep therapy brief and solution-oriented. Results are critical and they must be attained in a relatively short amount of time, which requires the flexibility to use various therapeutic modalities and the willingness to adopt a form of clinical guidance that allows the client to guide therapy and initiate change while honoring the therapeutic relationship and alliance. Bertolino provides techniques and practical principles to facilitate transformation, including question-and-answer segments and case examples that show readers how change-oriented therapy works and feels in the clinical setting. Change-oriented therapy breaks new ground for both therapists and clients by revising and reintegrating existing theories and practices.

Praise for Change-Oriented Therapy With Adolescents and Young Adults:

"The primary driver of Bertolino's treatment model appears to be the promise of interventions that are respectful and effective, within a therapy that is intended to be both brief and solution focused. He is passionate about his model of pracitce, hopeful about outcomes, and the promotion of collaborative therapeutic relationships. I found the book to be provocative, scholarly, and clinically centered. . . . I wish that I had his book when I was teaching clinical practice; it is the model that I taught and is beautifully articulated. There is a consistency to his message: hope, collaboration, honoring, respecting, and client empowerment. this is an important book for pracitioners, one that should be soundly applauded by those of us who view effective practice as an intensely human integration of art and science."

— Residential Treatment for Children & Youth

"[A] valuable tool for therapists, students, teachers, parents, or anyone else trying to find their way through a difficult life situation."

— Canadian Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Review

"The case descriptions of the author's own clinical practice succeed in letting the readers see and feel what it means concretely to use the voice of the client as a compass throughout the therapy."

— Tijdschrift Voor Famailietherapie (Journal of Family Therapy)

"This book is titled Change-Oriented Therapy but it really should be called 'How to Cooperate with Uncooperative Clients'. It is a thorough treatise on the nuts and bolts of how to tame angry clients and how to instill hope where pessimism seems to reign. This is the textbook of choice for anyone wanting to learn how to deal effectively with the youth of today as well as their frustrated parents."
- Ben Furman, M.D., Author of Solution Talk: Hosting Therapeutic Conversations and Never too Late to Have a Happy Childhood

"In this book you will find cutting-edge research as well as powerful and effective methods for helping children. Between the lines, you will find hope, respect, and genuine love for children and families. Bertolino knows his stuff and writes well."
-Bill O'Hanlon, coauthor of In Search of Solutions and A Brief Guide to Brief Therapy

About the Author

Bob Bertolino, Ph.D., is a therapist and trainer. He has authored or coauthored eight books on collaborative, change-oriented approaches to psychotherapy. Bob has presented throughout the United States, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

ISBN: 0-393-70409-2
Fall 03
Cloth, 240 pages