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Encounters with Steve de Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg. Inside Stories of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy Edited by Manfred Vogt, Ferdinand Wolf, Peter Sundman and Heinrich N Dreesen London: Solutions Books, 2015, 201pp, £12.99 (Kindle edition available)
Review by Anton Stellamans
This is a book to cherish. Vogt, Wolf, Sundman and Dreesen collected over 40 memories of Steve de Shazer (June 25, 1940, Milwaukee - September 11, 2005, Vienna) and Insoo Kim Berg (July 25, 1934, Korea - January 10, 2007, Milwaukee). They come from former BFTC team members, as well as friends, colleagues and students of these pioneers of Solution Focus (SF). Some look back on a long intimate history, some only met them once or twice. But the common denominator is that Steve and Insoo left a lasting trace in the hearts and minds of their companions de route.
The book allows us a peek inside their private and professional lives. There are trivia about Steve's love of driving around the Wisconsin countryside in his BMW convertible (Szabó & Macdonald), his frequent late night walks through the city of Bruges, where the police assumed he was a homeless person, (Isebaert & Macdonald) and of course his culinary talents (Dolan, Isebaert & Szabó). We learn that Insoo had a sister living next door (Ahlers), was a very resilient woman (Aambø & Ahlers), had a large and bountiful garden, and that she could sew anything she set her mind to without a pattern (Lipchik). Mark McKergow likes to remember Steve as a Jazz man, and I'm listening to Billy Strayhorn's arrangements of Ellington as I write this review. Isebaert on the other hand spent hours listening to Mahler and Shostakovitch with him.
And of course the book illustrates...