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Generalist Practice: A Task-Centered Approach, Second Edition resources

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20 Introduction A major difference between the two approaches seems to result mainly from the fact that the strengths perspective developed as a re- action against traditional problem-solving approaches in which prob- lems were often located in the client and solidified with a diagnostic label. In fact, TC, which is a problem-solving model, also eschews fo- cusing on client pathology. Unfortunately many advocates of the strengths perspective fail to differentiate between problems that are at- tributed to clients by professionals and those problems-in-living that clients identify themselves. Some of the more radical adherents of this perspective even reject the use of the word problem. This is dangerous because denigrating client-identified concerns is disempowering. Al- though Saleebey (1997) acknowledges that this is “a very serious criti- cism” and contends that “there is nothing, however, in the strengths approach that mandates the discounting of the problems of life that people bring to us” (238), not all adherents share this point of view, and the possibility of ignoring client concerns for the sake of adhering to any particular philosophy is risky, to say the least. As Blundo (2001) has put it: “To learn the strengths perspective one must seriously challenge the basic foundations of practice knowledge, the 80 years of variations on a basic theme of disease and expertise as it is taught and practiced today” (301). However, the strengths perspective will need to come to grips with a central dilemma: how to reconcile its radical vision of working with clients with the many demonstrably ef- fective models that focus on client problems as “pathologies”— cogni- tive, cognitive-behavioral, and interpersonal interventions for depres- sion; exposure therapies for phobias, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic stress syndrome; psycho-educational treatment of fami- lies with schizophrenic members; problem-solving skills training with ag- gressive children—to name but a few. In TC, most such interventions can be adapted for use within the structure of the model. It is not at all ap- parent how the strengths perspective can achieve such an integration. The solution-focused model is a time-limited approach that evolved from work with families (De Jong and Berg 1998). The focus of this approach is on helping clients achieve solutions to their problems as they define them. Positive, specific goals are carefully developed. The emphasis on solutions and goals creates optimistic expectations and

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