How the Right Questions Can Change Your Clients’ Future

It probably doesn’t come as much of a surprise to you that I spend a lot of my time thinking about questions. Solution Focused Brief Therapy is a questions based model. So my work has been about ‘asking the kind of questions that transform people’s lives’ for 15 years.

When I think about it, questions have been a part of my life, and the focus on questions have been a part of my life for a very, very long time.

I remember one of my earliest memories with my dad was him holding me in his arms after taking a bath, [seeing our reflection] in a mirror. So he was standing in the mirror holding me. We were looking in the mirror. I know that was a super early memory because I know that happened in the place we were living in Chicago, and we moved from there when I was, like, two or three or something, and I was old enough to fit my dad’s arms. And it’s a really positive memory.

I have that memory, but unfortunately, that memory has been trumped by lots of other difficult memories. My father was an aggressive, angry, abusive man, and I have a lot of memories that a child or a man should not have about their childhood. And for a lot of years, I would ask myself, “Why is this happening to me?” When I was growing up, I would ask myself, “Why me?” “Why have I been given this story when so many people around me seemed to have much more fulfilling childhoods?” And it was a real difficult experience. I would just ask myself, “Why me?” And, “Why is this happening to me?” And all those kind of questions.

Then eventually, in my late teenage years, the question changed from, “Why me?” to “What am I supposed to do with this?” Like, I’ll never forget, literally the moment that that question changed. Instead of, “Why have I been given this story?”, the question changed to, “What am I supposed to do with this story?”

I was a marine biology major at the time and realized that perhaps this is all happening to me so that I could help people. And the very next day, I went to my professor that was helping with my schedule, my guidance counselor, I don’t remember which… “Advisor” I think we called it, but I went to my advisor very next day, and I said, “I want to change my major to psychology.”

I didn’t know that I was ultimately going to end up as a psychotherapist. I didn’t know how, but I knew that psychology was going to get me closer to that than marine biology. So I switched my major, and away we went.

And another really important shift that happened is all of a sudden, I wasn’t embarrassed, ashamed, afraid of pitying myself about the story that I had. I was almost proud of it because this is the story I was given that I could use to help people. I was very aware of that, and I believe that to this very, very day. I went through all of that so I could get to where I could understand pain, difficulty and trauma so I could help people overcome theirs.

And then it didn’t cause me strife anymore. I was no longer dealing with nightmares. I was no longer dealing with anxieties. I was no longer dealing with those kind of issues. I was now motivated, inspired, and enthused. That transformation, I literally can’t even describe it. I’m 47 years old now. This is almost 30 years ago. And I still get goosebumps and even teary eyed at times when I think about this.

I share this because that’s how powerful questions are. In order to get really, really good at Solution Focused Brief Therapy, you have to believe in the transformative nature of questions and believe that you can transform someone’s lives by asking them questions to help them think differently about their circumstances, their situations. Solution Focused Brief Therapy, in spite of its name, it’s not necessarily about finding a solution. It’s about transformation and inspiring somebody so that their lives will never be the same.

That happened to me through the questions I was asking myself. And it happens to my clients through the questions I ask them. And it also changes the questions they ask themselves. It’ll happen to your clients, too.

I recently published a book with my good buddy, Dr. Adam Froer, called ‘Chang Your Questions. Change Your Future.’ And I go much deeper into this concept in that book. But I wanted to make this video to share this, really highlight this point.

A lot of people struggle to use Solution Focused Brief Therapy not because they don’t understand the approach, and not because they haven’t studied or whatever, but it’s because they don’t believe. They don’t believe in the power of questions. They don’t believe in their clients enough. They don’t believe in transformation. You gotta believe in that stuff.
That’s why I make these videos. That’s why I wrote that book. That’s why I do what I do.

And it worked for me, it works for my clients. And I’ve seen thousands of clients in my nearly 20 years of practice. It’ll work for you, too. It’ll work for your clients.