How to Coach Yourself and Others Coaching Families | Page 273

The therapist thereby establishes an open-ended agenda that requires starting from a new beginning. The process
is akin to starting at the origin of the client reason for being there and a host of general questions that encourage
clients to talk, dialogue, and interact verbally in the session. Nothing is taken for granted. Clients are
encouraged to speak freely about their situation, what brought them there, and virtually anything else that is on
their minds that seems important at the moment. Despite whatever feelings of discomfort clients may experience
on this therapeutic turf, conversational questions as a strategy help create the new conditions for a fresh start.
Conversational questions maintain effectiveness not only because of the engaging attitude of the therapist, but
also because of the quality and substance of well-chosen questions.
Clients might be asked about what kinds of questions they felt the therapist should have or could have
previously asked in the session (but didn’t); or about what kinds of things prior therapists did that could have
been done differently or better; or what they did that was totally useless and ineffectual. In all, this strategy
constitutes an elemental therapeutic process of entering and expanding the areas of the unsaid or the not-yet-said
(Anderson & Goolishian, 1988, p. 381).
This unique process of questioning might be compared to a metaphoric rite of passage.
Once therapists are offered privileged access into this once uncharted and inviolable precinct, they may find that
it contains a painful family secret, a dilemma that seems uniquely impenetrable to clients, or simply a difficult
situation that appears to be not easily discussed at the moment.
The following six conversational questions are examples taken from Selekman’s work. They offer a rich flavor
of the kinds of questions that therapists can ask to insure the certainty of this new openness with its
unquestionably “non-agenda” agenda condition. From an integrative perspective, it is an all-out approach at
loosening up and breaking through familial barriers and through the mountainous accumulation of family
members’ failed attempts at dealing with their issues in order to reach family members who now may feel all the
more stymied in the throes of therapy.
Examples of Conversational Questions
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You have seen many therapists. What do you suppose they overlooked or missed with you?
If I were to work with another family just like you, what advice would you give me to help that family out?
Who had the idea in the family to go for therapy?
If there were one question you were hoping I would ask, what would that be?
If there were one issue in this family that has not been talked about yet, what would that be?
Who in the family will have the most difficult time taking about this issue? (Selekman, 1993, p.78)
Who probably had the most difficult time coming here today?
What is one major thing holding everyone back?
What is one major reason for not talking together as a family?
What are some things I should be asking about you?
If you’ve been to other therapists, what are some of the things you didn’t like about the questions they asked
or how they asked the questions?
What do you think are some needs that we should discuss first, before moving forward?
What did you like or dislike about your prior therapists?
What people in the family could change things if they had the power?
What people do you trust the most? Why is that so?
What is one small thing that could be changed to help get us started today?

In sum, the use of conversational questions may be a major tool when a client or an entire family is reluctant to
speak openly or when the therapeutic dialogue comes to a grinding halt. It is the therapist’s hope that
conversational questions such as the ones above will create the new and necessary conditions for a more

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