Constructive Therapy in Practice

In Constructive Therapy in Practice, Dr. Jonathan Raskin illustrates this approach with a client dealing with relationship issues involving both her boyfriend and her parents. Dr. Raskin helps the client to examine and revise the constructed “scripts” she has for relationships. She is invited to reflect on how much of what happens in life should be considered personal—that is, specifically designed to make her life difficult. As the session unfolds, this discussion encourages the client to distinguish her meaning-making processes from those of her parents and her boyfriend, instigating a shift that opens her to new relational possibilities. The session’s emphasis on how meanings are created is something that therapists can learn from and use in their own practice. The demonstration in this video is framed by an informative discussion with the therapist hosted by Dr. Cheri Marmarosh.

Constructive therapies assume that people construct understandings of the world and use them to make sense of events. These constructions are necessary to successfully navigate life, but sometimes they get in the way—especially when people mistake them as fundamental truths rather than viable accounts. Constructive therapy helps people to recognize, reconsider, and revise their constructions.

Jonathan D. Raskin, PhD, is professor and chair in the Department of Psychology at the State University of New York at New Paltz. Dr. Raskin has published extensively on constructive approaches to psychology and psychotherapy. In addition to many journal articles and book chapters, Dr. Raskin is author of Psychopathology and Mental Distress: Contrasting Perspectives (2nd ed.) and APA’s Theories of Psychotherapy series volume, Constructive Psychotherapies.

Dr. Raskin served as the 2020-21 president of the Society for Humanistic Psychology (Division 32 of APA). He is managing editor of the Journal of Constructivist Psychology, and a licensed psychologist with an active private practice.

APA videos

Constructivist Therapy Over Time
Robert A. Neimeyer, PhD

Adlerian Therapy
Jon Carlson, PsyD, EdD

Client-Centered Therapy
Nathaniel J. Raskin, PhD

Narrative Therapy Over Time
Stephen Madigan, PhD

Existential Therapy
Kirk J. Schneider, PhD

Experiential Psychotherapy
Alvin R. Mahrer, PhD

Trauma and Meaning
Jeanne M. Slattery, PhD

APA books

Existential–Humanistic Therapy, Second Edition
Kirk J. Schneider, PhD, and Orah T. Krug, PhD

Identity and Story: Creating Self in Narrative
Dan. P McAdams, PhD, Ruthellen Josselson, PhD, and Amia Lieblich, PhD

Meaning Reconstruction and the Experience of Loss
Robert A. Neimeyer, PhD

Turns in the Road: Narrative Studies of Lives in Transition
Dan P. McAdams, PhD, Ruthellen Josselson, PhD, and Amia Lieblich, PhD

Narrative Therapy, Second Edition
Stephen Madigan, PhD

Solution-Focused Therapy
John Murphy, PhD

Multicultural Therapy: A Practice Imperative
Melba J. T. Vasquez, PhD, and Josephine D. Johnson, PhD