This is a handbook for becoming solution-focused and for constructing solutions in brief therapy. Throughout the past several years, we have provided training for professionals who want to work “briefly.” They want to work in a positive way with people, and do not believe that pathologizing is useful. Workshop participants have consistently told us they wanted something more than just a workshop, something more than only an introduction, something useful they could look at between sessions, something they could use to practice with, something that would keep their learning going. The message was clear. This manual, Becoming Solution-Focused in Brief Therapy is our answer to all those requests.
In this manual, we describe how we came to a solution orientation. We describe the positive assumptions that inform our work, and then, in step-by-step fashion, provide a sequence of skill-building chapters.
Chapter One reviews the historical progression of assumptions that have informed therapy models for the past hundred years. By examining the presuppositions within the major questions that led to model development, we describe several trends. This leads to the presuppositions of the founding question of a solution-focused approach, “How do we construct solutions?”
Chapter Two lists and explains the 12 assumptions that guide the authors’ thoughts and actions. In sum, the assumptions reflect the authors’ positive and future-oriented approach.
Chapter Three describes how the therapist can begin to converse with a client on a positive basis by assuming rapport and using presuppositions within questions. The theme—that what we presuppose, even by asking a question, already influences the direction of response and the further direction of the therapeutic conversation—is carried throughout the book.
Chapter Four describes our operating metaphor, that of movie-making, with our clients being both the directors and the principal actresses or actors. We assume that our expertise is not in evaluating normality or pathology but in facilitating movie-making processes. We assume that a well-defined goal is critical in order for movie-making to take place and for the therapy conversation to open up differences and possibilities. This chapter makes explicit the six criteria for a well-defined goal and how to make it easy for clients to create their goal within these guidelines.
Chapter Five provides an overview of the pathways of constructing solutions. The all-important distinction of wishes and complaints versus goals and problems is made first. Then the overview is laid out in terms of frames and the accompanying questions:
Chapter Six is designed to assist the reader to develop skills in how to use the hypothetical solution questions while Chapter Seven helps the reader develop skills in the use of the exceptions questions.
Chapter Eight operationalizes even further our positive orientation by detailing how to offer positive feedback and solution-developing tasks.
Chapter Nine describes how to keep change going and how to make sure the therapy is brief Suggestions are given for subsequent sessions, spacing sessions, and concluding therapy.
Chapter Ten focuses on those situations where the client initially thinks the problem and the solution are out of his or her control. The chapter explains techniques in how to create with clients control and responsibility over their solutions in both the therapy conversation and the tasks we suggest.
Chapter Eleven concentrates on those situations where solutions take place between people, such as marital problems, family problems, or any problems when more than one person is involved. Chapter Twelve’s focus dovetails with this chapter by discussing the situation where the client wants someone else to change or expects the solution to be a change in someone else.
Chapter Thirteen, Cooperating, is devoted to the metaphor of dance. The therapy conversation is a dance; as therapists, we need a variety of conversational skills in order to be flexible with the different dance styles of our clients. This chapter lists six ways of conversing differently with clients when the conversation appears positive, nearly hopeless, impossible, or “yes, but.”
Chapter Fourteen is designed to help the reader integrate skills into a total package. While all the previous chapters have included parts of case examples or sample conversations, this chapter is devoted exclusively to examples of complete cases from start to finish.
Chapters Fifteen and Sixteen focus on the importance of the distinction of voluntary and involuntary client, along with facilitating the involuntary client’s identifying a goal for therapy.
The concluding chapter lists some ways to recheck yourself when you think you are stuck. We then offer some final suggestions.
The book is organized so that successive chapters are sequential and skill-building. Each chapter lists an assumption of the approach that is pertinent to learning the skills of that chapter. Each chapter provides explanations and demonstrations of a particular skill and is followed by the questions most frequently asked at our workshops.
As a manual, this book also provides exercises and worksheet pages accompanying appropriate chapters. The exercises are targeted to the skill development and the worksheet pages of that chapter. You may find it helpful to copy and take the material, especially the worksheets, into your sessions or practice seminars.
We add one qualification before you start. We use the word “therapy” throughout the manual although we would rather have used some other word. We do not like the connotations of “treatment,” pathology, and expertness of the therapist that “therapy” implies. We would rather stay true to the belief that there is nothing wrong with people, that they have all they need—and that if they are having difficulty, we could just as easily explain such difficulty as due to bad luck as opposed to pathology.
We thought of using the word “counseling” as opposed to therapy, but too many people think of counseling as inferior to therapy. We thought of the word “consulting,” but concluded that people most often think of that in regard to non-personal problems. We thought of “conversational facilitator.” However, without an in depth and exhaustive explanation of the reasons for that choice, we feared most people would be confused or think the choice cumbersome.
We regret that there is no commonly accepted term within the field that carries a wellness orientation and fits with our beliefs about our roles and process. We have elected to use the word “therapy” and hope the reader will see beyond the traditional use of the word and redefine “therapy” from a new perspective of a positive approach.
We titled this book Becoming Solution-Focused because we believe that all is becoming, and learning is never complete. We trust that this approach is not a finished product and that it never will be, that ways of helping people will continue to evolve. In that light we trust that your work is continuing to evolve and we hope that this manual contributes to your own “Becoming Solution-Focused.”