Strategizing: The state of the art in the Milan School

Abstract

AbstractIt is important to understand the need to have directions and goals in order to organize a therapeutic path. After having considered the common aspects of strategic therapies, the authors—both representing the Milan School of Boscolo and Cecchin—explain the unavoidable use of a strategic attitude and its evolution, from the adherence to the Palo Alto model, to Tomm's (1987) proposal, to considering strategizing the fourth guideline of the Milan Approach. We then discuss the utilization of strategizing in the present times. Does it make sense to speak of directive or nondirective psychotherapists now a days? The answer is that if we take a second‐order positioning—which is the attitude that distinguishes therapy from a common chat among friends—we are inevitably and contemporarily both directive and nondirective. An example from the botanical field is offered.