IS CONSTRUCTIVIST PSYCHOTHERAPY EPISTEMOLOGICALLY FLAWED

Barbara Held has taken postmodern therapists to task for making ''real ity claims'' when they have presumably committed themselves to an anti realist epistemology. She is concerned that by focusing so exclusively on individual client narratives, they ignore important aspects of the client's ''extralinguistic'' world. Held suggests that constructivist therapists adopt a ''modest realism'' within which they could (a) tai lor therapy methods to individual clients, (b) further systemize thera peutic principles, (c) give extralinguistic reality its due, and (d) m ake truth claims. The authors argue that the problems she identifies d erive largely from the distinctions with which she insists on framing the debate. They agree that constructivists are not always crystal cle ar about the implications of their epistemology, but it would accompli sh little if they were to retreat to the realist posture she proposes.