Individual Counseling & Therapy Services in Mountain Brook, AL

Solution Focused Therapy (SFT) is sometimes linked to general Brief Therapy, and Possibility Therapy…. All share some common points of focus:

• Traditional therapy goes wrong by focusing on the cause of problems, the details of how they play out, the ways these events deviate from “normal” or the way couples are “supposed” to work, and having couples passively accept the expert therapists’ explanations of “what is wrong” with them. Doing this gets clients stuck in a passive and helpless role, locked into a problem narrative they rehearse over and over again

• A better approach moves client focus off of what’s wrong and onto what’s right, stresses the resources and skills clients have, and helps them take the role of expert (which they hold anyway) and take responsibility from there for setting their own goals and reaching them. It’s not about what’s missing and causes woe, but what’s present and can lead to happiness.

• Solution building is the goal, and as you change the language that shapes how you think about the problem, you change the language that shapes how you think about the solution.

• There is no theory behind this, and you need not fully understand the problem to fix it. The solution may not even look like it will fit or resolve the problem, and that’s fine – a small enough change will nudge the system in a different direction and that may be all that’s needed.

• Therapists maintain a future focus, with language like “when this is fixed…” “notice when this problem doesn’t happen this week…” “write down what your partner does to fix the problem this week…”

• Rather than summing up what the therapist thinks the clients is saying, the therapist asks questions to focus and direct the client’s thinking and view.