Confrontive Inquiry

At this point, the consultant begins to share their own ideas about and reactions to the process and content of the story. By sharing their own ideas, consultants “confront” the client to think about the situation from a new perspective.

The essence of confrontive inquiry is that the consultant inserts their own ideas about the process or content of the story into the conversation. Instead of merely forcing the client to elaborate, the consultant now makes suggestions or offers options that may not have occurred to the client. The consultant now asks questions such as the following (Schein, 1999, p. 47):

• Did you confront him (her, them) about that?
• Could you ____________?
• Did it occur to you that you that (he, she, they) did that because they were anxious? [in the situation where the client has not revealed any awareness of that emotional possibility]

When formulating confrontive inquiry questions, the consultant can key in on either process or content ideas.

The following are process ideas (ideas on how things are said and done):

• Could you have done the following: ____________?
• Have you thought about doing ____________?
• Why have you not ____________?
• Have you considered these other options? You could ____________?

The following are content ideas (ideas on what is said and done):

• Have you considered the possibility that you overreacted?
• Did that make you feel angry (anxious, elated, etc.)?
• Maybe what was going on was really something different from what you thought.

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References

Schein, E. (1999). Process consultation revisited: Building the helping relationship. Addison-Wesley.