Behind the One-Way Mirror

Advances in the Practice of Strategic Therapy

by Cloe Madanes

"Building on her previous work in Strategic Family Therapy, Cloe Madanes provides speciic, detailed guidance on using advanced and innovative therapeutic techniques that focus on the distribution of power in relationships. She presents thirty extensive case studies covering a wide age range and a great variety of problems, including depression, anxiet, insomnia, sexual problems, alcoholism, drug addiction, psychosomatic illness, and anorexia. Guiding the reader step-by-step through each therapy session. Madanes reveals the thoughts, hypotheses, and strategies she formulated when supervising sessions from behind a one-way mirror.

Madanes' therapeutic approach is noted for its creative intervention techniques, which frequently make use of play, pretend, and fantasy concepts. Madanes contributes new ways of understanding the power structure within relationships to correct problem behaviors and offers advice on how to discover the true source of a conflict, such as when difficulties between two people originate with problems involving a third person. Throughout the book, she concentrates on the best way to conceptualize the client's problem, which then leads to devising a strategy or intervention most suited to that particular aituation. Case examples illustrate when specific strategies such as prescribing symptoms or using humor - work best.

Filled with new ideas, state-of-the-art techniques and ways to bring optimism and creativity to therapy, this book will help therapists think and do their work in different and more effective ways. Behid the One-Way Mirror is for all therapists interested in broadening their range of techmiques to include the most reccent and innovative methods for understanding people and changing their negative behaviors. "