Solution-focused brief therapy (SFBT)

Solution-focused brief therapy (SFBT) was developed in the 1980s by Steve de Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg for use in the personal counselling field. It focuses on helping clients construct solutions, rather than solve problems.

In solution-focused counselling, the practitioner helps the client to construct a vision of their preferred future and shift the main attention away from problems towards solutions.

Solution-focused practitioners believe that clients have the resources (skills, abilities, beliefs and external resources such as social networks) to solve their own problems.

Solution-focused therapy is based on the idea that to change, we need to focus on how change happens, rather than how problems develop. That is, we do not necessarily need to know the cause of the problem, or to put it another way, we need to focus on the “how” not the “why”.

To help the client identify their personal resources, the practitioner often plays the role of curious enquirer, using specific questions. These questions, along with the skill of the practitioner to read the answers, help the client to explore the resources they have and how they have used them to create successes in the past. The client is then able to adapt a self-help approach to problems in the future.

The SFBT approach is often a short interaction, and is well-suited to career practice as the practitioner may often only get one opportunity to work with a client. Using the SFBT approach, time is well spent identifying the problem, shifting into solutions, and enabling the client to continue with exploring options using the resources they have.

• Brief Therapy Institute of Sydney website - SFBT practice, training and supervision

Source

• Cade, B, and O’Hanlon, W H, 'A Brief Guide to Brief Therapy', New York: Norton, 1993.