Insoo Kim Berg


Insoo Kim Berg was a Korean-born American psychotherapist who was a pioneer of solution focused brief therapy.

Biography

Berg was born and raised in Seoul, Korea. She was a pharmacy major at Ewha Womans University in Seoul. In 1957, she travelled to the United States after her marriage to Charles Berg. She began her studies at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 1960, earning undergraduate and graduate degrees in social work. She subsequently began her social work practice in Milwaukee. Berg and her first husband, Charles, divorced in 1972. They have a daughter, Sarah K. Berg.
Berg completed post-graduate studies at the Family Institute of Chicago, the Menninger Foundation in Kansas, and the Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto, California. At the MRI she also met her future husband, Steve de Shazer. She and Steve married in June of 1977.
Berg died on January 10, 2007 in Milwaukee, at the age of 72.

Solution-focused brief therapy

In 1978, Berg and de Shazer co-founded the Brief Family Therapy Center in Milwaukee. Berg was the executive director and a clinician at the BFTC. Berg and de Shazer are recognized as the primary developers of solution-focused brief therapy, which emerged from research they conducted at the BFTC in the 1980s, building upon studies conducted at the Mental Research Institute.
Berg led training workshops on solution-focused therapy in countries around the world, including Japan, South Korea, Denmark, and Germany. She authored a number of books on solution-focused approaches to therapy.

Works