SFBT IS NOT ABOUT BEING POSITIVE

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I had an interaction this week on social media that, to be honest with you, surprised me. And it surprised me because I’m still a little bit surprised at some of the things that we still have to say about Solution Focused Brief Therapy and the work that we do.

I would have thought that by now we would have made certain things about this way of working clear, but there’s still work to do, there’s still myths to dispel, and there’s still clarity to be achieved.

So let me tell you what happened. On my social media I post often about Solution Focused Brief Therapy and then things that I hope will inspire people to do and be the best version of themselves.

I put a post up on social media about dealing with haters as I have a few that show up in my comment section, in my DM’s and emails and things. And someone responded by saying my post wasn’t very solution focused, in fact, it was problem focused. And I responded and I said, “Well, I don’t think that’s true, and I think you misunderstand some things about Solution Focused Brief Therapy.” And the person got really upset and it went on like a little bit of back and forth. It was just kind of silly.

But it got me to thinking. I think people think Solution Focused Brief Therapy is about being positive and it’s not. The solution focused approach actually has nothing to do with positivity, positive psychology, or being positive or any of those things. When you do solution focused work, there’s this line of thinking that says a solution focused person can’t complain because it’s supposed to be solution focused. Or a solution focused person can’t point out something difficult because they’re always supposed to see the positive in everything. And not only is that not true, I mean, it’s ridiculous. It is utterly ridiculous.

Life is a holistic experience and we have to honor the difficulties, and the positive things. It is inappropriate to think that a Solution Focused Brief Therapist only pays attention to positive things and finds a silver lining in everything. Let me tell you the one thing that a Solution Focused Brief Therapist must do in each and every interaction they have with clients.

You must be optimistic about your client’s ability to accomplish change regardless of their problem. That’s what Solution Focused Brief Therapy is all about. It has nothing to do with being positive and finding the silver lining in things and seeing the best in everything. It’s about having the ability to be optimistic about a person’s ability to change in spite of challenges and difficulties they’ve had in their life. That’s it.

That is what we are doing in Solution Focused Brief Therapy. And the language we use to do that is associated with the questions that we ask. But this thought that a Solution Focused Brief Therapist should never talk about a problem or shouldn’t ever complain, or because you’re solution focused, you always see the good in everything. It’s wrong. It’s ridiculous. And it is not true about any human being, including human beings, that practice Solution Focused Brief Therapy.