2. Three Important Notions:
1. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
2. If something isn’t working, do something else.
3. If something is working, do more of it.
From Skott-Myhre 1992
3. Assumptions of Solution Oriented Therapy:
1. Social Reality is co-created and observer-defined. The therapist participates in co-creating the therapy systems
reality.
2. Resistance is not a useful concept. Cooperation is inevitable.
3. Change is inevitable. Rapid resolution of complaints is probable.
4. Small change is all that is necessary, a change in one part of a system affects change in other parts of the system.
5. Clients have resources to solve problems. They are the experts.
6. You don’t need to know a great deal about the problem to solve it.
7. Clients define goals.
8. Problems exist in the present, not in the past. It is easier to build on strength and past success than to correct past
failures and mistakes.
9. There are many ways to view a situation, none more “correct” than others. “Right and wrong, good and bad” are
not useful terms. Better to talk about “what works.”
10. Meanings are dynamic and negotiable; choose meanings that lead to change. Meanings are made up, therefore
we have choices about how we want to frame what happens in our lives. Facts or “what happens” are non-negotiable.
11. Problems are failed solutions.
4. More competency–based Assumptions compiled from
Skott-Myhre 1992
1. What people do is based on what they believe to be true about the world.
2. What people believe to be true is shaped and developed through the conversations they have with each
other.
3. Each person is imbedded in a unique dialogic ecology.
4. The nature and substance of this ecology is constantly changing.
5. The role of counseling is not to create change, but to discover where change is occurring and amplify it.
6. Each and every person is inherently competent and has all the resources necessary for change.
7. Therapy need not take a long time.
8. The greatest asset in being a competency based counselor is “relentless optimism”.
9. The greatest obstacle is the therapist’s “personal despair.”
5. Treatment Protocol for Solution-based therapy:
1. Co-create a solvable problem.
2. Elicit exceptions
3. Amplify elements of conjoint curiosity.
4. Anchor forward to a positive future
5. Scale back and down.
6. Base inquiries in assumed competence.
7. Compliment
8. Utilize intervention to amplify focus on existing exceptions, competencies or curiosity.
From Skott-Myhre 1992
6. Team serves as audience
that:
1. Provides feedback.
(alternate knowledge)
2. Invites further
performance of meaning.
Via Questioning Therapist:
1. Identifies unique outcome.
2. Invites a performance of meaning
- Unique accounts
- Unique re-description
- Unique possibilities
- Unique circulation
Dominant story Lived experience
Select out experiences
consistent with dominant
story.
Ascribe meaning to events
based on dominant story.
Perform dominant story
through behavior.
Circulation story to
audience.
Client performs New Story
Client ascribes new meaning
to events in the past and
present and to anticipated
events in the future.
Client selects out alternative
Knowledge from lived
Experience.
7. Unique Account Questions
Examples from White (1988)
Direct:
How did you manage to take this step?
Would you help me understand how you made good your escape from the
problem?
What do you think you might have been doing to get ready for this step?
Indirect:
What do you think this achievement tells me about this new direction?
What else have you noticed that can tell me more about this new
direction?
What do you think about this turning point that appears most significant to
my colleagues?
8. Unique Redescription Questions
Examples from White (1988)
Direct:
What does this tell you about yourself that is important for you to know?
What does this new direction tell you about your relationships that is pleasing for you to know?
Do you think that the new picture of you suites you more than the old picture did? If so, why does it suit you better?
Indirect:
What do you think these developments tell me about you as a person that is important for me to know?
How do you think it has changed your colleagues picture of you as a person?
What do you think this might be telling spouse/parent about that they can appreciate?
Relationship to Self:
What difference does knowing this about yourself make to how you feel about yourself?
How has this new picture changed how you treat yourself as a person?
How are these new realizations about yourself effecting your capacity to respect yourself?
Relationship to Others:
How are these discoveries about your influence in the life of the problem affecting your relationship with spouse/child?
Question for your spouse or child- What effect is seeing and experiencing these positive changes in your partner/parent
having on your relationship with him/her?
How is your grasp of the significance of these changes in your parents’ relationship affecting how you are interacting with
them?
9. Unique Possibility Questions
Examples of questions from White (1988)
Direct:
What difference will knowing this about yourself make to your next steps?
What possibilities do you think are available in your relationship with your father?
Being careful not to get too far ahead of schedule, when do you think you will be ready for the next step?
Indirect:
Knowing what I know now about you, what possibilities do you think I could foresee for you just around the corner?
What do you think Jane finds refreshing about the new possibilities that accompany this new picture of you as a person?
Having been put in touch with this new view of your relationship, what steps do your think I foresee as now being possible for you?
Relationship with Self:
What difference will taking up some of these new possibilities make to your relationship with yourself?
How do you think exploring the new opportunities will affect your appreciation of yourself as a person?
How will the completion of some of these steps affect the degree of comfort and satisfaction that you experience with yourself?
Relationship with others:
What difference will this new understanding of yourself make to your relationship with John?
What effect will Jane’s pursuit of some of these new possibilities have on your interaction with her?
How will future developments in the new career of your parent’s relationship effect your interaction with them?
10. Unique Circulation Questions
Tell me, who do you know that would be important to catch up on this new picture of yourself
as a person?
Who might treat your relationship like the old picture? Could they be assisted if you were to
put them in touch with this new picture?
Who do you think is most pleased that you have developed a new relationship with your son?
As you have continued your journey down this new path, how do others see you?
If your mother were still living, what ideas would she have about this new direction?
If your protective services worker were able to see you now, what might she/he notice has
changed about the relationships in your family?
11. Solving My Problems
1) List concerns that brought you in to see me.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
2) Describe how you would like things to change/to be.
3) How will you know you are headed in the right direction?
4) What goes on when the problem is not happening?
5) What will be different when the problem is gone?
6) How will you know when the problem is no longer a problem?
7) What will your friends and family notice that is different about you when
the problem is solved?
*If, upon wakening, the problem had mysteriously and suddenly disappeared, how would others know?
12. Criteria Key Words Sample Questions
1. In the positive. “Instead” What will you be doing instead?
2. In a process form. “Howing” How will you be doing this?
3. In the here and now. “On Track” As you leave here today, and you are on track,
what will you be doing differently and saying differently to
yourself?
4. As specific as possible. “Specifically” How specifically will you be doing this?
5. In the client’s control. “You” What will you be doing when that happens?
6. In the client’s language Use the client’s words.
13. Exercise for Hypothetical Solution Question
Step 1. With a client or peer, ask the hypothetical solution question and take notice of what
they tell you. When first trying this, resist asking any follow up questions. Just take
note what the client/peer says, or how the client/peer says it, or what the client/peer
does with it. When you feel you can no longer resist responding to the client’s/peer’s
replies, then ask him/her to tell you more about the hypothetical solution.
Step 2. As he/she tells you more about the hypothetical solution, write down the answers on
the solution construction worksheet and begin to use the checklist of criteria for a well
defined goal. Use the words, “instead,” “how,” “specifically,” and “on track,” to help
the solution become more well-defined. Use the criteria checklist for a well-defined
goal.
Step 3. Use the worksheets to gauge his/her progress in solution construction.
Step 4. Ask him/her to tell you about times when that hypothetical solution may be
happening now even a little bit.
14. Goal or Problem
What is your goal in coming here?
Exceptions
How is this happening now?
When doesn’t the problem happen?
Wish or Complaint
What would you like to change about
this?
Hypothetical Solutions
If a miracle happened, and the problem
were solved, what would you be doing
differently?
Criteria for a Well-defined Goal
Yes No
----- ----- 1. In the positive
----- ----- 2. In a process form.
----- ----- 3. In the here and now.
----- ----- 4. As specific as possible.
----- ----- 5. In the client’s control.
----- ----- 6. In the client’s language. (Solution Construction Worksheet)
15. Empowering Effects of Externalizing The Problem
1. Externalization helps the client objectify the problem rather than him/herself. Instead of the client
becoming defensive or feeling hopeless (“I can’t do anything about that, it’s just my character.”),
externalization encourages more resourcefulness to challenge the problem.
2. Externalization undermines the sense of failure that may develop when the problem has continued
despite attempts to solve it.
3. Family members begin to cooperate with each other my uniting in a struggle against the problem.
4. Family members are less likely to blame each other for the problem.
5. Externalization helps to undo the negative effects of social labeling. Family members are less likely to
label or pathologize the person most identified with the problem.
6. New possibilities are opened for persons to escape the oppression of the problem, problem saturated
descriptions of themselves, and take charge of their lives.
7. People are able to take a lighter, more effective, and less stressed approach to problems.
8. Externalization promotes responsibility. Clients become aware of their own participation in the
problem.
9. Externalization promotes personal agency.
a. Through the therapeutic conversation, clients become more aware of the choices available
to them.
b. The are invited to recognize that they have the option of continuing to submit to the
influence of the externalized problem or the option of rejecting the invitation to submit to
the problem.
c. The therapist does not direct clients to choose a particular alternative or course of action.
The therapist assumes that individual clients are the best judge of what fits best for them.
d. As a consequence, clients experience more freedom to explore new patterns of perception,
thought or action.
16. Filters
1. You can be married to one another or you can be married to your filter of “Being Right”. You don’t get to do
both.
2. Filters are formed from perception or ultimately, the meanings we make out of “what happens”.
3. Filters are inevitable, but only become a problem when they are negative and fixed. When we believe how
we see the world is “the truth” then possibility for change is limited.
4. Distinguishing between “what happens” and “what we make something mean” can be useful in helping
couples change a negative pattern.
5. Look for exceptions in their negative story about one another.
6. Filters are formed from the past or history. It is why couples long for those early days when they were so in
love and had so much passion. The truth is they had no history to speak of, so all of their focus was on the
present and future possibilities. When we live in possibility, “life is good”.
7. Negative interpretations of the past “kill” possibility and leave couples or individuals resigned and cynical
about the future.
17. Filters continued
8. When couples succeed in enrolling the therapist in their filter or story about their marriage, then that will
become the biggest obstacle to change.
9. To have success with couples, you have to look past the negative filters to which they have become so
attached and find the exception. “When do you see your husband not being a jerk?” “When is your wife not
controlling?”
Caution: Before you can challenge a negative filter, you must validate their pain that is the result of that
negative interpretation. “I know it must be painful for both of you to feel the way you do about one another,
especially, since it’s not always this way and hasn’t always been this way. I’m sure knowing how good it has
been and knowing how much you are capable of loving one another, makes it all the more painful to feel stuck
right now. However, at least you know what it’s going to look like when you get unstuck. Right? Can you tell
me more about how that will look? What will you be doing differently, once you are back on firm ground
again?”
10. If you move to quickly to a solution approach, without acknowledging how difficult this has been, then you
may lose them as clients.
