The Directive Printer

Why the Directive Matters

In strategic therapy, what happens between sessions is often more important than what happens in the room. The directive — the specific task you assign a client to carry out before the next meeting — is the primary vehicle of change. Haley was insistent on this: therapy that stays in the office stays theoretical. The directive takes it home.

A printed directive carries weight that a verbal instruction does not. When a client walks out with a document — their name on it, your clinic letterhead at the top, the task spelled out clearly — it becomes real. It sits on the kitchen counter. It gets folded into a pocket. It is harder to forget, harder to dismiss, and harder to renegotiate in the retelling. The printed page is a commitment device, and it costs you nothing but thirty seconds at the end of a session.