Solution Focused Brief Therapy

Introduction

The ultimate goal of Solution Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) is to provide the most effective treatment in the most time-efficient manner possible.

It was learned long time ago that when there is a problem, many of us spend a great deal of time thinking, talking, and analysing the problems, while in the meantime, unnecessary suffering is prolonged.

If you fall and break your leg you wouldn't expect the doctor to spend weeks finding out why your leg got broken, how the bones had shattered; you would you just want the doctor to fix the leg so that you could get back to full health as quickly as possible...

A directing principle in the solution focused approach is that people get stuck with their problems because they believe that they are unsolvable. SFBT practitioners therefore help people understand what the impact of positive change will be like on their lives. Responding in this way means that it often more important and useful than understanding what led to the problem.
 
Utilising this principle, the theme for a client is on what they will do, rather than what they will not do - to better ensure success. The client then begins working towards their therapeutic goal via small steps and through clear well defined and developed positive solutions.

SFBT also presupposes that if a person has the capacity to describe something as a problem, then that person also has the capacity to describe the inverse scenario of the problem, e.g. they are able to describe their life in the context of solving the problem. The implication is that they also have the resources needed to make it happen.

An extension to this presupposition is that the more problems a client's has had to face and survive the more hidden resources they are likely to have as resources to call upon.

From this point of view, everyone has the ability to change! This understanding becomes the foundation for ongoing change.

People do many positive things that they are not fully aware of. By bringing all these small successes into the client's awareness, and helping a client to repeat these, the client's belief and understanding about themselves and their situation is changed to one of being solvable.

Repeating successful behaviours takes less effort and is easier than it is in learning a whole new set of solutions, so using re-inforcement from repeated successful behaviours, it is easier to accept the idea of change - the individual can:

• Envision a clear and detailed picture of their goal
• Which creates optimism, hope and expectation,
• Making the solution more practical and realistic.

SFBT works well with NLP, Hypnotherapy as the underlying principles are similar. SFBT can also be utilised as an adjunct approach to the Counselling, Psychotherapy and Coaching approaches.
Concentrating on the positive aspects of individuals' lives rather than past 'problems', SFBT provides a helping tool, which has proven successes, that encourages independence, empowerment and allows the individual to find the solutions within themselves.

The efficiacy of SFBT is well established and supported by a solid and ever increasing body of research. SFBT is applied to diverse range of situations including stress, depression, anxiety, drug and alcohol problems, histories of abuse and oppression, pain, mental health problems and work-related concerns.

Research shows it to bring about lasting change on average in less than 5 sessions and in up to 83% of all cases. There are now over thirty published research studies in solution focused brief therapy which show successful outcomes.

How does Solution Focused Therapy Work?

As a model of therapy, solution focused brief therapy is very simplistic. The true power of this model can often produce dramatic change as long as the underpinning questions are addressed by the client through the establishment of well-formed goals and action.

1. Best Hope - What do you ideally want your life to be like?
2. Preferred Future - How will you know when you have got there or (more specifically) moved closer in the direction of getting there?
3. What resources in the form of: skills, attitudes, abilities, strategies and behaviours do you already possess; past and present, that can contribute to your hopes being realised?

One of the most useful frameworks for addressing the application of hidden resources to goals and one that keeps professional and customer on track is the 0–10 scale. This is where 10 represents the desired outcome (i.e. the presence of what they want) and 0 its opposite.

The client's position on the scale offers opportunities for questions about:

• How they are at that point rather than lower
• How they improved things if they are higher than they have
  been in the past
• What might tell them they are moving up the scale towards their
  desired goals.

Solution focused conversations are contrary to the usual assumptions that govern conversations with clients. There is no intrinsic need to know and understand the problem. Instead the assumption is that knowing what to do next is more helpful than knowing why what you did yesterday was wrong. Another assumption is that no one is perfect and therefore no one can do their problem perfectly. This means that whatever the problem there will always be exceptions and these exceptions contain the seeds of alternative ways forward.

Finally the Progress evaluation question becomes: What's better, more improved or different?
When and (if) the client comes back for subsequent sessions, these sessions will usually begin with this question.

Every session, including the first, is seen as potentially the last, the average number of sessions is between four and five, the most common number of sessions is one and 80% of clients report lasting improvement.

Top of page