This post is prepared while analyzing the research done by Stephan Hendrick & Luc Isebaert)
Solution focused brief therapy (SFBT). “What SFBT does is that instead of digging somewhere deep it mainly focuses on client strengths and resiliencies examining previous solutions and exceptions to the problem, and then, through a series of interventions, encouraging clients to do more of those behaviors”. (Trepper&al.,2006) In this case it is important what are the effective therapeutic principles implemented in SFBT. It is important to mention that principle is ‘ a set of rules that guides the therapy’, than a technique is ‘a specific procedure to get a specific result’. So principles are something what will be followed during all the therapy than technique is something used to achieve a well defined goal at th certain time. These maight be distinguished as the main principles of Solution Focused Therapy:
1. Start where the client is, or: Adapt to the stage in which the client finds himself
There can be three different types of people who end up in front of the ones offering professional health:
- A Complainant – a person who does not have a clear request for help (a drinking housewife who says that no way she can cope without drinking as long as her husband works long hours and she has to take care of home on her own)
- A Visitor – the one sent to seek for help by the doctors, friends, relatives
- A Buyer – a person who actively seeks for help on his own (contacts a therapist about the drinking problems on his own and not influenced by anyone)
In scientific literature these mentioned types of people seeing for help can also be defined as three stages which change during the process of relationship between the therapist and the client. It is very important that therapist would correctly identify at what stage is the person seeking for help than he first contacts him. In this case therapist can use correct principles to move a client along the stages and get the result more effective. A client can very easily turn from a Visitor to Complainant and than a Buyer.
2. Use and enhance the client’s competence
Every person has abilities and coping strategies prior to any therapeutic intervention. Therefore, the therapeutic process should consist of bringing forward and implementing solutions that are already present in clients and their systems. Therapy works better if the solution suggested by the therapist is based on the natural healing processes of the patient, in this way all the best competences of the client can be used.
3. Defining clear goals and obtaining the client’s collaboration
Solution focused approach gives a very important meaning to the clear definition of the goal which a person coping with various problems should achieve. Client needs to define the goal using the details and concrete examples on how his life should be than he is done coping with this problem or is at the certain stage of the therapy.
4. Change client’s perception and experience
Promoting corrective emotional experience is an other basic principle in SFBT. Corrective emotional experience refers to ‘exposing the patient under more favorable circumstances to emotional situation which he could not handle in the past under less favorable circumstances ‘ (Alexander, French & al., 1946). Nowadays this principle is considered as an efficient. It is described as an ability to create experiences where the client has the opportunity to learn something new is an essential ingredient in brief therapy.
5. Solution oriented language
Solution focused approach helps the clients to discover their own solutions and expects the therapist to adopt a trusting and respectful attitude. In the solution focused therapy it is very important that a therapist adopts the language of the patient: words, intonation, speed of talking and reflex. This, firstly, will build the trust and secondly, will help to communicate. In solution focused approach therapy the one who knows the solution is patient himself, just a therapist needs to help out while bringing that solution to the day light, while being supportive and respectful. There should not be any confrontation, denials, only the suggestions and alternatives.
6. Restore and enhance hope and positive expectation
Hope and positive expectation have a strong influence on final outcome of any therapy. Solution focused approach in therapy seeks of the ways to enhance hope, as a willing to improve into the healing process. Positive expectations in solution focused approach is something that stimulates the patient to focus more on the healing process.
To sum up: solution focused approach in therapy is a process during which the clear goals are defined by the patient and a therapist is the one trying to engage the best of patient’s skills and competences in order to achieve these goals. Also This is the kind of therapy which focuses only on the positive factors: hope, healing, improvement, goals and dismisses the negative things: problems and fails. In this case therapist is like a silent advisor who never is to persuasive and instead of telling the patient what to do only suggests alternatives in the way patient thinks it was actually his idea.
