Don’t Ask Questions: A Psychotherapeutic Strategy for Treatment

Reflection on “Don’t Ask Questions: A Psychotherapeutic Strategy
for Treatment of Involuntary Clients.”
Your Name
Subject and Section
Professor Xie
October 15, 2020
In this article written in 1999 by Brodsky and Lichtenstein, the question of whether or not traditional therapeutic settings and methods for involuntary clients are genuinely effective. “Involuntary clients” referring to individuals who are in prison or on parole (Brodsky & Lichtenstein, 1999).
The article is very much straightforward in that it begins with an introduction of the context of the research—that is, there is a finding of lacklustre results in the way traditional psychotherapeutic methods are being applied or conducted for involuntary clients. This is due to a lack of rapport between client and therapist; a lack of cooperation by the client; and a lack of enthusiasm by the therapist further strained by a need to fill in gaps in the sessions with incessant questions.
Brodsky and Lichtenstein, proceeding from this context, lay down three fundamental questions that are the center of their paper: (1) do questions impede therapy; (2) are questions used to help therapists cope; and (3) should therapists avoid asking “why?”
Three fundamental questions
Brodsky and Lichtenstein, in their article, lay down three fundamental questions, as mentioned above. They answered the first one by stating the difference between traditional client-therapist relationships where the former engaged the services of the therapists out of their own volition, from the types of psychotherapeutic services being provided in prisons or penal institutions, where the client becomes such not out of their consent, but by the rehabilitative intent of criminal law.
The setting is different, Brodsky and Lichtenstein state, due to the higher tendency of the involuntary client to adopt a more reclusive, timid, or stand-offish stance. They state that it is in the perception of the involuntary client that when questions are asked, such questions are like surveillance by the state and not actual or genuine interest as they would commonly be perceived to be. (Brodsky & Lichtenstein, 1999).
It is this perception of surveillance that contributes to the reclusiveness of the client, hence their natural averseness to questions. Thus, it could be reasonably concluded that questions indeed impede therapy, specifically in the context of involuntary clients.
The next question shifts the attention from the client to the therapist—are questions used to help therapists cope? Expectedly, Brodsky and Lichtenstein answered yes. Transcripts of interviews reviewed by the authors showed that the questions were somewhat strained, far-fetched from the topic, or already redundant in respect to what information the therapist already had gained from the client. They would persist in asking questions even when all they received were one-word ...