Steve de Shazer

Today, september 11, 2010, it is exactly 5 years ago Steve de Shazer, important developer and pioneer of the solution-focused approach, died. I knew Insoo Kim Berg, his wife, well; Steve I met only once or twice. But I learned a lot from him through his writings. Here are just a few interesting -I think- quotes by Steve:

• It's good to know what doesn't work, but it's really helpful to know what does. 
• The danger of reading between the lines is that there might be nothing there. So you've just got to listen to what the client says. 
• A client tells you they've got a problem, then they've got a problem, and you better take it seriously. You also better take it seriously if they tell you they ain't got a problem. 
• I know what I don't want, and that's for anybody to develop some sort of rigid orthodoxies.
• What I see sometimes is the amateurs, so to speak - the beginners, who somehow think more is better and therefore, they give this endless stream of compliments and bore the client silly with them and therefore the client stops taking them seriously. That's one thing I see happen with beginners, in particular. There's just too damn many compliments, and that will drive the client away. 
• ...We come to the conclusion that paradoxical interventions were unnecessary for several reasons, the main one being that we aren't trying to stop anything. Paradoxical interventions are designed to stop something.... What we are doing is trying to start something or increase the frequency of something. So there's no need for paradoxical interventions.
• You can never know which story is true; you can never know what is really real. ..understanding is not as easy as it looks.
• I was certain that a rule-based approach would eventually work. And certainly this approach has proved fruitful. Since the, my colleagues and I have been able to construct a rather elegant and strikingly simple yet rather comprehensive model using this approach to theory construction and model building.... ...as part of our project we learned that exceptions are at least as important as the rules, if not more so.

Here is a selection of my posts and articles in which Steve is mentioned:

• Who invented the solution-focused SCALING QUESTIONS?
• Four useful interventions in Brief Family Therapy by Steve de Shazer and Alex Molnar
• Steve and Insoo about each other
• Pre-session change
• Positive expressions in conversations
• Words were originally magic
• Describing a future in which the problem is solved
• Creating the expectation of beneficial change
• The two most essential solution-focused questions
• Supporting Clients’ Solution Building Process by Subtly Eliciting Positive Behaviour Descriptions and Expectations of Beneficial Change
• The Thinktank That Created The Solution-Focused Approach - Interview with Eve Lipchik
• Interview with Insoo Kim Berg

How did Steve de Shazer influence you? How do you remember him?