(Major climate at the beginning of the group activity at the M.R.I (Fisch et AL, 1975
The psychoanalysis premise was that a complaint in the present is an artificial demonstration of complex situation that has developed over time in the patient. Subsequently, this state of affairs is seen as something beyond the patient’s awareness, and that components of the situation settled down, deep in the sub – conscious. Therefore, any attempt to shorten the patient’s anxiety, without regard to the situation of sub-conscious, is considered as an naive attempt or charlatanism. This was the climate that prevailed in psychotherapy more than fifty years ago
When the therapist reported, under these circumstances, the successful treatment only with reference to the applicant’s complaint, his success was received with reservations. Responses were varied: “The change will not last over time, will return to the original symptom”; “substitute symptom will exceed the surface, perhaps worse than the original”
Fisch, (1999) remembers that on a supervision meeting, some sixty years ago, the supervisor told him: “in a place there is a hysterical one, you’ll see a schizophrenic!”. The original complaint was not considered a real phobia, or any other condition. It was considered something shallow, something that needs some “support
In this manner, the brief-therapy therapist who focused only on the patient’s statement about his problem or anxiety, was treated with suspicion. This therapist was considered as one with reduced value at all, and was left in the edge of psychotherapy. This was the background conditions under which the MRI (Mental Research Institute) in Palo – Alto began to develop the theoretical basis and set the principles of problem-solving brief therapy (as they named it).