Persons and Hypothesis

Persons and Hypotheses: The Use of the Therapist in the Hypothesising Process

Paolo Bertrando and Dario Toffanetti

Although hypothesising has been strongly criticised by postmodern and narrative theorists, it plays a major role in any therapy. This article aims to investigate the hypothesising process, first revisiting the concept of hypothesis in semiotics and Schön’s theory of the professions, then examining some features of hypothesising within systemic therapy. The article takes into account the relationship between hypotheses and therapists’ basic theories, to arrive, finally, at an examination of the role of the person (both therapist and client) in shaping hypotheses within the therapeutic interaction.

The hypothesis of the therapist, however, introduces the powerful input of the unexpected and the improbable … and for this reason acts to avoid derailment and disorder (Selvini Palazzoli et al., 1980: 4).

Hypothesising should be considered part of the acting and thinking (explicit or implicit) of all therapists, independent of their theoretical orientation. According to Lester Luborsky (1984), for example, the interpretative process in psychoanalytic therapy, focusing initially on the symptom, progressively defines a ‘core conflictual relational theme’, on which the therapist works together with the client. This is essentially a process of hypothesising. Within the family therapy field, the most important version of the idea of the hypothesis was enunciated in 1980 by the original Milan team (Selvini Palazzoli, Boscolo, Cecchin & Prata, 1980). Their paper established three principles for systemic work: hypothesising, circularity and neutrality, which drew the Milan school away from the MRI systemic-strategic model (Watzlawick, Jackson & Beavin, 1967) and brought Bateson’s ideas back into focus (Bateson, 1972). Of the three principles, hypothesising is the closest to the Batesonian idea of ‘mind’ (Bateson, 1979): in therapy, connections are created...