Collaborative Language Systems

Collaborative language systems involve a collaborative relationship between therapist and client. This type of approach (also referred to as collaborative therapy) encourages and promotes a process that helps the client find solutions through a mutual, rather than hierarchical, relationship between the therapist and the client. The relationship involves mutual understanding and respect for the client’s situation.

Collaborative therapists believe that knowledge and language are interdependent and interact in constantly evolving, dynamic processes through the exchange of information and ideas. The collaborative language systems approach involves a reciprocal relationship through which the client works through clinical problems in dialogue with the therapist. Harlene Anderson and Harry Goolishian developed the theory and therapeutic approach of collaborative language systems in the 1980s. The theory is based on the idea ...