We think of a solution-focused brief therapy as a total model; a way of thinking about how people change and reach their goals, a way of conversing with clients, and a way of constructing solutions interactively. For us, this way of thinking, conversing, and interacting forms a cohesive and consistent package.
At the same time in order to learn any model of therapy and not just a technique, one has to understand the assumptions from which the model operates. The following 12 assumptions of a solution-focused approach are interrelated and guide one’s thinking through solution construction.
Some of the articulation of these assumptions has been previously described by de Shazer, Berg, et al., 1986; de Shazer, 1988; O’Hanlon & Weiner-Davis, 1989; Peller & Walter, 1989. These are our current working assumptions and definitions.
These assumptions have a pragmatic value in that they guide our thinking and acting. Without these 12 assumptions, our actions would be only a collection of techniques, and we could become mere robots in spitting out tasks and suggestions. We could easily become stuck, with nothing to fall back on. The 12 assumptions provide us the freedom to roam and to be creative, with the assurance that we are being guided in our actions. Whenever we become stuck in our work, we can use these assumptions to think through construction of solutions to get back on track.
Assumption: Focusing on the positive, on the solution, and on the future facilitates change in the desired direction. Therefore, focus on solution-oriented talk rather than on problem-oriented talk.
The thrust of this assumption became clear to us in watching the Winter Olympics a couple of years ago. In the bobsled event, we noticed the East German women as they were preparing for their run down the hill. As they were sitting in the sled waiting their turn, their eyes were closed. We thought this was rather strange. Then we noticed that with their eyes still closed, they were making strange weaving motions forward, backward, and side to side. We thought this really strange—until the commentator explained that these women were going through a mental preparation of the run. With their eyes closed, they were visualizing going through the run; their body movements were their body responses as they imagined banking off of turns and experiencing the acceleration of the run.
This self-hypnotic technique of sports psychology enabled the East German women to experience the entire bobsled run and to experience themselves handling the turns and the maneuvers in the way they wanted to. By the time they physically went through the actual run, they had rehearsed it in their minds and bodies.
This technique, used by sports psychologists and teachers, is described in The Inner Game of Tennis (Gallwey, 1974) and Peak Performance (Garfield, 1984). Very simply, the athlete forms a picture of himself or herself hitting the ball the way he or she wants and then steps into this picture to get the feel and experience of what it is like.
As we converse with clients in solution-focused brief therapy, the same process takes place. As we engage in conversation with clients about what they are doing that is working or about what they will be doing, the clients form mental representations of themselves solving the problem. Changes in the mood of their verbs—from subjunctive to indicative—tells us as therapists that clients may be starting to speak within their representations of solving the problem. In effect, they are beginning (if they have not already) to put themselves into the images they have created and are already experiencing the process they are describing. They are achieving through conversation what the bobsledders were doing as a hypnotic technique.
Another advantage of focusing on the positive and on solutions is that the focus facilitates rapport.
When I, John, was just out of social work school, I conducted interviews with families by focusing on the problem. I remember interviewing families and focusing on the question, “What is the problem?” The parents in one case told me all their complaints about their 12-year-old son (who was also in the room). They told me how frustrated they both were that their son was not doing his homework, was not cleaning his room, was getting Cs and Ds at school, and had a bad attitude. After 15 minutes of this report, I noticed that their son had retreated into his chair and into the corner of the room. He obviously was feeling ashamed and was not likely at this point to want to engage in any conversation with me.
Now, however, I experience this same boy, through other families I now interview, responding in an entirely different way. By focusing, as quickly as rapport will allow, on the times when the problem does not happen (exceptions to the problem) and on how he will be acting when the family is solving the problem, the family describes the boy’s successes, or at least what he will be doing. That same boy who used to shrink in his chair as his parents reported the list of problems now sits up and is more likely to be participating as we talk about those occasional times when he does do his homework, has brought home a decent grade, or has done something about his room. He is more likely to describe what is different about those times of success (or at least, not failure). He will describe how he decides to do these things and what his parents may be doing differently at those times.
The other advantage to focusing on solution-based results is that clients often spontaneously associate to other times of success or to other times when they felt more resourceful. A couple may describe a making-up time as one of those times when they do not fight. In describing the making-up time, they may associate to other times when one or the other listens in that same, more successful way. A positive focus is a great advantage.
Assumption: Exceptions to every problem can be created by therapist and client, which can be used to build solutions.
At first, this assumption may seem to defy common sense. After all, if someone has been doing everything they can think of to solve a problem and nothing seems to work, how is it fair or logical, to assume that there are times when the problem does not happen. “The Problem,” if you will, is that people sometimes get stuck into only one set of expectations of what the solution will look like. Other times may be diminished as inconsequential because, to their way of thinking, the “exceptional” times do not represent “real” solutions or because the “exceptional” times are not consistent.
An example of clients’ initially missing the potential of “exceptional” times (Peller & Walter, 1989) is the case of a couple who came to see us because of recurring fights. During the early 1970s, when it was not uncommon for people to experiment with relationships (as was the norm in the counterculture), each of them had pursued relationships outside of their marriage. Now, during the 80s, however, they had decided they wanted to improve their relationship and to be monogamous. However, each carried memories and resentments left over about the affairs the other had had during this earlier time. The way they were trying to solve this problem was to resolve these feelings of resentment, doubt, and lack of trust by talking them out. Each time, however, they ended up quarrelling over whose fault it really had been. They had attempted this form of resolution so many times now that each could hardly bear to look at each other, much less talk.
In the course of the interview, we asked about times when they were not fighting. They mentioned that on the previous Sunday, they had gone out for a bike ride. We asked how that happened, especially since they had been feeling bad. They responded that it had been such a nice day that they decided to bike along the lake.
To each of them, this experience did not seem significant to their problem. Each considered the experience to be incidental to the “real” solution of talking and trying to resolve the past. We asked how they talked with each other on the ride and how their talk was different from the problem times. We wondered out loud whether the bike ride was a more trustful time for them. “Trust” was what they had stated as the eventual goal underlying all the previous attempts at problem-solving. The couple agreed that this way of being with each other was better. As we talked about how they had created this different time with each other, we asked: “Do you think that if you had more times like your bike ride the past might become less of a problem or you would have better luck at resolving things?” Their answer was, “Maybe.”
For them, this bike ride was not significant or exceptional, but to us it was. They had been looking for a “real” solution that might result from talking about the past. For us, the “nonfighting” time was significant and loaded with potential toward building a solution. It was as if they thought that the problem leads to the solution, as if talking about the past was a necessary condition to their reaching their target of being with each other in some trustful way. We saw it differently. We thought the more experiences they could create like the bike rides, the greater the likelihood that they would increase trust, that they might talk differently about the past, or that the past might even become a moot problem. Our work then centered on how they could have more times together similar to those of the bike rides.
Eliciting and constructing “exceptions” is a joint process between the client and the therapist. By eliciting the exceptions to the problem and working on encouraging the exceptions to occur more often, the therapist helps the client develop a sense of control over what had seemed to be an insurmountable problem.
A man who had AIDS had been receiving medical treatment in his home by a visiting nurse and stated that his physical and mental state was okay. The problem that he wanted help with was that he was having difficulty in distinguishing between the times he was physically not well and, therefore, needed to stay in bed, and those times where he was depressed or procrastinating about doing his work. For him, it was acceptable to stay in bed for health reasons, but it was not acceptable to stay in bed because of procrastination or depression. Also, he knew he felt better when he was productive with his work and often by getting out of bed he felt better about feeling or being ill.
His goal was to be making the choice of “Is this a bed morning or a work morning?” It became clear to me, Jane, through the conversation that when he tried to make this decision while literally lying in the bed he was not objective about it. There were times, however, when he would decide to get up and go to the corner for the paper first, before deciding what kind of a day it was going to be. He described that in order to get the paper he had to get up, put on warm-ups, walk about 75 feet to the corner, and walk back. Upon returning to his apartment, he would make a choice of reading the paper at the table or in the bed. His answer would then tell him what kind of day it was going to be.
Deciding to go out to buy a paper is much simpler and more active than trying to decide what kind of day it is going to be. Once he was literally doing something, there usually developed a difference in feeling about his day. Clearly, he did not initially see the potential of the exception—to get up and out as opposed to lying in bed. However, by conversing about-the times when he bought the paper first, we were able to highlight the significance of the exception and develop the reality of powerful times for the client where he could make a choice about what he wanted to do.
Assumption: Change is occurring all the time.
Many of us have had survey classes in the history of Western philosophy. One of the early philosophers, Heraclitus, is generally quoted as having said that you cannot step into the same river twice. In other words, nothing stays the same; things and events are changing all the time. It was our experience that after the 15 minutes it took in class to discuss how things are changing all the time, change was rarely talked about again in the same way in any philosophy class.
From that point on, we then talked about how things stay the same. We talked about the essences of things, we talked about the immutable nature of man and how in the objective world of science there were laws that govern the unchangeable.
However, we never talked about change again. It was as if stability and unchangeableness became a given for all the succeeding philosophies on up until recent times. Part of the problem with this continued assumption of unchangeableness may have been that the assumption was perpetuated by the structure of our language. We became limited by the verb “to be.” With this verb, we can say something “is” something, as if it is now and forever. If we say, “I am American,” we could mean that there are no times when I am not an American. We would probably have no trouble with that statement. Most people would accept the meaning that “I am an American” all the time.
We have problems on the other hand when we say that this is an “enmeshed family.” Does this mean that there are no times when they are not enmeshed, when they are not doing something else? (For further discussion of this use of “to be,” see de Shazer, 1988).
We would guess that most would probably say, “No, there are times when they must be acting some other way.” However, our use of the verb “to be” directs our attention away from those other times.
It seems that as therapists we create problems for ourselves by talking as if things “are” in some immutable way. As soon as we say a family is “enmeshed,” we not only have the problem with self-fulling prophecy, but we also then have to create some explanations for how the “enmeshed” family then becomes something else.
I, John, remember on an oral exam in a philosophy class I was asked to explain philosophically how an apple becomes a rotten apple or no longer an apple. I was being asked to explain change from one state of appleness to something different and then to nonexistence. We as therapists are creating a similar situation. We first say the family is enmeshed and then we have to create explanations for how they become something else.
In the 70s, when “homeostasis” was the predominant concept of family therapy and was used to describe how systems maintain stability, Speer (1970) was one of the first to question how relevant a central concept for sameness could be to a profession whose business was change.
Our position is that it is not useful to first talk about stability, sameness, and problem-maintenance and then try to create explanations for how families change from one state to another. Rather, we think it is more useful to assume change is happening all the time and eliminate the need for explaining transitions from one state to another. Our task then is much simpler. Our task is to help the client select and identify those meanings, those changes, or those ways of becoming that they like and would like to see continue.
For example, we are often asked about those “very difficult” cases—the “multiproblemed” cases. In solution-focused thinking, cases are not multiproblemed even if the client reports several problems. For example, a case referred to us by an HMO was reported as “very difficult.” A woman being released from the hospital after a suicide attempt had been diagnosed as suicidal, manic-depressive, and self-destructive. The referral source was worried about this client and wanted her to be seen immediately after her release from the hospital. She called and made an appointment for four days later. In the initial interview, she identified several goals: learn ways to release her anger productively; learn to change obsessive thinking patterns; feel positive about future relationships; resolve past feelings about her father. All of these goals are appropriate, but one cannot directly work on them all at once. When we asked her when some of these things are happening now, she mentioned that they were happening now when she was “in balance.” The rest of the session focused upon times and ways she was continuing to act in this “in-balanced” way and how she would keep acting that way. We saw this client eight times. As she continued to have “in-balance” times, she was able to accomplish all of the goals she had listed in the first session.
The Milan team of Palazzoli, Cecchin, Boscolo and Prata (1978) realized the problem with “to be” and instead would describe someone as “showing” depression rather than saying that someone “is” depressed. Their use of a different verb strikes at the problem with labeling and the linear assumption that “to be” fosters.
Use of verbs like show, become, seem and act as if promote a view that behaviors are temporary and changeable. If we say that someone is acting depressed or depressed-like, the meaning is much different than if we say someone is depressed. The presupposition is that she or he is acting that way now, but could be acting in other ways at other times. The change of verb also gives movement to our descriptions.
Another way of avoiding this dilemma of “to be” is just to say, “The client says he/she is depressed.” This phrasing has the advantage of reminding us that this is merely the clients’ view of themselves and their situation at this time, and not a fact.
If we put the assumption that change is occurring all the time together with the previous assumption that exceptions can be created to a problem, we can then begin to search out for those times when someone acts in non-depressed ways. If someone is acting in non-depressed ways sometimes, there may be something different about those contexts or about what the person does or thinks at such times that enables acting differently from the problem way.
As therapists, we need to develop eyes and ears that are flexible in perceiving, and sensitive to non-problem times and behaviors, so that we and the clients can more easily elicit the non-problem times. The process is similar to the experience of looking at the psychology pictures called ambiguous figures in which the figure and ground reverse depending on how you look at them (see Figure 1). In the ambiguous figure, you can see the images of either a vase or the profiles of two faces. At first, some people will see only the image of the vase, and it takes a trained eye to see the opposite picture.
Similarly and metaphorically, clients come in telling us about one side of the image. We try to see both images and invite them to a process of examining the other side of the picture. Change is occurring all the time.
Figure 1. Do you see a vase? Or is it a picture of two people facing each other?
Assumption: Small changing leads to larger changing.
Very often, we hear practitioners speak of the “multi-problem” family, or the “severely dysfunctional” patient, or how complicated a case will be. Oftentimes, the practitioners response to this case will be one of dread of the amount of work or difficulty of it, or resignation at the seeming hopelessness. The assumption underlying the response to these difficult situations usually is that an equally sophisticated, powerful, or long-term answer is required. However, the assumption that small changing leads to larger changing facilitates an easier way and can mean simpler views and actions.
Many cases can appear simpler if one recognizes that people usually use the same attempted solution for all problems. By making a small change in the attempted solution to the problems, clients can change in several different situations simultaneously. For example, many people believe that the way to improve a relationship is by confronting the other person on what they believe the other is doing wrong. The other person, whether a child, a colleague at work, an employee, a spouse, or a friend, usually responds defensively, and an argument then ensues. Those who persist in such attempted solutions by confrontation are likely to gain the reputation of being negative or argumentative, which perpetuates the problems even further. When we suggest that clients begin to say what they want rather than only what they do not like, they can change their approach and therefore change the interaction in many relationships.
Saying that small change is generative also means that we hold to the belief that a client who has experienced some success at achieving something manageable is, therefore, in a more resourceful state to find solutions to other, more difficult problems.
A client came to see us about difficulties in her relationship with a boyfriend. During the course of making changes in the relationship, she realized something about herself As a consequence of having been abused in the past, she had previously thought that she could not take the risk of asking for what she wanted from someone. She was too afraid that any request would be met with anger and punishment. However, she was now experimenting with initiating requests of her boyfriend. Given that she was meeting with some success, she was now questioning her belief carried over from her past and was feeling a little better. She decided to try this initiation technique with people at work. She was surprised to find that she could make requests there, too, and achieve good results.
The assumption also means that problems are only as big as our definition of them. Our definition of the problem defines our experience and the size of the problem. A client who came to see us had been told by several people that she suffered from depression. She was afraid that there was something terribly wrong with her. Our thinking and initial feedback to her was that we did not think she suffered from depression, but that she was “unhappy and that given her circumstances, it made sense to us that she would feel that way. “epression was a definition that to her meant that there was something drastically wrong with her. Unhappy meant that she was normal and that she did not like her circumstances. The later definition was more manageable and something she could do something about.
Most important, the small-change assumption means that problems, large or small, are solved one step at a time. Recently, a couple came to see us because of repeated fights about the direction of their relationship. She was very upset that he was not willing to give a commitment to a date for their marriage. He could not see how they could do that when they were fighting so much. We asked what they would be doing differently when they were “on track” to making this marital decision. As they considered the “on track” idea, they identified that they would be talking with each other differently. By talking “with” each other rather than clinging to hard and fast positions while blaming the other, they surmised there would be more intermediary experiences of solving problems. This talking “with” each other would be more helpful toward making a commitment than setting a date or breaking up.
The assumption that small changing leads to more or larger changing can have any or all four of the above interpretations and lead to different and simpler approaches with clients. For example: A couple sought therapy as a last resort for their “lack of communication.” They stated in the initial session that for the last few years of their 15-year marriage they did not communicate with each other. Their view was that they did not communicate with each other in any area of their marriage and that this communication problem led to chronic, escalating fights.
With solution-focused questioning, we asked about “exceptional” times that when she responded with what she called “positive responses,” he did not get defensive or attacking in his usual way. “Positive responses” to her meant responding empathically to his position instead of defending herself right away. She was asked to go home and practice doing these positive responses and notice what other differences that made in him and in herself. To her, this assignment seemed rather insignificant. She was a social worker and accustomed to thinking that behavioral change was only superficial and did not relate to the deep underlying feelings behind their conflicts. Nevertheless, she agreed to give the task a try.
By the next session, there were dramatic changes. She noticed not only that they seemed to understand each other and communicate in a way that was on track to solving their “communication problem,” but also that she was no longer taking things personally. This was something she had also wanted to be able to do, but as a person with a long history of personalizing situations, she had not been able to work this through by focusing on her feelings. Her response after three sessions was, “I have a hard time believing that changing these long-standing problems could happen so quickly—but I’ll just keep doing it anyway.”
Small changing leads to larger changing.
Assumption: Clients are always cooperating. They are showing us how they think change takes place. As we understand their thinking and act accordingly, cooperation is inevitable (de Shazer, 1982,1985a, 1986; Gilligan, 1987).
Working within a solution-focused therapy model, we believe clients’ responses to our communication are indicative of how they think change takes place. If clients do not do what we say or if they do something else instead, we do not believe that they are “resistant” but rather that in their thinking this is the best thing to do at that time.
Our assumption that cooperation is inevitable requires that we take clients at their word: they would truly like to reach some solution to the problem. This is contrary to ideas like: clients are resistant; they really do not want to change; they like their problem; they are getting something out of their problem; they are denying their problem; they have some secret agenda or are being deceitful. Our experience is that these kinds of beliefs are not helpful in solution construction nor compatible with our notions of trusting people’s resources.
A man came to see us fearing anxiety attacks. In the past, he had been in great fear of anxiety overtaking him when he was away from home, so he was now spending most of his time at home. He wanted to change jobs, but was afraid interviews would go badly. He was also angry with his wife for constantly nagging him to spend more time with her. He felt very discouraged.
Just before coming to see us, he had decided to try to get out of the house more. He wanted very much to see his son play basketball on the school team. Despite his fear of anxiety, he had gone to a game.
Initially, we were excited about this change and very encouraging about his doing more things like that. However, we discovered that the more encouraging and suggestive we were of further changes, the more hesitantly he responded, even suggesting reasons why a further step might not work. We discovered very quickly through his responses that his approach to change was different from ours, and that if we were too persistent in our encouragement, he might change less.
He seemed to have his own pace that was different from ours—not better, not worse, just different. Had we wanted to create “resistance” by encouraging change, all we had to do was to continue to be encouraging in the way that he perceived as pushing and he would indeed do less.
Instead, we were very encouraging in his way. We told him how impressed we were with his desire to be more active and with his steps in that direction. We also suggested to him that he continue to take things one step at a time. We thought that since he tended to be rather ambitious in his thinking, he might want to cut down his expectations of the next step.
This client, like all clients, was very cooperative, and provided clues quickly of how he went about change. We could have created a “resistant client” by suggesting things that he would have regarded as “too fast.” Instead, we cooperated with him by urging him to be cautious.
Many of us pick the problem that we would work on first if we were the client. Some of us, because of a diagnostic assumption, decide what needs to be worked on first. For example, we might insist that an alcohol problem be worked on first because we believe that therapy cannot be successful while someone is still drinking. Because we believe that a family problem involving parenting cannot be solved because of marital difficulties, we might insist that the marital problems be worked on first. We try to be helpful by suggesting steps to solve the problem we have selected. Too often, however, clients do not agree with what we have selected as the problem or the route to solution. Therefore, if clients do not think of their situation in the way we do, it actually makes sense in their view that they would not do what we suggest. It also makes more sense for us to believe that they are just being consistent with how they think of the situation than to think that there is something wrong with them or that they are resistant. Certainly, in their view they are not being resistant.
A common norm for doing family therapy is that you need every member of the family present. The same norm is used for couples therapy. When we were in our early years of learning family therapy and subscribed to this norm, we lost many of our clients and saw other practitioners lose clients as well.
For example, many times a member of the family may not have believed in therapy at all or may not have believed there was a problem that required therapy. Or, a family member might have some reason for not being able to attend the sessions. These families were at times labelled as “resistant” and the non-attending members were seen as resistant for denying the problem or for not attending. The attending members were seen as resistant as if they somehow participated in an enabling way with the others not attending. We remember being instructed by trainers and supervisors to send the family home, and to meet with them only when the whole family would come in.
We wonder in such circumstances about “Who was being resistant here?” Were the family members being resistant because they did not believe in therapy or had to work at their job? Were we being resistant by being so intransigent about our rule? We like to think that the family was telling us how they think changes are made, and that the ones attending were the ones who were available and/or thought therapy might help.
In training workshops, Richard Bandler and John Grinder used to say that there were no resistant clients, only inflexible therapists (Bandler & Grinder, 1979). If we take clients at their word and trust that they want to solve their problem, we can assume that they are trying to solve it in the best way they know at the moment. If some members do not attend sessions because they do not believe in therapy, we take them at their word and assume that rather than resisting, they are showing us how they think about their problem and how they think change takes place.
The burden falls upon us as therapists to find how people think and act upon their problems and to be flexible enough to utilize their unique way. A mutually cooperative relationship is an inevitability.
Assumption: People have all they need to solve their problems.
This strongly held Ericksonian assumption is a nonpathology and wellness belief (Bandler & Grinder, 1979; Lankton & Lankton, 1983; Dolan, 1985; Gilligan, 1987; O’Hanlon, 1987). In pathology assessment, a clinician uses some normative model either of an individual or a family as a basis of comparison with that of the client. As Anderson, Goolishian, and Winderman (1984) have stated, these models have been based on the notion that problems result from some failure or dysfunction in the structure of the individual or family. The task of the clinician has been to locate the problem in these structures.
Our emphasis is not upon the cause or maintenance of the problem, but upon the faith that each individual and family are capable of solving their problems and the responsibility is upon us to be flexible and to facilitate change toward what they want. Problems exist in the way people have defined situations and the misdirected actions they persist in taking. Everyone has the ability to change to a different course of action.
By stating that people are resourceful, we do not want to intimate that this approach is a model of attribution or possession. We do not believe that people have resources anymore than we believe that people have deficits. Stating the assumption in this attributive way is merely our way of highlighting that we believe that everyone is capable of doing what they need to do to get what they want.
We recognize that stating the assumption in this way suggests that we believe that people possess resources and that philosophically this is inconsistent with an interactional view and process approach. To be philosophically consistent, we would not talk about deficits or resources at all and we would merely discuss processes and meaning. However, in order to highlight our positive orientation, we have deviated from the interactional level for a moment.
Assumption: Meaning and experience are interactionally constructed. Meaning is the world or medium in which we live. We inform meaning onto our experience and it is our experience at the same time. Meaning is not imposed from without or determined from outside of ourselves. We inform our world through interaction.
One of the definitions of “inform” from Webster’s II New Riverside University Dictionary (Riverside, 1984) is “To give form or character to.” This is the usage we intend in this assumption. By the use of the word “inform” we mean that socially and individually, we give form to our experience and existence, that meaning is relative to the participant observer. For example: If someone were to be frozen in a standing position with right hand raised above the head and then be placed in different settings, there would be different meanings ascribed to such behavior.
Thus, a teacher seeing the person with hand raised in that position in a classroom would assume that the person has a question or comment and might call on her or him to speak. An auctioneer seeing the person would assume that she or he is making a bid, and if that were the winning bid that gesture might cost her or him a sum of money.
A cabby seeing the person in that position along a curb would assume that she or he wants a ride and come zipping up to the curb. If the person were standing on a boat and people on other boats were going by, they, following the etiquette of boaters, might assume the person was being friendly and waving, and therefore wave back. If the hand were raised in a courtroom, an observer might assume that the person was taking an oath.
The action of right hand raised overhead can have many different meanings even though physically it is the same gesture. Placed in different contexts, the gesture can have different meanings that are informed by observers as well as by the person performing the action. The performer may inform the event with the same meaning or something other than what others are informing. Neither meaning is right or wrong or a misperception.
We all live in a world of meaning and language. Meaning is informed by participant observers; meaning is ascribed by an observer or participant of an event, not the other way around. The event does not have meaning in itself that is discovered by someone outside of the event. Meaning is relative to the person(s) informing the event. From the point of view of the individual participating in an active way in the world, the individual informs meaning onto his or her world or creates his or her experience. Meaning both informs the experience and meaning is the experience. Meaning cannot be separated from experience or from the person(s) ascribing the meaning. Making the distinction between thought and experience creates an artificial barrier between “inside” the skull and “outside.”
Meaning-making is always both inside and outside. It is interactive in the relationship between the individual and his or her experience, as well as in the interactions between people. Meaning evolves and changes in the dialogue between people as they share their experience in language and symbol. There is both a mutual participation in the conversation and an acceptance of influence. For further discussions of the construction of meaning see Watzlawick, 1984; von Foerster, 1984; von Glaserfeld, 1984; Maturana & Varela, 1987; de Shazer, 1988; for its social construction and application to the therapy conversation, see Anderson and Goolishian, 1988, and Hoffman, 1990.
Problems, goals, solutions all take place within the realm of meaning and are at the same time meanings. A change in meaning is a change in experience. A change may mean for clients that a problem no longer exists, that they can do something different or that they are on a track toward what they want.
Assumption: Actions and descriptions are circular.
There is a circular relationship between how one describes a problem or goal, what action one then takes, how one describes these actions and results, what further actions one might take, and so on. (For further discussions about recursiveness, see Watzlawick, 1974, and Keeney, 1983.)
For example, if a parent describes a child’s behavior as bad, the parent will more than likely use punishment as the solution. The resulting behavior by the child (also viewed through the lens of good/bad by the parents) will be used as feedback to judge the success of the punishments.
If the same parent adopts a different frame of the child’s behavior and, instead of interpreting it as “bad,” describes it as teenage experimenting, the parent may ignore the behavior or give consequences without ascribing a good or bad label to the child. The meaning adopted by the parent both informs how he or she “sees” the child’s behavior and also determines what class of solution or action the parent takes. A change in meaning can change how the parent informs further events and what action is taken.
Assumption: The meaning of the message is the response you receive (Bandler & Grinder, 1979; Dilts et al., 1980).
Meaning in the earlier examples of the right-hand gesture is described as if it is created by the observer. There is no absolute meaning to the gesture; it is informed with meaning not only by the person performing the gesture but also by all those others observing the gesture.
A humorous example of the mismatch of these meanings is the old-time movie situation where someone is at an auction and raises a hand to scratch an itch or wave to a newcomer to the room, then discovering that he has just placed a bid in the auction.
Often in everyday life, our interpretation of that example or of other situations is to say that the observer “misinterpreted” what we said or did. In this model, we find it more useful to assume that the onus of responsibility for clear communication is on us rather than on the client. In other words, if the other person makes meaning of our actions that is different from what we intend, the responsibility is upon us to do something different. This is counter to the idea that it is the observer’s fault for misinterpreting or resisting our message.
In a family a mother was concerned about some newly emerging behavior in her 13-year old daughter. Mother noticed that her daughter was now dressing in a punk style. She also noticed that her daughter was smoking cigarettes on her way home from school and that her grades had slipped somewhat. To some of us, this may not seem too severe, but to this particular parent in a religious context where smoking was “wrong,” these behaviors were serious.
Mother’s intent was to remind her daughter that smoking was bad and that her grades were slipping. To mother’s way of thinking, she was “reminding” and her intent was to be “helpful.” However, to the daughter, the meaning of her mother’s message was very different. She saw it not as “helpful,” but rather as “restrictive” of her freedom and independence.
The daughter in this case decided to show her mother that she was independent; therefore, she did more smoking and spent more time with her friends than with her homework. This was consistent with the meaning she informed to her mother’s actions. Upon seeing her daughter’s response, the mother moved beyond reminding and decided that this behavior was “bad” and the suitable response should be punishment by “grounding.”
This punishment confirmed in the daughter her thinking that her mother’s initial actions were restrictive. So, consistent with the daughter’s thinking, she escalated her own actions. This interaction continued to escalate.
In this example, with our assumption that the meaning of the message is the response you receive, the meaning of mothers actions is the response she received: an escalation of the behavior she deplored. From this communication point of view, the meaning of her message ended up very different from what she intended.
So, too, with us as helpers. The meaning of our communication is the response we receive. If the response is different than what we believe to be helpful, then the meaning for us might be that it is time for us to do something different in the communication. If we continue to receive “yes but” responses from our client, the response may mean that it is time to do something different. Meaning is in the response.
Assumption: Therapy is a goal- or solution-focused endeavor, with the client as expert.
The goals of different therapies vary considerably. The most significant distinction in this regard seems to be between those models that attempt to bring about a cure or some personal growth and those that aim at helping the client to solve some problem or achieve some goal.
Models that attempt some cure generally perceive the source of the initial complaint to be rooted in personality and therefore try to accomplish personality change. Models, within the human potential movement attempt to enhance personal growth and self-actualization. Both orientations tend to be rather long-term and usually depend upon insight for change.
These therapy models often tend to use the therapist as the expert in determining what is wrong (diagnosis) and setting the course of treatment. This role and process are similar to those of the physician who makes an observation and conducts tests concerning the symptoms, and then, as the expert in pathology and treatment, prescribes a course of treatment for the patient.
A solution-focused model places responsibility on the other side of the relationship. In this model, the focus is to help clients define goals as precisely as possible. Clients are the experts on what they want to change, as well as in determining what they want to work on. If they recognize other problems in their life but choose not to focus on them at this time, that is their choice. If we, as helpers, are aware of other problems or think that the client could work on some other goal, we might suggest this but still continue to focus on what the client wants.
This position is in sharp contrast to models of assessment or diagnosis which compare the client’s behavior or thinking with some normative standard and then suggest that the therapist decide what the client should change and thus determine the direction of therapy.
Given the position that therapy is a goal-focused endeavor, with the client as expert, the distinction of voluntary and involuntary client becomes critical. In this consumer model, the task of therapy is goal-oriented and the involuntary client is initially stating that he or she has no goal. Muddles are created when we as therapists blur this distinction of voluntary/involuntary by our selecting the goal by ourselves despite what the client says, by assuming the responsibility of social control agent, or by trying to motivate the client toward some goal determined by an expert.
By making this distinction of voluntary/involuntary in this approach, we follow two different courses of action. With voluntary clients, we proceed to work toward the goals or solutions they are seeking; these procedures are outlined in the following chapters. With involuntary clients, we explore whether they can still define goals even under their involuntary circumstances; the procedures for this course of action are spelled out in Chapter Sixteen.
We also want to draw distinctions between therapy, education, and support. To us, these are three different and separate domains. Therapy’s function is the co-constructing by therapist and client of a goal or solution and the facilitating of that process. Education’s function is the process of learning. We do think that therapy is educational in the etymological sense of the word, that is, a drawing forth. We believe that we join clients in drawing forth from them solutions that they want, that come from their own experience, and that they are creating. We do not believe that therapy is educational in the sense of instructional or instrumental. If clients want instruction on parenting skills, they are entitled and we encourage them to seek out instructional classes. We do not think of classes as therapy, however, and we would not refer clients to a class because we thought they had a deficit of skills.
We also do not want to confuse therapy with support. Although we are very supportive and encouraging in our sessions, support as a goal is not sufficient. If clients want support, then perhaps we can explore with them what they think they will eventually accomplish with that support to find out if that can be their goal. We might also explore how they could get support from friends, relatives, self-help groups, or some other source. However, we do not see our functioning in a strictly supportive fashion, with no other, goal, as a reasonable use of therapy. Given our assumptions, mere support would be facilitating a dependence that we think is not helpful.
Therapy is a goal- or solution-focused endeavor with the client as the expert.
Assumption: Any change in how clients describe a goal (solution) and/or what they do affects future interactions with all others involved.
We conceptualize problems, solutions, or goals, within meaning. There is a recursive or circular relationship between how one defines a situation and what one does. Thoughts and actions can be described in terms of how one thinks, what one does, and the feedback to one’s thoughts and actions. Goals and solutions can also be described in terms of the interactions between people, along with their accompanying thoughts, perceptions, and feedback.
This is a process view of solutions rather than a conceptualization based upon structures. Other ways of thinking assume that problems emanate from a dysfunctional structure of the individual personality, the family, or the marriage.
Rather than using structural labels and focusing on the structure as the locus of the problem, we focus on the recursive process between how one defines a situation, and what one does, and how one defines that, and what one does, and so on. This is a circular view, no beginning and no end.
With this idea in mind, we can assume that any change anywhere in the interaction changes further interaction, whether it be the interaction of how one goes about trying to reach a solution or the interaction between people as they try to reach some solution or goal.
Therefore, it is not necessary to have everyone involved with a problem present in order to bring about a change in the desired direction. In a marital relationship, for example, we can facilitate a change with only one of the members present to bring about a change in the interaction between the two of them.
Where a husband reports that—despite his attempts to remind his wife to do things that will help her self-esteem and problems—she appears to him to resist and resent him. To him, she appears to defend herself either with reasons why she cannot carry out his suggestions or promises to do it later. He states that he is very frustrated.
We would suggest that he focus for a moment on life without the problem. By focusing on the problem-solved future, he identifies that he would relax and trust that his wife was taking care of herself. In the future, he would just “listen and trust that she would work it out.” This is different than his present thinking that she cannot figure this out and that giving advice is the way to help; it has not worked.
We would suggest to him that he do now the things he thought he would do in a problem-solved future. The husband—through adopting a mode of pretending the problem is solved—acts in ways that the wife sees as listening and trusting. She is less likely to act defensively and may even take his listening as supportive. With her actions being different, the husband can adopt a different view. He may adopt a meaning that she is different from him, that listening to her is more helpful to her than giving advice.
That simple change on his part leads to different actions on her part, which confirm his taking different actions. The marital problem can thus be solved by our working only with him and by his adopting a different solution. By his adopting a different meaning and course of action, the further interactions between them are different.
Assumption: The members in a treatment group are those who share a goal and state their desire to do something about making it happen.
The members may not agree about the problem or goal, the meaning of the problem or goal, or what to do about it, but they do agree that there is a problem or goal and that something needs to be done. Membership, by definition, includes the therapist who has agreed to work with the other members in reaching a solution. The therapy group, therefore, includes a therapist and a client.
Doing therapy may also include people who in other therapy models may not be considered as clients. The client group may include referring persons, protective service people, court-appointed people, school social workers, teachers, work groups, etc. Again, the therapy group or unit includes all those who agree there is a problem they want to solve or a goal they want to reach.
This is different from those therapy models which assume that the client group is a socially defined unit such as an individual, a family, or couple. In other models, the source of problems was assumed to be some dysfunction in one of these defined units. But as Anderson, Goolishian and Winderman (1984) have stated, individuals, families, couples, and court systems do not cause or make problems, nor are problems the result of dysfunctions in any of these systems.
Rather than looking at these socially defined units as the source of the problem, we say that the problem is the problem itself. The treatment group or unit is defined as those who approach us in our role as therapist and say there is a problem they want to solve or goal they want to pursue. This may include family members, some family members but not others, individuals, referring persons, or any number of people sharing nothing more or related in no other way than that they all say there is a problem they are concerned about. This means that there may be others who, even though they are involved in the problem or may be affected by the problem, may not want to do anything about it or do anything about it through therapy.
The advantage of this assumption is that we avoid reifying diagnostic maps of units like individual, family, couple, or psyche. We are less likely to think that our constructs or tools, like enmeshed family or intrapsychic structures, actually exist beyond our using them. This is not an individual therapy and not a family therapy. This is not a model built on organizational constructs. This is a solution-construction therapy that cuts across the distinction of individual and family therapies (Walter, 1989). This is a model that is built on the notion that the people you work with are those who say there is a goal to be accomplished or a problem to be solved. These people are organized around this purpose and this “reality.” Their organization, if you will, comes from their joint purpose of wanting to solve the problem or reach some shared goal.
Given that clients are organized around the purpose of a goal or of solving a problem and that goals or problems are relative to the meaning with which the goals or problems are described, the meaning is key to this therapy. We facilitate the evolution of new meaning, a co-constructed solution by which these clients will continue to be organized—or they will disband because the original purpose (the solving of a problem) no longer exists.
Given that the treatment group is defined around those who have a joint purpose, we do not complicate the therapy by trying to bring people into therapy who do not want to be there. We assume that people who do not want to be in therapy are not interested in working on a solution at this time and, therefore, we would not consider them as part of therapy. Because we do not have a diagnostic map of a social unit like a family, we do not consider it necessary to have everyone there. When a person calls about therapy and asks us who should come in, we usually reply that whoever is interested in the situation should come in.
For example, a mother calls because she is alarmed by her daughters behavior. She says the school social worker and the teacher have told her that her daughter is failing school. Mother and father have decided that the child rearing is mother’s responsibility; father does not place much importance on school performance. For him, this is not much of a problem and, to the extent that it is, the responsibility to his way of thinking is mothers. When mother calls, we invite all who want to come in.
Mother comes with her 12-year-old daughter and younger son. As we ask about their goal in coming, we find that the daughter, too, is concerned about school and that the younger boy is there because he is too young to be left home. Mother also reports that the daughters teacher is concerned. This years teacher has “adopted” the daughter because she thinks that the daughter has great potential. She has stressed very strongly to mother that she would like to help in the therapy and that mother should have the therapist call because she would like to help.
At this time, in this case, the three who seem to be organized around the goal of improving the daughters school performance are the mother, the daughter, and possibly the teacher. This is the client group organized around the meaning of “school performance.” By virtue of the therapist joining them around their goal, the treatment unit includes the therapist.
In the first session and on the phone with the teacher, we find that the goal is for daughter to be turning in her homework and to be participating in class. We find also that this is happening sometimes whenever the daughter decides that homework and participation are necessary to pass eighth grade, and when mother is consistent about “homework time.” When the girl participates in class, the teacher does not worry and is less “helpful.”
As the three of them make progress around the school performance, the reason for their being organized in the way they had been diminishes and the system disbands—that is, therapy concludes. The meaning for each of them around the school performance changes. For example, mother redefines the importance of her own consistency; daughter sees school performance as something important to her since she wants to enter high school; and the teacher becomes more confident that the girl is progressing.
The therapy was defined around the goal and the treatment group consisted of the four people organized around that goal, the school performance.
These 12 working assumptions are the beliefs we use to inform our therapy:
These assumptions guide our thinking and our actions and provide the meaning and guidelines for this to be a total approach, a way of thinking, a way of conversing, and a way of interacting with clients.
The following chapters will now give flesh to these assumptions as we spell out more concretely what we do.
QUESTION:
These assumptions are very different from what I am accustomed to. Does this mean I have to give up what I presently believe?
We find that it is more useful to us to inform all our actions with these assumptions, and to work in a way that is always consistent with these assumptions. For us, this makes our work and approach a complete package.
We suggest to those who may be learning this approach that in order to avoid the muddles that may occur while they are trying to believe several things at the same time, they suspend beliefs while trying this on. Later, after attaining some facility with this way of working, they can decide how much they want to incorporate in their work and in what way.
We experienced both a gain and a loss as we began working this way. We experienced a loss as we realized that we were giving up that very emotionally close relationship with our clients we experienced using long-term models we previously used. We also found that the satisfaction of seeing people making concrete changes in a short period of time more than made up for our feelings of sadness.
Do you think this approach works with everyone?
Yes, as long as they define a goal.