Emotions in SFT

I hope you are having a wonderful week and your 2013 has gotten off to an incredible start!

For me, it has been remarkable. I am currently on my first speaking trip of the year in London, England on my way to Amsterdam. While in London, I spent two days teaching with and learning from 3 of the most inspiring men I have ever met, Chris Iveson, Harvey Ratner and Evan George. During my time with them, and the students, we engaged in several conversations about the use of emotions in Solution Focused practice.

It has been a long-standing thought that the Solution Focused Approach does not address emotions in working with clients. However, this thought is completely untrue and an idea that needs to be addressed.

When watching a session where in which the therapist is working from the Solution Focused perspective, it is quite clear that emotions are not be addressed in the traditional fashions by asking things like, “How does that make you feel?” or by asking similar questions that elicit a description of one emotion or another. Instead, when using the SF approach, emotions become true experiences on behalf on the client drawn about by the preferred future (or past) descriptions. For example, when I ask I couple, “how did the two of you meet” the change in emotion the couple is experiencing quite clear. With each detail that unfolds from the story of how they fell in love, the emotion experienced on their behalf changes. This is also true when clients are providing detailed descriptions of their preferred future. The richer the future description, the more emotion becomes present for the client.

So, rest assured, when using the Solution Focused Approach, emotional content is addressed. It is just done by asking questions that elicit a rich and detail laced picture of the preferred future or some past success.

Well, London has been fun, and thought provoking; I can’t wait to see what thoughts are provoked in Amsterdam! I will be sure to share.