Second-Order+Change

-- How Therapy Works -- Many postmodernists have asserted that making changes in people’s lives is not a complex matter but opposite from what most people think and do. Instead of instructing people to think simplistically and stop doing whatever it is that is causing the problem, therapists ask clients to think in a different way of managing their problems by making small changes to the intensity, location, strength, etc. of the problem. When the client begins to think in a new way about the problem, they construct new ways of resolving it. Think of the example of a little child learning to ride a bike. When the young child learns to keep the bike up and balanced, he or she must learn to continually make small changes in steering and cycling to maintain an upright position. Thus, in order to stabilize the bike, the young bike-rider must make small changes. In other words, stability requires change. The therapist would not tell the child to stop riding the bike altogether because he is not getting it; instead, the therapist who applies a second-order change would instruct the child to make small changes to how he or she is riding the bike, how he or she is attempting to maintain stability. It is in this way that the child will learn to ride the bike. -First-order change is defined as a solution that does not necessarily change the problem, nor does it make it worse. -On the other hand, second-order change requires making a change to the first-order change, changing how the person thinks about changing the problem. Second-order change requires a different kind of thinking about a problem and possible resolutions. - First-order change is associated with stability, wanting things to be stabilized and not change. This type of change occurs within a system of people, places, and things that all stay the same. So, you can see why attempting to make a change in this world of stability is not really changing much and, thus, the problem still exists within the system. - Second-order change is related to a transformation in the system of places, people, and things. Sometimes these changes are identified as paradoxical or defying logic but, in fact, provide a solution to the initial problem. So, in the above example, the child might be instructed to try riding the bike at a certain time when he or she is most alert to learning, or riding the bike in a certain place (i.e. on a flat street) to learn there initially. Then, once the child has successfully learned to make those small changes in those 2 different contexts, then he or she is more apt to applying those "lessons" to different future contexts and can now ride a bike in many ways. [from Fraser, J. S., & Solovey, A. D. (2006) Second-order change in psychotherapy: The golden thread that unifies effective treatments. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.]