Articles
I have written a number of articles based on my recent book that explore the intersection between constructionism and psychotherapy. Most of the articles are designed for mental health professionals although they may be interesting to the lay reader.
A Constructionist Extension of the Contextual Model
This article begins with a literature review that shows that psychotherapy techniques lack inherent power, that there are no significant specific factors in psychotherapy and that our interventions are rituals powered by beliefs and expectations. It provides an explanation for these surprising conclusions and develops recommendations for how they can be applied pragmatically in therapeutic practice.
Resolving the Common Factors Debate
This article is an extension of the previous article. It has a more elaborate and detailed literature review. It explores additional theories about why techniques have no inherent power and why psychotherapy’s privileged knowledge fails to enhance outcomes. Implications for training and practice are developed.
This article examines psychotherapy from the perspective of an iconoclastic spiritual tradition which emphasizes that attachment to practice tends to make one miss the essence of practice. It was published in 2018 in the APA journal, Spirituality in Clinical Practice.
Confessions of an Early Adopter: Practicing Therapy in Constructed Reality
This article discusses how it feels to be an early adopter of constructionism in terms of working with clients, attending workshops, and cultivating life-long learning. It was published in a 2019 Taos Institute book, Social Construction in Action.
Advances in Behavioral Genetics Require Reconceptualizing Psychotherapy’s Major Paradigms
This article discusses how new advances in Behavioral Genetics are reshaping the psychotherapy paradigm. These advances completely upend what we think we know about psychiatric diagnoses. In addition, they show that the primary assumption of western psychology–that pathological history creates current dysphoria–is a construct.
Constructionist Approaches to Treating Borderline Personality Disorder
This article details a constructionist approach to treating BPD. It is a chapter in a 2019 C. Lepkowsky edited book, Borderline Personality Disorder.
How Psychotherapy Actually Works:
This article is written for the lay person and offers numerous examples that demonstrate why techniques have no inherent power, the centrality of constructionism, and the implications for the evolution of psychotherapy.
This is a dialog between ChatGPT-4 and myself where I attempt to convince the AI that the paradigm for how psychotherapy works needs to updated to incorporate my work and the work of Robert Plomin in Behavioral Genetics. The dialog is interesting in that it reveals some of the strengths and weaknesses of AI. It also serves as an unusual but compelling way to summarize the new constructionist paradigm.
In this second dialog with CHATGPT I explore the inherent power of techniques, denial, the fluid nature of constructed reality, and the need to have a grounded vision.
Video: If you prefer to be introduced to this material via a video talk, there is a 20 minute interview with me with Scott Miller and his Top Performance Blog here. In addition, there is a 20 minute talk I gave at the Taos Institute Conference in 2018 here.