The Salem Center's mission is to teach, research, and practice psychotherapy in ways that are respectful and accountable to our clients' lives and relationships.
Our mission orients us to teach, research, and practice...
— Therapy where the clients’ well-being, knowledge, expertise, and life skills significantly shape the course of therapeutic dialogue.
— Respect for the specific and idiosyncratic preferences and circumstances of people who seek our consultation for problems in their lives, relationships, families, and/or communities.
— In ways that do not re-create the hurtful power relationships that often exist outside therapy.
— Therapy approaches that place clients' lived experience, language and understanding at the center of our work, not professional, pathological, scientific or empirical metaphors and constructs.
— In ways that expose the discourses, often taken for granted, that can invisibly oppress clients' lives and relationships.
— Where clients' accounts of their experiences with us significantly inform our learning.
— for the betterment of our local community.
The therapy approaches that currently best fit with our mission and orientation include:
— Narrative Therapy in the tradition of Michael White and Dulwich Centre, Adelaide, South Australia.
— Dialogic Therapy in the tradition of Tom Andersen and the Community Institute of Medicine, Tromso, Norway; Peggy Penn and the Ackerman Institute in New York City; and Lynn Hoffman and the Dialogic Center in Easthampton, Massachusetts.