MiniMax Interventions

15 simple therapeutic interventions that have maximum impact

Manfred Prior

• Publisher: Crown House Publishing
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781785831164
• eBook ISBN: 9781785832161
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Psychotherapy Counselling
• Index: Psychology

In MiniMax Interventions, Manfred Prior presents therapeutic communication strategies that are designed to achieve a lot with just a few linguistic alterations: maximum results for minimal effort. These tried-and-tested communication strategies can be used in an effective way by any therapeutic practitioner, in almost any kind of session. The step-by-step methods can make a huge contribution to helping patients and clients solve their problems and clarify their goals more quickly. They are easy to understand and put into practice and, as such, their profound effect will be readily observable. It takes a lot of time and experience to condense such a lot of information into such a short book, and such powerful transformative effects into short therapeutic phrases. Manfred Prior has studied the speech patterns of successful communication in psychotherapy, medicine and counselling for more than 30 years. As one of the most renowned hypnosis instructors in the German-speaking world, he has taught effective communication techniques and methods to psychotherapists, doctors and dentists since the mid-eighties. For the first time, his insights are now available in the English-speaking world. The book, originally published in German as the bestselling MiniMax-Interventionen: 15 minimale Interventionen mit maximaler Wirkung, is translated by Professor Paul Bishop. MiniMax interventions provide the basis for efficient communication as well as human encounter. They help reduce resistance from patients or more precisely do not let it build up. They strengthen the relationship between therapist and patient and build motivation and willingness to cooperate. Finally, they demonstrate time and again how a few short words can have long-lasting therapeutic consequences. Suitable for psychotherapists, counsellors, supervisors, coaches and organisational consultants. If you want to improve your communication skills in a decisive yet practical way this succinct, accessible book is for you.

MiniMax intervention 1

‘In the past …’

In almost every therapeutic session it makes sense to periodically check that we have really understood how the patient sees and experiences a problem or symptom. Usually we do this by repeating what the patient has been saying, paraphrasing in our own words or using the patient’s. Depending on your therapeutic outlook, this is called understanding, mirroring, pacing, or establishing a rapport. Suppose the patient recounts, for instance, how they often have feelings of guilt vis-à-vis their parents. It is often the case that we are thinking about things that happened in the past when we talk about weaknesses, problems, and symptoms. In the future, things can and should be different! As the therapist, you can add the small addition ‘until now’ or ‘in the past’ to your understanding of the problem, and reformulate what has been said. ‘In the past you often had feelings of guilt vis-à-vis your parents.’ Adding this small remark, ‘in the past …’, makes sense when talking with patients about their problems, weaknesses, or symptoms. We are trying to understand the patient precisely: in the past the patient often suffered from … in the future they want to have found a better way, a solution, a cure. This small additional remark can help to open us up to better possibilities and solutions in the future.

In the past the value of this small turn of phrase was not always recognised. In the past it was rare for this seemingly casual addition to be deliberately used in future-oriented, solution-oriented conversations about problems …

Talk about weaknesses or symptoms using the past tense.

OK, OK – I do have a problem! What sort? … Look here, that’s none of your business …! Look, I have a weakness for … for … Look, I’ve told you to keep your nose out, right?! And whenever I think about my, well, problem, and my weakness … I have such terrible symptoms … So, righty-ho, let’s see if this MiniMax intervention 1 does any good at all. Let me have a go: I’m gonna sit out my little problem, together with my weakness and my symptom, just for a little bit … Until tomorrow, how’s that? Enough said? And then we’ll see if there’s any difference … I should be so lucky …

MiniMax intervention 2

Not ‘if …’, but ‘how …’, ‘what …’, and ‘which …’

When I talk with counsellors and therapists, I am interested to see how often they use the tiny word ‘if’. I would really like to know what they think the advantages and disadvantages are of using this tiny word. I am interested to see how I could persuade them to develop a greater sensitivity towards this ‘if’. My opinion about this word can be clearly stated: it is usually better to avoid ‘if’.

Of course, the word ‘if’ is not always redundant, and it can sometimes be very useful. It is useful whenever you want to get a clear decision from someone (if something will or will not work, ‘if, in the event of x happening, I can count on you’, etc.) or when you want unambiguous information in the form of a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’. Perhaps the greatest significance of this word lies in the question: ‘I would like to know if you will marry me?’

In counselling and therapy, we are less concerned with eliciting unambiguous information and finding out which decisions have already been made. More often than not, we are trying to help the patient to make decisions and to support them in the search for a particular direction. This can be made more difficult through the use of this tiny word ‘if’.

I would like to know …

if you have thought about what you are hoping to achieve in this therapy …

if you have already noticed improvements in your symptoms …

if you have any ideas about further steps or possibilities …

In the worst case scenario, the patient does not think for very long and, taking the easy route, answers these three questions with a ‘no’. In this way, they come to experience their situation as something more negative and more difficult. Moreover, the therapist has encouraged a no-saying attitude, which makes it more likely that the patient, irrespective of their ‘real’ opinion, will also answer the therapist’s next question with a ‘no’. After these ‘no’ answers, the question naturally arises, ‘I would like to know if you still have any hope at all?’ Continuing with their ‘no’ answers the patient is likely to respond, ‘No, in fact I don’t have any more hope at all …’ Then the patient’s situation is even more difficult than it was previously, because they are describing themselves as, and feeling that they are, a ‘hopeless case’.

In all this, the therapist does not really want to know if the patient has been thinking about something as much as they want to know what thoughts the patient has been having, or has when asked whether they still have any hope. What interests the therapist is not if the patient has noticed improvements, but how the patient can shift the focus of attention onto improvements in the future, and what they notice when doing this. The therapist does not primarily want to know if the patient has any ideas about further steps or possibilities – what really matters is discovering that the patient has developed ideas about further steps or possibilities and what these ideas are. (It is useful for the therapist to assume that the development of good ideas is encouraged by asking whether the patient still has any hope.) We do not want to know if the patient still has hope, but where there is still a glimmer of hope and how we can enlarge this glimmer. Because counselling and therapy are not as concerned with the if as with the how, what, an...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Praise
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• MiniMax intervention 1: ‘In the past …’
• MiniMax intervention 2: Not ‘if …’, but ‘how …’, ‘what …’, and ‘which …’
• MiniMax intervention 3: ‘But instead …?’
• MiniMax intervention 4: ‘Always’ is never the right thing to say about a symptom
• MiniMax intervention 5: ‘Your problem is comparable to … It is like …’
• MiniMax intervention 6: ‘Hopefully nothing bad …’ – ‘Hopefully something good …’
• MiniMax intervention 7: ‘Not yet …’
• MiniMax intervention 8: Constructive questions
• MiniMax intervention 9: Step-by-step constructive questions
• MiniMax intervention 10: ‘Let’s assume you were to …’
• MiniMax intervention 11: ‘With conscious understanding you were previously unable …’
• MiniMax intervention 12: Non-suggestions
• MiniMax intervention 13: ‘enormous …’ – ‘a little …’ ‘extremely …’ – ‘quite …’ ‘highly …’ – ‘hardly …’
• MiniMax intervention 14: Empathetic negation
• MiniMax intervention 15: The RR rule
• The 15 MiniMax interventions at a glance
• Afterword
• Copyright