Solution-Focused Therapy

Brief Therapies

by Bill O'Connell

Struggling with the intricacies of Solution-Focused theory, skills or practice? Wanting to learn more about providing brief, practically-based solution-focused interventions across many therapeutic settings? As part of the popular Brief Therapies Series, this long awaited third edition will tell you all you need to know about Solution-Focused Therapy (SFT) and more!

This popular introduction takes you step-by-step through the counselling process, providing insight into how to structure and manage your therapeutic work in ways that are grounded in Solution-Focused principles.

This book includes:

- a detailed introduction to the theory and practice of 'brief' therapy

- a discussion of the foundations of SFT

- exercises to use with clients and/or trainees

- brand new case examples relating theory directly to practice

- an insightful reflection on the journey of the practitioner

From leading Solution-Focused expert Bill O'Connell, this book will not only provide practical guidelines and theoretical background for the beginner but support and inspiration for the more experienced.

Bill O'Connell is Director of Training for Focus on Solutions Limited in Birmingham. He was previously Head of the Counselling Department at Westhill College of Higher Education, Birmingham, and is co-editor of Handbook of Solution-Focused Therapy (SAGE, 2003).

Genres: Psychology

208 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 14, 1998

Reviews

[Edward Hardie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a guide to solution-focused therapy intended for therapists rather than a self-help book for patients. The main idea behind SFT is that if we want to improve our lives it is better to figure out what the solutions to our problems might be rather than work out how they have arisen in the first place. We don’t want to know that someone stole a lollipop from us when we were three, however traumatic that was. If we concentrate too much effort on our problems they may assume even greater importance in our minds, and if we try to determine how our problems arose then therapy might last for years. So SFT is a brief, ‘quick fix’ therapy aiming for improvement in a few sessions.

Another basic idea of SFT is that the therapist does not adopt the role of expert. She doesn’t listen to the client with a view to labelling the problem and imposing ready-made solutions from some theoretical model. Solutions must come from the clients who are, after all, more expert on their lives than the therapist.

The philosophy of the SFT approach is clearly explained and the book outlines the strategies available to the therapist very clearly. But SFT is not the only therapy available as a brief alternative to problem-focused therapy. Transactional analysis might achieve the same thing for certain clients and no doubt advocates of NLP would make the same claim. As a carer, rather than a professional psychologist or therapist, I am not capable of making an informed choice between these approaches. Also, while the theory of SFT is clear it seems to me very difficult to apply in practice. To be successful, the practitioner would have to build up experience and it is hard to see how this could be done without disadvantage to the clients he first works with – which is no doubt true of other therapies as well.

But maybe weakest link of this therapy is its central tool, the miracle question. The therapist asks the client to identify one area where things could be improved and uses the answer as the first stage in moving on. But how many times can the client be asked this question and still yield results?

[Tedi31]

Bought: December 4, 2014
Location: Booksale (Megamall)
Price: P145