How the Past Plays a Crucial Part in SFBT

Whether filled with resilience or even darkness, the past is a crucial part of the Solution Focused Brief Therapy method. Let’s talk about how we can use a past, whether good or bad, to find strengths of our clients.

I think probably the biggest misconception throughout the history of Solution Focused Brief Therapy is this idea, this notion that we don’t care about the past, we’re not interested in the past. And to make the point of how wrong that is, I’m actually at a very significant place in my life.

This is where I used to live when I was between, like, seven, maybe eight, nine, I don’t know, I don’t remember. But this is the first place I lived when I moved from Chicago and moved to Boston. And I lived here with my mom and dad and my two brothers.

My dad eventually moved out and it was just my mom and me and my two brothers and. And a lot of really bad things happen here. A lot of anger and abuse, a lot of difficulty, but also a lot of really fun things, like there’s a hill right here that me and my brothers used to climb up and play on. And as I was walking up the steps to get here, I remembered some really fun moments.
But the reason why I think I need to remind you guys, the past does matter, even if the past is negative, because it gives you a reference point of how far you’ve come. As I walk around here, I think the Elliott that lived here at, you know, 8, 9, 10, 11, whatever age I was wouldn’t have imagined the Elliott I am now. And if the Elliott I was then could see me now, he would be so proud and excited.

You can’t judge the journey without acknowledging the bad parts and the hard parts, because that tells you how far you’ve come. And when you can acknowledge how far you’ve come, then you get to tap into your greatness. You get to acknowledge your strength and your resilience. You get to realize, it didn’t happen by accident and it wasn’t easy, but it happened.

And that’s how I feel about being here. It wasn’t an easy journey to get from here to where I am now, but I made it, but I’m here. And sometimes you have to look back in the past to see the difficult moments and the dark times, to recognize how far you’ve come.

So whenever anybody tells you Solution Focused Brief Therapy isn’t interested in the past, remember, you can’t be interested in progress without being interested in the past, because that’s how you can tell how far you’ve come, how much greatness you have, how much strength and resilience you have. And that’s the important part about Solution Focused Brief Therapy.