Escucha: percibe las diferencias y transforma tu vida (Listen: perceive the differences and transform your life) by Julio Principe (Spanish)
Planeta, 2025, 204pp, ISBN 9786123321154, €9.99 e-book
To read this review in Spanish, click here
The book is especially relevant today, as it serves as a useful guide for the self-assessment and continuous supervision of therapists—fundamental processes for their personal and professional growth. Throughout its pages, it presents solution-focused thinking, addressing principles, strategies, and specific tools for both individual and family work (De Shazer et al., 2021). In this way, it revitalizes the systemic and constellation approach through the use of techniques that may incorporate psychodramatic elements, as well as the use of objects, images, or symbolic representations (Silvestri, 2025).
Likewise, the text invites deep reflection on the conception of life and the inspiration each person finds in their own process of change. It encourages the reader to engage in introspective practice, assuming the role of what the author calls a “host” or “systemic gardener,” capable of accompanying the growth and flourishing of others.
The book achieves its goal by showing how the therapist can facilitate the individual’s connection with their own resources and preferred future through a focus on the present and what lies ahead. Through peripheral, non–problem-centered questions, change is naturally suggested, promoting a more human, empathetic, and non-pathologizing practice that recovers what the person already knows and values about themselves (Neipp et al., 2021).
Furthermore, the text is interactive, allowing the reader to answer questions and experience how the tools work in their own process. This dynamic nature reveals its strong systemic foundation, highlighting the therapist’s role as a facilitator of the client’s personal life map and sense of meaning. The use of maps, graphical representations, and sequences of questions that motivate reflection and change is particularly interesting, as they enable the client to move toward a desired quadrant—one that combines the aspired future with what feels exciting or meaningful to them.
The author bases his proposal on a therapeutic conversation structured around an acronym that summarizes five fundamental principles: Clarity, Humility, Appreciation, Resources, Language, and Action. Each of these guides the professional toward a more effective intervention focused on respecting the client’s narrative.
However, the book could have gone deeper into group and individual management within organizational psychology, as developed by other authors. It would also be valuable to specify in greater detail the theoretical foundations that support the approach, beyond general mentions. Likewise, there is a need to expand the reflection on the self-evaluation of therapists, as well as other helping professionals—such as coaches or psychologists—to strengthen their self-reflective practice (Chung et al., 2021).
Throughout the text, the author maintains a clear position based on his professional training and clinical experience. He explains how he integrates the solution-focused approach with structural family constellations, showing this complementary framework through clinical vignettes that exemplify his techniques, movements, and therapeutic outcomes, as observed throughout the progression of therapy detailed in (Hsu et al., 2021).
The book is aimed at professionals and students interested in the solution-focused approach and its practical applications. It offers techniques and resources for activating personal and family strengths, as well as graphical strategies that facilitate joint decision-making with the client, fostering the construction of a desired future. In addition, it provides self-assessment tools that help the therapist act from a dialogical and collaborative stance rather than imposing a rigid theoretical framework (Walker et al., 2022).
Finally, its practical application spans various contexts. In clinical practice, it can be used in the consulting room or independent interventions, helping to find solutions to simple problems using the client’s own resources. In work with teams or institutions, the techniques can be employed to analyze collective problems and develop joint solutions, supported by group evaluation or assessment. Similarly, the approach can be adapted to educational and school counseling settings, especially in situations of conflict or interpersonal difficulties among students.
In summary, this book represents a valuable tool for reflection, self-assessment, and professional growth, promoting a more hopeful, constructive, and human perspective of the therapeutic process.
More about the book on the publisher’s website:
https://www.planetadelibros.com/libro-escucha-percibe-las-diferencias-y-transforma-tu-vida/423138