Why does Solution Focus work? Does it really fix my problem?

These questions are extremely valid. If someone is going to invest in their professional development, they want to know it’s going to be worth it. That the acquisition of these skills is going to make a real difference.

Or if a client is going into therapy, or a support service using this model, they want to know that their not going to be wasting their time.

I believe, it comes down to the fundamental assumptions that underpin the approach:

1. That change is happening all the time
2. That there will always be be instances of the client’s preferred future state already happening.
3. That people are inherently resourceful and, are their own best expert in all aspects of their lives.

My experience of working with Solution Focus over the past six or seven years is that positive news is a constant surprise to everyone. We are too used to being bombarded by a negatively focused media, broadcasting bad news 24 hours a day. So our collective mindset is bent on negativity. Yet a reminder of those three basic tenets of the approach does not usually meet with fierce argument.

So, logic tells me that as long as you are absolutely clear of what the client wants from your service; i.e. what their best hopes look like; and you help them create a detailed picture of their preferred future, making it concrete and behavioural; and you can ask questions that put the client in touch with instances of that already happening in their lives; you have but to trust in the beliefs of the approach to allow it to work.

There is no magic bullet, no ingenious ego driven interjection from the therapist. It’s all the clients own work. All we do in SF is try and ask the most useful question to the client, follow the process, follow the client, and “do as little as possible, and get out of their way so they can succeed”.

“In the 30 or so studies done on SFT; effectiveness rates range from 65% (MacDonald, 1994, and Lee, 1997) to 82% (Beyebach, 2000). Recidivism in a prison population dropped 23% in one study (Lindfross, 1997), and youth studies show the same for re-arrest and run-aways. [http://www.psychpage.com/family/library/sft.htm]

Jim Bird-Waddington

Comments

[Guy Shennan]

I'd like to commend Jim's well-made points in his blog about the solution-focused approach and its usefulness for support workers. I have to declare a vested interest - I am the solution focused consultant and trainer who has been working with the Caerlas staff on developing their skills in the approach! And I have learned about how workers in an agency such as Caerlas can make the approach useful in their work even more directly from the horse's mouth - from the workers themselves. In January I interviewed several workers about specific ways in which they had (usefully) used the approach with specific service users, and I was mighty impressed by what I heard. I intend to share some of these stories - on our websites perhaps (ie Caerlas's and my own), and also I hope in articles that are simply asking to be written - it only needs time!

It's a pleasure to be working with Jim and the team at Caerlas,