Who Is Steven Deshazer

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Who Is Steve DeShazer Steve DeShazer was a psychotherapist, author, developer and pioneer of solution focused brief therapy. DeShazer was born in 1940 in Milwaukee on the shores of Lake Michigan. His father was an electrical engineer and his mother an opera singer. Deshazer was originally trained as a classical musician and worked as a jazz saxophonist. He received a Bachelor in Fine Arts and an MS in Social Work from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. DeShazer was known as a pioneer in the field of family therapy, and was referred to in his later years as the “Grand old man of family therapy.” He was known for reversing the traditional psychotherapy interview process by asking clients to describe a detailed resolution of the problem that brought them into therapy, thereby shifting the focus of treatment from problems to solutions. Early in his career, DeShazer studied with Milton Erickson, whose work influenced the founders of the strategic family therapy. According to Gladding, solution focused therapy grew out of the strategic family therapy, Another great influence on DeShazer was the mentorship of, and his subsequent close friendship with, John Weakland of the Brief Therapy Center, Palo Alto. Weakland, who was also an early student and researcher of Milton Erickson, was a native of Charleston, W. VA. He entered Cornell University at the age of 16 and received a degree in chemical engineering. He worked as a chemical engineer with the DuPont Company before a chance encounter with Gregory Bateson led him to pursue anthropology at Columbia University while working on the Cultures at a Distance Project with Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict. Weakland never obtained his doctorate from Columbia; rejecting his adviser’s criticisms of his thesis, he refused to rewrite it. It was Weakland who put him in touch with the woman who would become his wife,
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