Solution-focused family therapy Theory
by Danielle’s revelation. The therapist summarized that the family seemed to be having a really difficult time with Danielle’s coming out; Danielle was having problems with Mr. and Mrs. Davis’s reaction and they were having difficulty accepting her coming out. Moving to goal setting, the practitioner asked, regarding the session, “What needs to occur so that our counseling session will be successful?” Indeed, the therapist’s earlier assessment of the problem was accurate because Danielle stated she wanted acceptance from the adults and the couple stated they wanted to be the same family as they were before. An important point in goal setting is that the goals need to be realistic. In response to Mr. Davis’s idea that Danielle could change her sexual orientation, the practitioner gently explained the view of mental health and medical associations that sexual orientation cannot be changed and that it is not pathological. The couple stated that they wanted Danielle to accept their views. Therefore, the first goal was for the family to be more accepting of each other’s views. (Note: The therapist did not want to be complicit with honoring homophobia but, true to solution- focused therapy, the solutions needed to originate with the family. The therapist saw that it was a process in which views could be accepted for what they were and they could possibly change.) Mrs. Davis stated that she wanted everyone to get along like before Danielle’s coming out, because this was a very distressing situation for her. The others agreed, so the second goal was for the family to get along like before Danielle’s coming out. The therapist suggested rephrasing this goal as “to get along like they did before they experienced this current stress” (to take the onus off Danielle and reframe it as an experience that the family was sharing). Exploring exceptions was a very useful technique for the family because it helped them recall other challenging times in the past and how they “survived” them. The practitioner asked three questions: “When have you not experienced this problem?”; “Are there times when you don’t have this problem?”; and “What do you notice is different when the problem is not there?” Of course, Mr. Davis replied that everything was fine when Danielle had not come out and the family got along well. The therapist reminded the family that again it was not realistic for Danielle to change her sexual orientation. However, the therapist then explored variations of these questions by asking, “What times in the past had the family experienced stress and yet survived well as a family?” The family recalled that Mr. Davis had been in a terrible accident at work and Danielle and Mrs. Davis had shown him tremendous support. The therapist suggested that while the situations were different, what was most important to remember was that the family provided each other with support during a time of unexpected stress and that the family could draw on this experience and apply it to the current “stress” that the couple was experiencing in response to Danielle’s announcement. In a subsequent session, all three family members were asked to rate progress in achieving the two stated goals, namely: 1) to accept each other’s views more, and 2) to get along like they did before. The scaling technique was used to measure the family’s progress on their goals. When asked how accepted she felt by her mother and stepfather, Danielle rated their progress toward this goal as a 2 on a scale of 1 to 10. Mr. Davis and Mrs. Davis believed that Danielle did not accept their views much either, and they rated her progress as a 2 as well. The family also believed that collectively they rated as a 2 for the second goal. The practitioner stated that this was a good sign because a 2 is higher than a 1; based on the scale, the family was doing better than their conversation would suggest. This surprised all three members but gave them a bit of hope. The practitioner then asked what it would
Solution-focused therapy was founded by Steve de Shazer and his colleagues at the Milwaukee, Wisconsin, based Brief Family Therapy Center. Beginning in 1979, they worked to derive a model of time-limited, brief therapy; many publications have been written on the model’s application, including de Shazer’s 1985 book Keys to Solution in Brief Therapy (de Shazer, 1985; see Resources section for additional reading on this theory). The goal of this therapy model is to promote the client’s already existing abilities to solve his or her own problem with the therapist’s guidance (de Shazer, 1988). The concepts and skills used in solution-focused family therapy are presented in Table 5. Table 5: Concepts and Intervention Skills of Solution- Focused Family Therapy Concepts ● Focus on present. ● Exceptions. ● Solution-talk. ● Client as expert. ● Resiliency and resourcefulness. Intervention Skills ● Describing the problem. ● Setting goals and using “the miracle question.” Note . Adapted from Nichols, M.P. (2014). The essentials of family therapy. (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson; and de Shazer, S. (1988). Clues: Investigating solutions in brief therapy. New York, NY: W.W. Norton. The solution-focused model relies on five concepts. Its focus on the present helps to ensure that the client seeks solutions that can resolve the problem in the present rather than dwelling on the causes of the problem in the past. Exceptions are those instances in the past (or even the present) the client identifies as when the problem was reduced or absent; identifying such exceptions provides the client some optimism with respect to goal completion. While some description of the problem is required, the solution-focused practitioner will structure the session on the present and focus the families on what is called solution-talk . Solution-talk is based on the premise that families have the solutions to their problems within them, and that sometimes it just takes a practitioner to help “mine” these solutions. Such an assumption reflects a belief in the client as expert rather than the practitioner as expert. Indeed, solutions generated by a practitioner could very likely not be long-lasting because they are given “to” a family rather than found from within the family by the family themselves. Finally, families are both resourceful and resilient. Resourcefulness means that families are capable of thinking of and pursuing resources ● Exploring exceptions. ● Using scaling questions. (otherwise known as “strengths”) that can help them survive and even flourish; resilience refers to the family’s continued ability to cope and endure despite challenging times. The following vignette shows how a practitioner would apply the solution-focused family therapy model in practice with the Davis/ Leonard family described earlier. Using the solution-focused model, the therapist met with the Davis family and began with a problem description, asking the family to describe the problem. Danielle stated that her mother and stepfather needed to “get a grip” on her being lesbian and stop panicking. Danielle was hurt that they were not being supportive. Mrs. Davis believed the problem was that Danielle had only casually thought about this decision and did not think about the repercussions it would have on the family as “people would talk.” Mr. Davis had a very hard time reconciling Danielle’s coming out with his religious views. In essence, Danielle seemed upset with Mrs. and Mr. Davis, and the couple was shocked and dismayed
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