Bill O'Connell

Solution Focused Therapy (SFT) is a form of brief therapy which builds upon clients' strengths by helping them to evoke and construct solutions to their problems.  It emphasizes the future, more than the past or the present.  In a solution focused approach the counsellor and client devote a greater proportion of time to solution construction than to problem exploration.  They try to define as clearly as possible what the clients would like to see in their lives.

SFT fosters a sense of collaboration between the counsellor and the client, with the latter being viewed as competent and resourceful.  It pays little attention to the 'roots or causes' of a client's problem.  This stance could be compared with driving a car where it is useful to look in the rear mirror from time to time but it is advisable to spend most of your time looking through the front windscreen!  Solution focused counsellors believe in minimal intervention in the client's life - their task being to initiate an impetus for change which the client will continue after the counselling.  The counsellor negotiates with the client to identify a priority concern which has attainable goals.

The solution focused approach originated in family therapy.  The key founding figures were the family therapists Steve de Shazer, Kim Insoo Berg and colleagues at the Brief Family Therapy Centre in Milwaukee, as well as Bill O'Hanlon, a therapist in Nebraska.  The members of the Brief Therapy Practice in London pioneered the method in the United Kingdom.  Many professionals in fields such as teaching, management, health and community care use the core skills and interventions advocated in SFT.  It is now used in a wide range of settings including schools, psychiatric hospitals, counselling services, voluntary organizations, therapeutic groups and probations and social work teams.  It is used with a wide variety of clients - problem drinkers, offenders, survivors of abuse, employees suffering from stress, couples and families.

Further information about this therapeutic approach written by the authors, can be found in "Introduction to Counselling and Psychotherapy: The Essential Guide", edited by Professor Stephen Palmer and published by Sage, London.  Price £18.99.

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