People / Systemic, couple and family
Steve de Shazer
Worked with Insoo Kim Berg and the Milwaukee team to develop a brief, collaborative approach focused on clients’ goals and resources.
At a glance
Lived 1940 to 2005. American. Social Worker & Family Therapist.
Active 1975 to 2005. Landmark year 1985. Clinical era: 1970 to 1989, cognitive, systemic and alliance.
Lineage: Systemic, couple and family. Roles: Modality founder or co-founder; Clinical theorist; Couple, family and systemic pioneer.
Associated modalities: Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT).
Co-founder of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy who explored how conversations about preferred futures and existing resources can support change.
Review status: Educational draft, subject review pending. Source status: source checks not documented for this draft. Dates, sources and clinical statements require independent verification and specialist review.
Clinical overview
Steve de Shazer was an American social worker, family therapist, and classical saxophonist who co-founded Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) alongside Insoo Kim Berg at the Brief Family Therapy Center (BFTC) in Milwaukee. Trained in fine arts and social work at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, de Shazer was deeply influenced by John Weakland and the Mental Research Institute (MRI) in Palo Alto, as well as the case records of Milton H. Erickson.
Working with the Milwaukee team in the late 1970s and early 1980s, de Shazer explored alternatives to detailed problem analysis. In Keys to Solution in Brief Therapy (1985) and Clues: Investigating Solutions in Brief Therapy (1988), he described attention to exceptions and conversations about preferred changes as part of a solution-focused approach.
Historical and clinical context
In his 1984 paper 'The Death of Resistance', de Shazer challenged the use of resistance as a label for clients' responses to therapy. He proposed understanding those responses as forms of cooperation and adapting the therapist's approach accordingly. This is a clinical perspective, not evidence that every client experiences therapy in the same way.
In his later books, Words Were Originally Magic (1994) and More Than Miracles (2007), de Shazer turned to Ludwig Wittgenstein's later philosophy of language games, viewing therapy as a disciplined conversational practice that stays 'on the surface' of observable language and everyday action rather than speculating about hidden psychological depths.
Core therapeutic contributions
Independence of Problem and Solution ('Skeleton Keys'). Proposed that a useful response to a problem need not reproduce its history or structure. The Formula First-Session Task invites clients to notice aspects of life they want to continue; this is a clinical method, not proof that the same prompt helps every person.
The Death of Resistance (1984). Questioned the concept of client resistance and proposed that therapists adapt to clients' ways of cooperating. Later solution-focused work described 'visitor', 'complainant', and 'customer' relationships as ways to consider the fit between a therapeutic task and a client's goals.
Problem-Talk vs Solution-Talk. Explored how conversations about problems and preferred changes can shape what participants notice and discuss in therapy.
Inductive Team Observation and Ockham's Razor. Used team observation and a preference for concise explanations in developing the approach. Such observations do not establish which conversational elements cause improvement.
In the consulting room
Therapeutic stance. Minimalist, disciplined, philosophical, and radically respectful of the surface of what the client actually says; the therapist refuses to invent hidden pathology behind the client's words.
Signature practices. Assigning the Formula First-Session Task to direct attention toward existing aspects of life worth preserving; Listening for and amplifying 'news of a difference' - any pre-treatment change or small exception where the complaint was absent or less severe; Taking a brief team consultation break to compose a structured end-of-session message combining affirming compliments with a tailored observational or behavioural experiment
Common misreadings. Treating a focus on present goals as evidence that a client’s history or emotional pain is unimportant.; Applying 'skeleton key' tasks mechanically as formulas rather than tailoring them to whether the client is currently in a visitor, complainant, or customer relationship
Landmark clinical works
1982, Patterns of Brief Family Therapy: An Ecosystemic Approach (book). Documented the transition from MRI strategic ecosystemic therapy to the Milwaukee team's early brief model.
1984, The Death of Resistance (paper). Questioned the concept of client resistance and proposed a collaborative interpretation of clients' responses.
1985, Keys to Solution in Brief Therapy (book). Landmark book introducing 'skeleton keys', the Formula First-Session Task, and the independence of solutions from problems.
1988, Clues: Investigating Solutions in Brief Therapy (book). Described solution-focused brief therapy using case examples and computer-assisted analysis of therapy sessions.
1994, Words Were Originally Magic (book). Integrated Wittgensteinian language philosophy and post-structuralist thought into SFBT.
Clinical critiques and limitations
Depth-oriented and experiential therapists argued that de Shazer's strict parsimony and refusal to explore historical etiology or unexpressed grief can leave clients with complex trauma or chronic relational loss feeling rushed past their emotional pain.
Critical systemic theorists contended that viewing all problems purely as local 'language games' risks under-theorising material realities such as institutional racism, poverty, and gendered power.
Evidence for solution-focused brief therapy differs by outcome and setting. A meta-analysis of community-based randomised studies reported benefits on several outcomes, but many studies had a high risk of bias in outcome assessment. These findings do not establish that any single question or task causes improvement for every client.
Clinical genealogy
Influences and mentors: John Weakland; Milton Erickson; Gregory Bateson; Paul Watzlawick.
Collaborators: Insoo Kim Berg; Eve Lipchik; Elam Nunnally; Alex Molnar; Wallace Gingerich; Michele Weiner-Davis.
Students and successors: Yvonne Dolan; Harry Korman; Mark McKergow; Chris Iveson; Evan George; Harvey Ratner.
Sources and inspection notes
de Shazer, S. (1984). The death of resistance. Family Process, 23(1), 11–21.
Supports: A dated check of its relevance to this profile is not recorded for this draft
de Shazer, S. (1985). Keys to Solution in Brief Therapy. W. W. Norton & Company.
Supports: A dated check of its relevance to this profile is not recorded for this draft
de Shazer, S. (1988). Clues: Investigating Solutions in Brief Therapy. W. W. Norton & Company.
Supports: A dated check of its relevance to this profile is not recorded for this draft
de Shazer, S. (1994). Words Were Originally Magic. W. W. Norton & Company.
Supports: A dated check of its relevance to this profile is not recorded for this draft
Supports: A dated check of its relevance to this profile is not recorded for this draft