Treatment Planning and Interventions · Orientation Matching

Which Approach, or Combination

Six presentations and the twelve orientations from the comparison matrix. The shelf shows you each one's primary target rather than what it is best suited to, so the match has to be reasoned rather than read off.

What this exercise practises

Matching a formulation to the orientation whose core mechanism addresses it, recognising when a presentation calls for a single frame and when it calls for several, and holding each orientation's named limitation as part of the choice.

Four of the six cases have a genuine second-best answer. The notes say what separates it from the first, because in practice that distinction is the clinical reasoning.

Estimated time to complete this exercise: 20 minutes

1Six cases
2Integration
3Close

Before you begin

How this one works

Six presentations. For each one, choose the orientation you would reach for first from the twelve in Figure 2.1.
The shelf shows each orientation's primary target rather than what it is best suited to, so the match has to be reasoned from mechanism rather than read off a label.
Every one of the twelve carries a note in every case, so a near miss gets an argument rather than a cross. Several cases have a genuine second-best answer and the notes say what separates them.
Nothing is graded and nothing is recorded. Reloading starts it again.

No single theoretical orientation is best suited to all sexual health presentations. The clinical question is not which approach do I use, but which approach, or combination of approaches, best fits this formulation.

References

  1. Schnarch, D. (1997). Passionate marriage: Keeping love and intimacy alive in committed relationships. W. W. Norton.
  2. Weeks, G. R., & Fife, S. T. (2014). Couples in treatment: Techniques and approaches for effective practice (3rd ed.). Routledge.