A book is never written by the authors alone. It is always a team effort and the authors just get to have their names on the cover. We want to thank family, friends, trainees, clients, and workshop participants, all of whom have contributed in their own unique ways.
We want to say a special thanks to Insoo Kim Berg and Steve de Shazer. Through our association and friendship with each of them, we have grown tremendously. We feel honored to be the spokespersons for many of their contributions to the development of Brief Therapy that they shared with us.
John wants to thank Insoo for first asking him, “Why do you want to be a Brief Therapist? It could be a very upsetting change.” Jane wants to thank Steve for reminding her to be “simpleminded.”
We also want to offer a special thank you to Eve Lipchik, who was the first to suggest that we write a manual. Her support was gentle in each reminder of “You can do it.”
We want to thank our friends, Jill Freedman and Gene Combs, who having struggled through the writing and publication of their own book, were a constant source of encouragement and helpful hints.
John wants to thank Michael Banks. Through Michael’s outsider’s curiosity and provoking questions, John sharpened and developed his own thinking about what we do. Michael’s enthusiasm for our project was always there.
Jane wants to thank her chairperson at Northeastern Illinois University, Wanda Bracy, for giving her the release time to work on the book. She also wants to thank Wanda for enhancing Jane’s confidence in being able to take on any project by their mutual suffering through the self-study of their department.
We want to thank all the individuals who read some of the manuscript and offered us much appreciated feedback. We want to thank Bert Peller, who went over the manuscript many times and always managed to sneak in a compliment before making a suggestion. We also want to thank Victor Wagner, Mary Jo Barrett, and Goldie Lansky for offering not only their suggestions, but also their confusion as we struggled to give words to our ideas.
We want to thank du Ree Bryant, Kate Kowalski, and Kevin O’Connor whose excitement continued to give us energy. We want to thank Jim Weiss who not only kept us in a frame of humor, but also kept our sometimes “resistant” computer up and running.
Of course, there is everyone else who simply asked “How is it going?” and then had the patience to listen.
Our final thanks goes to our editors, Natalie Gilman and Suzi Tucker, whose steady voices on the phone kept us focused during anxious moments.