Using Training To Have Faith While Practicing SFBT

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In other therapy approaches, you often rely on theory and technique. However, SFBT requires something else important: training. In this video, I discuss three different aspects of faith that you need and why you should always be training.

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So I’ve been thinking about something. You know, I’ve spent the last couple of weeks teaching a lot of Solution Focused Brief Therapy online. I’ve done a lot of webinars. I’ve done some full day training’s and video series that I got going on with some really cool colleagues of mine. And I was thinking about like, so why is training in Solution Focused Brief Therapy so important? And one of the things that I think is when you train to use like a problem focused approach

it’s really important that you train to be familiar with the techniques. It’s really important that you trained to be familiar with the theory. But Solution Focused is different because we rely so much on the client content. It’s not really about the theory. It’s not really about the techniques of the Solution Focused approach. It’s about something else.

It doesn’t matter how much theory you know or how much technique you know. I’m gonna tell you the one thing you have to know,

and the only way to acquire this is with training, because it’s the only way to build this muscle.

How many of you are working on computers a lot, here in this very unusual COVID-19 time we’re living in and you find yourself more tired after doing a lot of work online,

whether it’s training’s or sessions, right? Like the more we do that, we’re just more tired. Why is that?

Because we haven’t built this muscle to sit in front of a screen all day. It’s a very new activity.

And a lot of times we get stuck in Solution Focused sessions regardless of how much we know the techniques or the theories, because it’s a new muscle and we have to exercise it.

And training helps you exercise that muscle. And I’m gonna tell you the one thing you need. The one benefit of doing all this training and that is faith. To do

Solution Focused Brief Therapy well, you have to have three levels of faith. Number one (1),

you have to have faith that you’re going to be able to come up with a meaningful question based upon what your client is saying in the session.

Number two (2), you’re going to have the have the faith that your client is going to be capable of answering your questions,

even if they’re hard. Number three (3), you’re gonna have to have the belief, you’re gonna have the faith that in answering the questions,

the client is going to see a pathway forward that leads towards change. I don’t care what problem or how old the client,

or how long the problem has existed. I don’t care how well you know Solution Focused Therapy. I don’t care what techniques you’re using.

You have to go into the session maintaining high levels of those three areas of faith. I can ask good questions that are meaningful.

My client can answer questions even if they’re hard, and answering the questions will lead towards change. Those are the three levels of faith and belief you have to have in order to do Solution

Focused Brief Therapy well. And we don’t go to school and learn faith and confidence and trust. We go to school and we learn theory.

We go to school and we learn assessment skills. But we don’t learn those clinical abilities that are necessary to ask clients questions that are more likely to lead toward change.

We may learn what the techniques are. But we don’t learn is the application of the techniques. And that’s why this is a really,

really critical thing I want you guys to get this. That you can learn everything you want all day long.

And if any of those three things begins to rupture in the session, then you’re gonna get stuck and you’re going to have problems and the sessions gonna fall apart.

People ask me all the time as I’m teaching this approach. Like, “Elliott, I’m really struggling to apply this approach.

Can you tell me where it went wrong?” And, “Can you tell me why my clients have a

hard time answering my questions?” It’s because in the middle of the session you started to doubt your ability to ask the next question and you got in your own head and you started thinking.

How many of you watching this video, you get stuck in session because you’re thinking of how to ask the right question,

and then it just gets all jumbled in your head. The right question is simply the next question in the sequence.

Based upon what your client said. So it’s just so incredibly important that we’re able to build those things.

Because that’s what we get stuck, right? We get stuck when our confidence begins to waiver. Because we think, I’m asking a question

that client can’t answer. Or we start wondering even if they answer these questions, how are they gonna lead towards change?

You’ve got to maintain those three levels of faith in order to be effective with this approach. So that’s why training is so important.

Because we exercised that muscle and we build our ability to be faithful. We build our ability to be confident.

We build our ability to trust our skill set and trust the client capabilities. Keep training. My biggest pet peeve is when people

tell me, “I don’t have to do anymore training in Solution Focused Brief Therapy because I already trained on it.” This is a skill that you have the hone.

You have to really work at it to keep that that skill sharp or it starts to diminish, right?

Just how it is, that just how it goes. So, take the opportunities you can to acquire more training because it’s meaningful.

So anyway, thank you for watching this video. Please ‘like’, ‘share’, ‘subscribe’. Head on over to my YouTube channel. Hit the bell so you get notifications when I

post new videos. I post videos all the time. And they’re always geared to help you learn, master and apply this approach in your work,

man. I love you guys. And thank you for watching this video. Stay safe out there in this world,

man. Keep yourself calm. Stay home. So we can get rid of this virus and start living a life where we could be in contact.

I miss people. I miss smiles. I miss seeing my friends. And I miss gatherings.

So let’s get back to normal or back to the new normal as quickly as we possibly can. So with that,

I’ll see you guys in the next video. Elbow bump!