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Encyclopedia of Couple and Family Therapy pp 769–773Cite as

Directives in Couple and Family Therapy

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Name of the Strategy or Intervention

Directive

Synonyms

Experiment; Homework; Task

Introduction

The act of suggesting what someone should do would seem to be as old as the human species. It is natural for a parent to direct a child or a friend to make a suggestion to a friend who is experiencing a problem or concern. It is natural for therapists, at least at times, to do the same – to give a directive. Directives in therapy range from mundane things, like “Why don’t you sit by the table, so you will have a place to put your coffee,” to the structuring of an enactment, such as “Talk with your partner about how you see this,” to the suggestion of what clients do between sessions, for example, “Each time you begin to escalate to raised voices, I would like you to take what we call a time out.”

A directive is one of three basic speech acts in therapy. A therapist can ask a question, make a statement, or give a directive (Breunlin et al. 1992). As a class of speech in therapy, a directive...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Family Institute at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

    William P. Russell

Authors
  1. William P. Russell
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to William P. Russell .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. The Family Institute at Northwestern University, Center for Applied Psychological and Family Studies, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

    Jay L. Lebow

  2. The Family Institute at Northwestern University, Center for Applied Psychological and Family Studies, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

    Anthony L. Chambers

  3. The Family Institute at Northwestern University, Center for Applied Psychological and Family Studies, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

    Douglas C. Breunlin

Section Editor information

  1. University of Saint Joseph, West Harford, CT, USA

    Rachel Diamond

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Russell, W.P. (2019). Directives in Couple and Family Therapy. In: Lebow, J.L., Chambers, A.L., Breunlin, D.C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Couple and Family Therapy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49425-8_520

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