Once They Stopped Forcing It, Magic Happened

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After spending 2 days teaching in Chelmsford, UK with a group of passionate learners, I noticed they were trying to force their use of SFBT questions and thus were becoming frustrated. I asked them to stop forcing it and just allow the questions to be guided by their care and curiosity with me as their client. This video is about what happened next.

So I’m really excited right now. I am, uh, gearing up to do my annual free, ah, Solution Focused Therapy video training series this year called SFBT 2020, where we’re going to be talking about like the cutting edge developments that have taken place this year and the Solution Focused approach. And I’m super duper excited to share it. Uh, as a matter of fact, I’m flying on my way to this like cave. I’m going to stay in for the next two or three days just like being in creative mode and just kind of getting my mind right, uh, to make the materials that are gonna be associate with the training material and I’m super excited. But I wanted to share with you something that happened this past week that may be even more excited than normal. See, I was in Chelmsford, England, teaching, uh, in a diploma program about Solution Focused Brief Therapy in a place called Essex. And it was really this amazing thing because the people going through the training, most of them had a lot of Solution Focused Brief Therapy training for a lot of high quality Solution Focused Brief Therapy training before.

And they’re all super nervous about applying Solution Focused Brief Therapy, uh, with their clients. And they’re all kind of nervous about like, how do I do this? And, and what if the client doesn’t answer like this? And, one of the things that I want to get across to people is just like the importance of not even thinking really studying and practicing Solution Focused Brief Therapy within the therapy session, being guided by just connection and curiosity and a desire to be useful to the client. And understanding our role is about a description of the presence of the client’s desired outcome and increasing positive emotion. So in this, with this group, I, I decided to do an exercise with them where I would be like the group’s client, right? So, so, um, I sit there and I tell them about my past and past trauma, true story, real stuff.

And, um, ask the group to be my therapist. And I told them to ask me like positive questions about how I got through the most difficult times of my youth and then I would answer each question and then they take that material and build on it into the next question. It was this amazing experience. This group handled the situation beautifully because I ask them, don’t try to be a solution focused therapist. Just try to ask me questions about how I got through these difficult experiences in my youth and how I turned into an adult who does not replicate the trauma on other people. And um, so not being a therapist but just ask these kinds of questions and be guided by your curiosity and your ability to be amazed by somebody’s story. And they were beautiful. What I did not expect is just the, the impact it would have on me.

Like I could feel just in this role play in this well it’s no role play, it was real, but just in this like laboratory conversation, in this like laboratory experience, the, I can feel my positive affect, my positive emotion go up. And that happened about 48 hours ago. And I’m still impacted by this. Like so, I mean, I’m just, one of the things that I want to get across to people, just the power of this increasing positive emotion that comes from people asking. So, or answering Solution Focus questions that get in touch with the best of them and helps them move more towards their desired outcome. So like that’s the thing like, don’t you want to practice an a approach where your clients are more likely to leave with this, like increase in positive emotion, this increase in positive affect, feeling better about themselves and their situation and capabilities. And that’s what this is about. So anyway, I got to go, I got to go board my flight, uh, and um, kind of get in my zone where i’m going to create this material. So look like this video, share this video, head on over to www.elliottconnie.com and get more stuff. Go on over to YouTube. Subscribe to the channel, hit the bells, you get notifications and leave comments cause I love hearing what you guys think and I’ll see you in the next video.