What Can Design Thinking Learn from Behavior Group Therapy? [chapter]

Julia von Thienen, Christine Noweski, Christoph Meinel, Sabine Lang, Claudia Nicolai, Andreas Bartz
2012 Design Thinking Research  
Some widely-used approaches in Behavior Group Therapy bear a striking resemblance to Design Thinking. They invoke almost identical processmodels and share central maxims like "defer judgement" or "go for quantity". Heuristics for composing groups (mixed!) and preferred group sizes (4-6) are very much alike as well. Also, the roles ascribed to therapists are quite similar to that of Design Thinking coaches. Given these obvious analogies, it is most natural to ask what the two traditions can
more » ... from one another -and why it is that they are so strikingly alike. This article ultimately hopes to inspire further investigations by giving examples of how Design Thinking may profit from taking a look at Behavior Group Therapy. We will discuss (a) new techniques for coaches to detect and treat personal dissonances that impede project work, (b) new methods for teams to upgrade empathy, find crucial needs or test prototypes and (c) theoretical insights regarding what happens in the process.
doi:10.1007/978-3-642-31991-4_16 fatcat:hhlxaaqrdzd6jmdbk6lgqqqvui