It sounds ideal, right? You have a problem, and your therapist has the solution. Get in. Get out. Get on with your life.
In truth, solution-focused therapy isn’t quite so simple. Although its name sounds transactional, solution-focused therapy is way more than prescribing solutions for problems. Rather, solution-focused therapy is a therapeutic model meant to positively shift your relationship to problems altogether—making it easier for you to recognize your own strengths, resources, and capacity for change.
The solution-focused movement was first pioneered by Insoo Kim Berg and Steve de Shazer in the 1970s. Its optimistic influence is still felt in therapy rooms all over the world today. When you work with a Marvin counselor who uses solution-focused techniques, you may gain insight into your own powerful ability for becoming “unstuck.” Here are some other benefits of solution-focused therapy:
Solution-focused therapy focuses on the here-and-now.
Especially for healthcare professionals, time is of the essence. That’s one of the reasons why solution-focused counselors focus so much on the present. Working with a solution-focused counselor is a great way to ensure you’re using your time efficiently, and making noticeable progress on the goals that you care about today.
Perhaps the most popular model of solution-focused therapy is called Solutions-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT), which can start to spur change in a particular arena of your life within as few as eight sessions. From there, you can easily continue working with your counselor for months or years to come, tackling new goals and discovering new strengths every week.
Notably, solution-focused therapists tend to ask less about your past than you might expect from classic modes of psychotherapy. Rather than derive insight from your previous childhood experiences, SFBT therapists take a postmodern approach, homing in on everything going on in your life presently.
Solution-focused therapy deemphasizes your “problem.”
Solution-focused therapy is all about loosening the grip that problematic thinking has on your life in order to propel you toward what you want.
Solution-focused therapists ask enough questions to understand the “problem” and then shift into identifying the strengths and resources you have to transcend it. In a way, they help simplify the calculus behind our most nagging issues.
“Find out what works, and do more of that.”
— Steve de Shazer
By focusing less on the “problem” (or even putting quotes around it), your therapist can help you dissolve the problem’s impact on your life. Instead, you may become better accustomed to identifying workable solutions that are already within reach, and spending the rest of your energy working toward future goals.
Solution-focused values can be integrated in all types of counseling.
Although Solutions Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) is a specific model that only some therapists exclusively practice, you’ll find that therapists of all orientations tend to demonstrate similar values of care. Such values include maintaining optimism, identifying strengths, and working to unstick problem-focused situations.
With Marvin, you can easily find a supportive therapist who is a fit for you, your schedule, and your overall goals. If solution-focused ideas are interesting to you, we encourage you to talk to your therapist about their specific clinical approach. As is true in all healthcare settings, it is important that both people in the room feel like they are working toward the same goals.
“That's a way to see it and there is also another way to see it.”
— Insoo Kim Berg
