MiniMax Interventions: 15 simple therapeutic interventions that have maximum impact

Introduction

When I was at school, I pursued many different interests. I was a very enthusiastic gymnast. I played the cello in two youth orchestras. In addition, I belonged to the local Scout troop, and I was in the youth organisation of a political party. In the evenings, once a week or so, I would sell programmes for events in the local concert hall. At the same time, however, I had the ambition of going to university. I had to somehow combine my many and varied extracurricular interests, and my part-time work, with completing the schoolwork I needed to do to get the required grades. As a result, I developed the ambition and capability to get the best possible results with the least amount of effort.

In my capacity as a psychotherapist, counsellor, and coach, I am always trying to find new possibilities, ways to improve, and workable solutions to problems through conversation. As an instructor, I aim to describe each step in the simplest possible way. In these roles I always ask myself: how can the greatest possible success be achieved with the least amount of effort?

In this book I want to offer you the results of my quest for maximum results with minimal effort. With these MiniMax interventions, it is my goal to draw to your attention communicative strategies that:

can be used in an effective way by any practitioner of any therapeutic approach in almost any kind of session

are hardly noticeable (and so do not provoke ‘resistance’)

are easy to describe

can be quickly learned by everybody

These MiniMax interventions are intended to be immediately understandable and put to good practical use.

The 15 MiniMax interventions presented in the pages that follow are aimed, first and foremost, at psychotherapists, counsellors, supervisors, coaches, and organisational consultants. These people deploy strategies that are often successful, but very complex. MiniMax interventions are aimed at those professionals who want to improve their communicative skills in a decisive, yet practical, way. These MiniMax interventions draw attention to aspects of apparently minor ‘detail’ which professionals can, regardless of their theoretical allegiance, improve in order to communicate more successfully. I will focus less on the overall strategies involved in psychotherapy, counselling, and solutions-focused conversations, and more on the niceties or finer points of linguistic communication. Taken together, these ‘details’ can deliver a special quality that leads to considerable improvements in the counselling and therapeutic process.

I am not claiming to offer something startlingly novel with these MiniMax interventions. The contexts in which the interventions are to be used are, as already mentioned, psychotherapy, counselling, supervision, coaching, and organisational consultancy. Over time, however, it will become clear that these MiniMax interventions can be used successfully in other situations too. There are no contraindications for MiniMax interventions, nor have there been any bad side effects to date. You are invited to help discover where and how MiniMax interventions can be profitably deployed. Moreover, I am assuming that the collection of MiniMax interventions presented here is by no means complete – doubtless there remain many more to be discovered.

As an old proverb says: it is easy to make things difficult and difficult to make things easy. I would be the first to admit that it took me a lot of time to formulate these MiniMax interventions in a definitive and ever more compact way. In this respect I could sense a proximity to Goethe, who is supposed to have said, ‘I’m writing you a long letter because I don’t have time to write a short one.’ It has been worth the effort to concentrate and reduce these MiniMax interventions to what is essential about them. Over recent years they have been tried and tested over and over again. Today I take it for granted that they will automatically play an important part in my own work as a psychotherapist and counsellor. Thousands of colleagues are also using them to great success in all kinds of areas, making their work easier – and better. With the attention to detail described in these pages you too can make a huge contribution to helping clients solve their problems and reach their goals more quickly.

Thanks to their concise and comprehensible presentation, you can easily read and understand the 15 MiniMax interventions in the course of just one evening. But the more you actually use the MiniMax interventions, the more you, and your patients or clients, will feel their full benefit.

Each intervention is commentated by a small, ursine reader – a cartoon bear. In an impartial way, and unburdened by any specialised knowledge of the field, he will take a close look at every MiniMax intervention and share his insights in the form of critical commentaries. You can accompany him in his therapy and experience how he gets a handle on his problems in his own, sometimes highly idiosyncratic, way. His experiences tell their own story. Apart from MiniMax intervention 9 – ‘Step-by-step constructive questions’, which builds on MiniMax intervention 8 – ‘Constructive questions’, each intervention can stand on its own. You can determine for yourself the order in which you read each of the interventions and create your own personal pattern of MiniMax interventions, just like a mosaic.

Because the 15 MiniMax interventions are presented in a clear and concise way, you could easily read them all through in an evening and understand them. It would be better, however, not to just read this book from cover to cover in one sitting. Someone who likes chocolate blancmange would not eat ten bowlfuls of it in one go. Have a spoonful here and there, and enjoy the taste. Take your time to digest the