Journal of Brief Therapy

Volume 5 Number 2 2006

Adventures in Time-Traveling:
Co-Creating Compelling Future Realities
with Families
Matthew D. Selekman, MSW, LCSW
Partners for Collaborative Solutions
Evanston, IL USA

This article describes the stages of the future-visioning process and presents several ways to use
future-oriented questions and the imaginary time machine experiment to co-construct compelling
future realities with clients. Both interventions can be used at any stage of treatment and are quite
versatile in how they can be used in therapy. Several case examples are provided to illustrate some
of the ways in which these interventions can be used. Specific clinical situations are also discussed
in which these methods may not work or need to be used later in the treatment process when clients
may be more receptive to trying them out.

Address all correspondence to the author at: 1819 Crain Street, Evanston, IL 60202 USA.

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Adventures in Time-Traveling
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
And the end and the beginning were always there
Before the beginning and after the end,
And all is always now.
---T.S. Elliot

One way therapists can creatively use themselves when feeling stuck and make therapy

sessions more adventurous is to tap their clients imagination powers to envision future
realities of success, have them go back in the past to uncover past successful problemsolving strategies and to re-story their mastery of past losses and traumatic events, and link
what worked from the past with the best from their emerging and compelling future realities.
The future-visioning process often begins with the therapist opening his self or herself up
from the heart and mind and seeing what can be for his or her clients, which together
with clients future visions for themselves pave the way for co-creation of compelling
future realities. In this article, I will further discuss the future-visioning process, present
the therapeutic advantages of using future-oriented questions (Selekman, 2006, 2005;
Tomm, 1987; Penn, 1985) when the treatment system is at an impasse and for goal-setting
purposes, and four new practical ways to utilize the imaginary time machine experiment
(Selekman, 2006, 2005, 1997) to empower clients through time-traveling to co-construct
solutions. Case examples are provided throughout.
Future-Visioning and Transformative Dialogues: Sensing, Presencing, and Realizing
There are three important and closely related stages to the future-visioning process;
they are: sensing, presencing, and realizing (Senge, Scharmer, Jaworski, & Flowers, 2005).
Although Senge and his colleagues have developed these ideas to empower leaders and
their teams of large corporations to create high performance learning environments, their
innovative ideas are quite applicable to the context of family therapy. By sensing, I am
referring to the moment in the first session or somewhere in the therapeutic process that we
begin to have visions in our minds, sometimes quite vivid and with great detail, of seeing
our clients succeeding in their futures minus their oppressive difficulties. During this sensemaking process, the boundaries collapse between the observer and the observed. This
process tends to happen more rapidly once we have established a meaningful connection
with our clients, suspend are inner voices of judgment and fear of taking risks, critically
examine our thinking while carefully listening to their problem stories, and strive to gain a
clear understanding of what specific difficulties they are currently struggling with and want
to resolve. Through listening carefully to our clients problem stories and best hopes for
themselves, they will provide us with important clues and glimpses of what can be in their
futures.
Presencing involves tuning in to, acting from our hearts, minds, and our highest

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potentials to try and bring forth the kind of ideal future realities our clients would like
for themselves. By opening up our minds and our clients to the unthinkable with their
situations, the sky is the limit for the possibilities with their future realities. Once the
presencing process gets set in motion, that is, the clients future becomes the now, this often
has a synergistic effect on our clients in which they begin to consider alternative paths for
action, reflect on how new doors have opened in their lives, and they have increased their
awareness of their key competencies and resourcefulness.
The realizing stage involves transforming action by having clients begin to test out their
newly constructed behaviors and relationships in their family, social, and larger systems
contexts they regularly interface with. Together, the family and the therapist can determine
which specific future behaviors they should begin experimenting with first to resolve
their current difficulties and improve their relationships in both their family and in other
social contexts. Clients can be asked to keep track of what newly implemented patterns of
behavior seem to work and any obstacles that seem to block the change process that need
to be addressed. In the next family session, the therapist can amplify and consolidate the
familys gains and make room for addressing any reported obstacles they had had that
seemed to block the implementation of other future-generated behaviors that they thought
would work. The therapist can offer the family a variety of change strategy options for
them to choose from that they think could remove these obstacles.
Future-Oriented Questions
The exciting thing about the future is that it has not happened yet. Therefore, this
future context is a gold mine for possibilities. When we find ourselves and our clients at
a standstill with therapeutic progress or the clients present reality is so overwhelming or
family members are dead-locked in intense conflicts or clinging to rigid beliefs about their
presenting problems, we can use the future as a way to launch the treatment system to a
place of liberation and success. Once we reach the clients description of future destinations
of success, they can be invited to describe in great detail the specific changes in their
family, extended family, and extra-familial relationships, as well as important changes
in school, work, and other larger systems contexts with which they interface. Inviting
clients to envision a future of success triggers positive emotion, which can help elevate
their levels of self-efficacy, hope, optimism, positive expectancy for change, and enhance
their creative problem-solving abilities (Fredrickson, 2002). The more detailed we can help
clients to be in articulating the specifics about what they will be doing in the future to better
cope with life stressors, to constructively and proactively resolve conflicts in relationships,
and function at a much higher level, the more likely we can co-create with them positive
self-fulfilling prophecies. What the clients describe as the keys to success for them in the
future can be co-constructed into a therapeutic experiment and implemented in the here and
now. The old adage: Nothing succeeds like success applies here. The case example that
follows illustrates how future-oriented questions can alter narrow and rigid parental beliefs,
raise hope, optimism, and positive expectancy for change levels, elicit client self-generated
pretreatment changes not previously mentioned, and empower clients to generate their own
novel and creative solutions.

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Hilda and Her Parents
Hilda, 16-years-old, was brought for a live family therapy case consultation by her
parents and her aunt conducted by me in the context of a workshop in Denmark
for cutting, substance abuse, breaking the parents rules, and involvement with a
boyfriend that has serious substance abuse and past police involvement. In spite
of these concerns, the parents number one worry was that Hilda had not worked
through their divorce of one year ago and this was affecting her poor choicemaking. Hilda was quite angry that she had to attend the consultation and her
14-year-old sister Anna got to stay at home. Because of this she proclaimed at the
beginning of the session that she would not talk. According to the aunt, Hilda and
Anna have had sibling conflicts ever since the latter was a toddler. Both parents,
Ingrid and Jan, reported that Hilda refused to talk to them regarding her feelings
about their divorce. The more the parents tried to get Hilda to open up about the
divorce issue in our consultation, the more she would resist talking. The only
information I could elicit from Hilda was her love for modern dance and a special
Brazilian dance and painting. To propel us out of the present stuck situation and get
us off the counter-productive divorce discussion, I asked the family the following
question: Lets say we were to run into one another at Tivoli Gardens one year
from now and each of you told me that things were going great, your relationships
were stronger, and you had more open lines of communications, what will you
tell me you did that was making the difference? Ingrid shared that she and Hilda
would travel more and would go to Brazil first especially since Hilda was very
interested in Brazilian culture and her most favorite type of dance was Brazilian.
Hilda smiled and said that she had been trying to teach her mother the Brazilian
dance but her mom was a slow learner. Everyone laughed. The mother promised
that she would take a class in this Brazilian dance before they would go there. She
also added that traveling alone with Hilda has always been a positive experience
for both of them. A few months earlier, Ingrid and Hilda had had a wonderful trip to
India together, which had been a bright spot in their relationship since the divorce.
Jan, who was a writer by profession, shared with all of us that he would be telling
me about the book project he and Hilda were working on together. It would be a
childrens book that Hilda would illustrate with her paintings. While Jan described
this exciting book project, Hilda seemed to perk up and was enthusiastic about
doing this meaningful project with her father. By the end of the consultation, family
members reported feeling much more hopeful about their situation and planned to
pursue the traveling and book project ideas. There also was an important shift in
the parents thinking about the necessity of Hildas needing to work through the
divorce situation. They now thought it would be much more productive to keep it
positive with Hilda when interacting with her and let her decide if and when she
wished to talk about the divorce and its effects on her.

In some cases, the use of future-oriented questions will help clients who were initially
unable to articulate their treatment goals to more easily define them. We can have them
walk their way back to the here and now identifying the steps they took to realize their
goals in their new future context of success. As part of this what if hypothetical future
scenario inquiry, I will request that family members begin some of their responses with the

Selekman 93
qualifier, Youre not going to believe this, but Next, when elaborating on the specifics
of what they are doing differently, including useful self-talk, they are to incorporate the
following words in their response:
Because I/we are doing ______________________________ instead of ____________
______________.
This helps them make a distinction between their former unproductive behaviors and
differences that make a difference. The clients can then be asked:
If you were to identify which one of these steps was most important in paving the
way for you to achieve your goals in the future, which one would it be?
When all of you leave my office later, what are each of you going to do to begin
making that goal a reality for you today?
If this is where the clients want to begin our work together, we then have successfully
negotiated their initial treatment goals. Future-oriented questions can be used as an
alternative to asking the miracle question (De Shazer, 1988) for goal-setting purposes and
may provide even more details about what their ideal treatment outcome pictures will
look like. Some families who have had extensive treatment, have been plagued by their
chronic difficulties for a long time, and are demoralized, may have a hard time entertaining
miracles happening for them, or even playing around with the idea of a hypothetical miracle
happening. Presenting these clients with a much more general and expansive framework
of time, may make it easier for them to entertain a future reality with many possibilities.
In addition, it invites them to tap their inventiveness and creativity to be the architects of
their futures.
Todd and His Parents
Todd, 16-years-old, was school referred by his social worker for having a long
history of underachieving in school. According to the parents and the school
social worker, Todd often would get off to a good start and then his grades would
quickly drop down to Ds and Fs in the second semester. Since 6th grade, both
the parents and his former and present teachers repeatedly found them selves
getting into power struggles with Todd regarding his doing his homework
and reminding him about seeking help when stuck. In addition to his school
performance difficulties, Todd had been in and out of counseling for depression
and anxiety problems since the age of 6. Joan, Todds mother, was a recovering
alcoholic and worried a great deal about Todd failing out of school. Another
stressor Todd grappled with was his parents marital difficulties. Todd felt that
they were always yelling at one another. When I had asked the miracle question
(DeShazer, 1988) and waited patiently for a family member to respond, I was
met with dead silence. I gently tried to get each family member to play around
with the idea. Both the parents and Todd could not even fathom the idea. To
better cooperate with their pessimism, I shifted gears and tried both the coping
and pessimistic questions (Berg , 1991) and they became even more pessimistic
with their responses. I got the following responses from the parents: I dont think

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he can change, I dont think counseling works with Todd, and finally Todd
responding with, I really have dug myself into a hole that I cant get myself out
of and My parents will never stop nagging me about doing my homework.
At this point, I decided to take a risk and introduce a future surprise meeting
with Todd and his parents at a popular mall one year from the day of our present
meeting using future-oriented questions. Surprisingly, the parents and Todd were
eager to tell me about their improvements with the family and school situations.
Both the parents and Todd were asked to respond to the what if hypothetical
future scenario by beginning some of their responses with the qualifier, Youre
not going to believe this, but before telling me about each improvement they
made happen. This was to be followed by each of them sharing, Because I/we are
doing __________________ instead of __________________. Finally, forty-five
minutes into the family session we had a breakthrough. The mother responded to
my question with, Youre not going to believe this, but I am less of a worry wart
and I have stopped nagging Todd about doing his homework. John, the father
said, Youre not going to believe this, but my wife and I arguing less with one
another. Todd shared, Youre not going to believe this, but I finished my junior
year with all Bs and did not have to go to summer school for once! I explored with
them what effect these changes have had on their relationships. They all reported
that the climate at home was more relaxed. The parents were also proud of Todd
for turning around his school situation. I inquired with Todd about useful selftalk he had employed to turn his school situation around. He said, I kept on telling
myself that I need to have better grades in order to get into college. This was the
first time the parents and I had heard Todd mention his desire to go to college in
our family session. The parents were delighted to hear Todd mention his future
goal of wanting to go to college. Todd also pointed out that it really helped that his
parents were not nagging him about doing homework and arguing anymore.
In an attempt to set initial treatment goals with the family, I asked them what step
each of them were going to take today to pave the way for their future success. The
parents initial treatment goal was to work on reducing their arguing and nagging
behaviors. Todd established the goal of using his self-talk tape about his desire to go
to college to help him be more focused in his classes and get his homework done.
He also agreed to seek help when stuck or confused with school work instead
of digging a hole that he could not get out of. In our next family session, Todd
and his parents came in reporting positive gains in their treatment goal areas.

The Imaginary Time Machine

The use of the imaginary time machine experiment can be employed to tap clients
inventiveness across temporal dimensions. This experiment not only can generate future
client solutions but traveling back in time can be used to identify and extract past successful
coping strategies and other constructive patterns of behavior that can serve as a roadmap
for helping clients resolve their current difficulties (Selekman, 2006, 2005, 1997). Having
clients go back in time can offer them a second chance to resolve conflicts with or say
parting words and good-byes to a loved one that they did not have a chance to see before
their deaths or after significant relationship break-ups. The imaginary time machine

Selekman 95
empowers them to achieve mastery and inject positive emotion into their past realities
where they may have experienced painful losses or other traumatic events. For example, I
asked Tanya, a 17-year-old Lithuanian client, the following questions to help prepare her
for the challenging work she wanted to do to change the quality of her relationship with her
father:
What if you could change the past?
What past painful or traumatic event would you want to change?
If you were to hop into my imaginary time machine back to the time you had
told me about when you were 13 and your father was drunk and physically out of
control, what would you have done differently in that situation?
How would that have made a difference?
What else would you have done differently so that this life event was less toxic
and you achieved mastery in this situation?
Now that you rejoined me in the session from your journey back into your past,
was there anything you learned from this experience that you can put to immediate
use in your relationship with your father today?
What makes you think that that can really work?
What if it blows up or doesnt produce the kind of results you are hoping for.
What is your plan B and plan C?
Tanya felt very disconnected from her father due to trust issues and his past drinking and
violent behaviors and she wanted to go back in time and let him know how his past actions
were upsetting to her and continue to haunt her today. There were some important things
that she had wanted to say to her father that she had kept a lid on for the past four years.
Tanya and Her Parents
Tanya was brought for counseling by her mother for cutting, depression, poor
grades in school, and for running around with a lot of Goth kids that the mother
did not approve of. Tara, the mother, felt that Tanya had a lot of unfinished business
with her alcoholic father. According to Tara, before her ex-husband Boriss
alcoholism problem spiraled out of control, he was a loving father and husband.
When intoxicated, Boris became violent and verbally threatening towards family
members. One time at the age of 13, he had slapped Tanya in the face after she
had sworn at him for hitting her mother. Since this incident, Tanya has felt very
ambivalent about her relationship with her father. Although she was pleased with
his three and a half years of sobriety and regular Alcoholics Anonymous meeting
attendance, trying to be a better father, and treating her mother with more respect,
Tanya disclosed that she still harbored a lot of angry and sad feelings about her
past relationship with him. To cope with these overwhelming feelings and before
she would have a visitation with her father, she would cut herself as a way to
soothe herself and combat these unpleasant feelings. I offered her the opportunity
to take my imaginary time machine back in time and say what she would have
really wanted to say to her father and accomplish whatever else she would want to
do so that her past relationship with her father would no longer haunt her today.
Tanya went back to the age of 13. The first thing she would have done differently

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was not allow her father to hit her, not swear at her father, and get herself, her
younger brother Steven, and her mother out of the house until her father dried out.
Typically, on Sundays her father remained sober for the bulk of the day. While back
in time, Tanya would have approached her father on that first Sunday to tell him
how much she loved him and missed all of the past times they would bike ride and
hang out at the mall together. She also would share with him how his drinking
worried her and that she and other family members may get seriously hurt and
how scary that is for her to live with. After returning back from re-visiting her
former relationship with her active drinking father, Tanya courageously agreed to
have a meeting with her father and me (MS) to say directly to him what she said
to him when she had traveled back in time. Boris had recently contacted me to see
if we could do some family sessions with Tanya, so the timing was perfect for this
father-daughter session. Tanya wanted to see if her father would want to re-instate
their going bike riding and hanging out at the mall again. I asked her to also think
about other hopes and goals she had for their relationship. To cover the back door
with Tanya, I asked her if she had any concerns about her fathers ability to really
listen to and validate her. She did not think this would be a problem. However, she
planned to not to let her guard totally down in our first meeting with the father.
Tanya left our session very confident and hopeful that her relationship with her dad
could get stronger.

The family session with Boris and Tanya went extremely well. Not only did Boris
listen intently to Tanyas concerns and upset feelings about the devastating effects his
alcoholism had on the family but how it has continued to haunt her to this very day and
contributed to the distance in their relationship. Boris was totally open to re-instating the
long bike rides and hanging out at the mall to bring back some of the good from the
past. The father also included re-instating going out for ice cream, which Tanya forgot
to mention as a favorite pastime of both her and her fathers. He also did a nice job of
educating Tanya on the disease of alcoholism and how his father was a violent drunk and
eventually died from alcoholism before Tanya was born. Tanyas thinking about her father
had changed after learning about the victimizing effects alcoholism had had on her father
and his father. Through the use of externalizing questions (White 2007), Tanya began to
see the real villain in her family story as being alcoholism and not her father. Overtime,
as Tanyas relationship grew stronger with her father, her depression uplifted, she stopped
cutting, and she broke ties with her Goth crew of friends.
Clients going back in time and saying what they prefer to say to a parent, relative,
or a friend who had hurt them and having an opportunity to do things differently and
experiencing more personal control and being equipped with a well thought out action
plan, can help them achieve mastery and neutralize the emotional impact of a traumatic
event; doing this can liberate them from the shackles of their painful pasts. On a cautionary
note, therapists need to make sure that the adolescent or parent they are inviting to go
back in time and do some meaningful personal work at better managing a painful loss or a
traumatic event are emotionally stable enough to handle this challenging task.

Clients also can travel back in time to a place where they may have felt a stronger
emotional connection with a disengaged parent or a partner in a couple situation and felt more
in love with or respected by his/her partner. Whatever worked in the past can be reinstated

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in their present relationship with the parent or partner. In some cases, having parents take
the imaginary time machine back into the past to a time when they had entertained trying
something really strange and off-the-wall as a new parental response to their adolescents
acting out behavior but resisted testing it out could serve as a novel and effective parental
solution strategy for their son or daughters present problem behavior. The following case
example illustrates how a past creative parental idea that was not tested out could be used
successfully in the here and now to help resolve an adolescents longstanding difficulties
with oppositional and explosive behaviors, thus empowering the parents.
Darren and His Parents
Tom and Stella came in alone for our first family meeting. According to the parents,
their tyrannical and angry 17-year-old son Darren was ruling the roost and
refused to come in for family therapy because he told them, You are the ones
with the problem! I was the third therapist the parents had been to in an attempt to
get help for Darrens problems with anger management and defiant behavior. For
the past 5 years, Darren has been calling the shots and the parents felt like they
had no control over him. In the past, the parents shared that Darren has kicked
in doors and punched holes in his bedroom wall when they have attempted to
place limits on him. The parents openly admitted that they had spoiled Darren
by buying him mostly what he wanted and using money as an attempt to bribe
him to behave better. They felt sorry for him being an only child because they
were unable to conceive more children. The parents felt guilty about this and
were very pessimistic about their ability to take back control of the household and
change Darrens behavior. As an experiment, I had the parents take the imaginary
time machine back to a place in the past 5 years where they had come up with a
strange or off-the-wall strategy that they had thought about trying out with Darren
but for whatever reasons thought it would not work and scratched it as attempted
parental solution. Tom took the time machine back with his wife to 3 years earlier
where he had come up with the off-the-wall idea of them having their suitcases
packed and by the front door when Darren came home from school. When
asked where they were going, the parents, with serious tones of voices, would
tell Darren that it was time for them to move out of his home and his life
would be much better if they were out of his way. The parents also would share
with him that they felt liked they had failed him and did not want to stress
him out anymore. Tom felt strongly that his idea might have really worked. After
hearing this creative and off-the-wall idea, I asked the parents if they thought it
might be worthwhile field-testing their experiment now. They both felt that they
had nothing to lose trying it out. The parents decided to do this on a Wednesday
around 4:00 PM when Darren would be home from school. One week later, not
only did the parents come to the session but they were accompanied by Darren.
I asked Darren why he had decided to come with his parents to see me. Darren
shared his concerns about his parents really losing it. I asked him what he meant
by really losing it. He proceeded to tell me how he had spent nearly 4 hours
trying to convince his parents not to move out. I asked him if this was the first
time that they had ever threatened to do this and told me Yes. I further inquired
of him if there was anything else they had said or did that concerned him. Darren

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said, They told me they had failed me as parents and they had their heads down
and looked really bummed. Darren further added, Even after I had told them that
I really loved them, they looked very sad, and had refused to unpack their suitcases
and kept them by the front door. I asked him what he had been doing over the past
week to show them that he does not want them to leave. Darren reported that he was
doing his homework, not swearing at or arguing with his parents, and doing
his chores. I asked the parents if Darren was doing enough to keep them from
moving out. Tom and Stella both felt that they would need to see these behaviors
continued another month to even consider the idea of unpacking their suitcases.
Darren had a worried look on his face. I asked him if he was concerned about his
ability to keep making good choices and taking responsibility for another month
knowing that one slip could really cost him. Darren made a firm commitment to
keep working hard. When I met alone with the parents, I complimented them on
their Academy Award performances and encouraged them to continue to play their
roles as bummed out parents that could possibly move out at any time, particularly
if Darren gets sloppy and has a slip. The parents felt like they were back in charge
and were much more confident that they could turn Darrens behavior completely
around. I recommended to the parents to keep doing what works.

Not only did Darren successfully achieve the parents goal but he also discovered that
there were benefits to being responsible. He eventually earned the privilege of getting his
drivers license and driving his fathers car. There was no yelling, he enjoyed spending
more quality time fishing with his dad and going to Major League Baseball games, and his
mother no longer nagged him about doing chores and his homework. The biggest bonus
was that the parents were now in charge of their household and gained their sons respect.
Clients also can be instructed to take the imaginary time machine several years ahead into
the future to a place where their key family relationships have changed for the better. For
example, an adolescent who presently has a highly conflicted relationship with her parents
is now 32-years-old, living on her own, likes her job, and is financially self-sufficient. She
can be invited to describe visiting her parents and how their relationship has changed for the
better. We can elicit from her the specific details about what changed and how it is making
a difference in this future scenario. By having this invaluable discussion in front of her
parents, it offers them important insights about what adjustments they can make in the here
and now to improve their relationships with their daughter. It can loosen up fixed beliefs
that the parents may cling to about the daughter being irresponsible, not wanting to resolve
their conflicts, and having some sort of mental disorder. Finally, using the imaginary time
machine experiment in this fashion elicits clients expertise and resourcefulness to generate
solutions for their current difficulties.
Curt and His Parents
Curt, a Caucasian17-year-old, was brought for counseling for substance abuse,
poor grades in school, constantly violating the parents rules, tormenting his
younger brother, and running around with a negative peer group. Luke, Curts 12
year-old-brother, was an A student and was described as being angelic by the
mother Barbara. Bob, the father, shared that he wished Curt would be more like
Luke. He worried that his son would eventually turn into a loser drug addict. The

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parents did not bring Luke to the session because they thought it would have had a
negative effect on him. It was rather obvious that parental favoritism of Luke was
fueling some of Curts acting out behaviors and bullying of Luke. In fact, Curt
pointed out that Luke gets away with a lot like taking things out of my room! The
parents downplayed some of the ways Luke had a tendency to set Curt off. They
also went off on a long monolog on how they have always had problems with
Curt. I was the fifth therapist they had been to in the last six years. After asking the
miracle question (De Shazer, 1988), I was met with mass silence and eventually an
onslaught of pessimistic responses from the parents and Curt. When I shifted gears
and asked them: How come things are not much worse? They all felt that things
will be getting much worse. Even the use of pessimistic sequence questions failed
to elevate family members hope levels and create any possibilities. To help propel
us out of this bottomless vortex of pessimism, I introduced the imaginary time
machine experiment. I invited Curt to hop into my imaginary time machine and
take it to a future place where he is living on his own, landed a job that he really
loves, and is financially self-sufficient. Curt was now 24-years-old, a graphic art
designer working for a well-respected marketing advertisement firm, and living in
a condominium close to Lake Michigan. I asked Curt how things have changed in
his relationships with his parents. They will be telling me that they are proud of
me and I wont hear them say that I am a loser or Why cant you be like Luke
anymore. He further added, My father and I will be able to talk about my work
projects and my new girlfriend. I asked Curt how things will have changed in his
relationship with his mother. Curt said his mother will be much more supportive
and very interested in how things were going for him at work and in his life.
While Curt described his future vision of success for himself, the parents were very
attentive and appeared pleased to hear that their son could transcend the current
reality of difficulties and envision a future of success for himself. This experiment
gave the parents newfound hope that things could improve. They also learned from
their sons expert guidance what they could do differently now to pave the way
for his future success, such as: stopping the comparisons with Luke, stopping the
parental criticisms, calling Curt a loser, and taking an interest in what is important
to him. Curt was very excited about the prospect of working toward achieving
his future goals for himself. Our future family sessions were much more positive
and productive and plans were in the works for Curt to apply to art and design
schools, to continue to improve his academic performance, to stay away from
certain people and places, and make some new drug-free friends.
Another way the imaginary time machine can be employed in the future is to have the
child or adolescent think about an adventure trip he or she would like to go on with his or
her parents. In order to prepare the child or adolescent for the trip, the therapist can ask the
following questions:
If you were to hop into my imaginary time machine, and take your parents on an
adventure trip in the future, where would you take them?
Why would you take them there?
What kind of adventurous and challenging activities would you do together?

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As your parents fearless leader, what strengths and talents will they come to know
that you possess that will help them (climb the mountain, stay on the camels back,
make it through the jungle unscathed, etc.)?
Who will have the toughest time with this adventure trip?
What will you say or do to help your mother enjoy the trip more?
What else will do to help make this the best trip she ever had?
Not only does this fun use of the imaginary time machine trigger positive emotion but
the parents viewing of the child or adolescent changes. He or she shines with creativity,
competency, and expertise. All family members learn from one another how to get along
better and what specific patterns of interaction they need to do more of. The added bonus
with this playful experiment is that some families actually decide to go on the adventure
trip!
Charlie and His Parents
Charlie, an adopted Guatamalan11-year-old, was school-referred for family
counseling by his social worker for problems with anger management, fighting,
constantly arguing with his mother, and oppositional behavior. Charlie was on the
school hit list for beating up a fellow peer at school. Although Charlie had
some behavioral challenges, he was an excellent student with many intellectual
gifts. Charlie had three adopted siblings from different birth parents, a sister 7-years
old, and 10 and 15-year-old brothers. The parents had no behavioral difficulties
with their other adopted children. The first two family therapy sessions proved to
be futile, even when I met individually with Charlie, I found myself doing most
of the talking in an effort to engage him. Ellie, the mother, had a tendency to
bring up everything that Charlie had done wrong. David, the father, was more laid
back and pointed out that he rarely had arguments with Charlie when they were
together. He shared that Charlie was very athletic and strong for his age. When
asked what he did with Charlie that seemed to work in preventing arguments with
him, he was unable to identify any specific parenting strategies that seemed to
work when they were together. In both of our family therapy sessions, the use of
the miracle, coping, and pessimistic questions (De Shazer et al., 2007) failed to
produce any small realistic treatment goals and no potential building blocks for coconstructing solutions. In our third family session, I decided to try and inject more
playfulness and fun into our meeting by introducing the imaginary time machine. I
invited Charlie to hop into my imaginary time machine and take his parents on an
adventure trip anywhere in the world he was longing to visit. He decided to take his
parents with him to the Great Barrier Reef off the northeast coast of Australia.
They went scuba diving and saw beautiful tropical fish, were dropped into the
heart of Reef and Bull Shark territory in a special cage, and he and his father
went deep sea fishing for a day and reeled in a few huge marlins. Charlie lit up
with excitement and great enthusiasm while describing the details of their family
adventure. The parents also seemed to enjoy hearing the details about Charlies
family adventure dream trip. However, Ellie felt quite uncomfortable with the shark
cage part of the adventure. I asked Charlie what strengths and talents his parents
would come to know on their family adventure trip. He said: That I am fearless, I

Selekman 101
can be a great leader, and to trust me. I asked him how he would help his mother
get over her fears about going down below in the shark cage. Charlie would offer
to hold his mothers hand and reassure her that she was completely safe in
the cage with him. Ellie appreciated Charlies desire to want to comfort her. This
was a side of Charlie that she had not seen a lot of lately. David shared with Charlie
that he was impressed with his family leadership abilities. Although the family
could not afford a family trip to Australia, they decided to put Charlie in charge
of planning out a fun Florida Keys family trip, which would involve snorkeling
and a day of deep sea fishing. We also came up with some other ways Charlie
could have a leadership role around the house, like helping his younger sister with
her challenging schoolwork. The parents also enrolled Charlie in wall-climbing
and strength-training classes at their local YMCA so that he could channel his
aggressive energy into positive activities.
Once the parents provided Charlie with more opportunities to utilize his natural
leadership abilities and Ellie stopped her incessant nagging and yelling at him about his
household responsibilities, squabbling with his siblings, and practicing playing his guitar,
he became more cooperative and there were less angry flare-ups at home and at school.
Charlie really enjoyed the wall-climbing and strength-training classes. Through a lot of
internet research and contacts with a local travel agent friend of the parents, Charlie had
planned out a wonderful Christmas school break family trip to the Florida Keys.
Limitations of the Future-Oriented Approach
Although it has been my clinical experience that most families respond well to the
use of future-oriented questions and time-traveling with the imaginary time machine, the
timing of when to use these therapeutic methods is critical. Some families may need more
time to share their long problem-saturated stories before entertaining a different kind of
future reality for themselves. I have experienced some families that appear to be frozen in
time and stuck in their traumatic pasts. They have grave difficulty entertaining the prospects
of having brighter future realities. In some cases, having these families take the imaginary
time machine back in time to empower them to manage their past traumatic events in a
more constructive or different way can neutralize the negative effects of these experiences,
which can liberate them from the clutches of their painful pasts. However, they may need
to talk more about these traumatic events before trying to take action to ameliorate the
negative effects of these experiences. As therapists, we need to be patient and respectful
with these families. It is important to remember that learning more about their past negative
life experiences offers us valuable insights about their resilience, resourcefulness, and the
wisdom they gained from these experiences, which can be tapped and used in the now with
them.
Conclusion
In this article, I have described the stages of the future-visioning process and presented
several different ways to use future-oriented questions and the imaginary time machine
experiment to co-construct compelling future realities with our clients. Both therapeutic
methods can be used at any stage of treatment and are quite versatile in the various ways

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Adventures in Time-Traveling

they can be utilized. I also have discussed specific clinical situations where these methods
may not work or need to be used later in the treatment process when clients may be more
receptive or ripe for trying them out. Clearly, the full potential of these therapeutic methods
has not begun to be realized. My hope is that readers will be adventurous and look for new
ways to expand their possibilities with their clients.
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