Why I Stopped Using Exceptions in My SFBT Sessions

Throughout the history of Solution Focused Brief Therapy, exceptions have been a very prominent part of practicing this way of working. And exceptions are when you ask a client about times when the problem isn’t present or when the problem is present in a less severe way. But in today’s video, I want to tell you why I don’t ask about exceptions in my work anymore. That’s what I was originally trained to do. But over time, I’ve noticed that I spend less and less time asking people about the absence of the problem or when the problem is less severe. It wasn’t like a thing I overtly decided to do. It was just the way my practice evolved, the way that my practice evolved and working with this approach, and I just no longer ask about it. I want to tell you exactly why.

Number one, if I ask people about the exception to the problem, I’m still asking them to think about their problem. And part of what I’m trying to do when I practice Solution Focused Brief Therapy is I want my clients to think about their desired outcome, their hopes, their skills, positive traits, and attributes that they could use to make their desired outcome become their reality. So asking about times when the problem isn’t present forces them to think about the problem, and I don’t want to do that.

Instead, I ask people to think of themselves as exceptional. I think when this started, I was doing a training in Oklahoma, with Adam, and we were talking about, the way that therapy should kind of uplift people and make them feel like the better version of themselves and bring out the very best in them. And this woman in the audience, I’ll never forget it, she said, “It’s like you treat every person as if they’re exceptional.”

So I think that kind of started in my mind that even if I talk about exceptions with people, I want to talk about them being the person capable of producing the exception, them being the person capable of making that time when the problem was gone or when the problem was less likely to have a serious impact… they were the ones who created that experience.

I want to treat people like they’re capable, exceptional, remarkable. And when you do that, then you don’t need to ask about time when the problem is no longer impacting the client. You just have to keep asking about the desired outcome and what it is about the client that makes that desired outcome a possible reality.

It wasn’t something that I intentionally decided not to make a part of my practice. It wasn’t something that I intentionally decided that I wasn’t going to be doing. It was just something that evolved over time. The more I have honed in my work and really focused on working with people towards their desired outcome, the less time I spend in any way attached to the problem.

I want people to view themselves through this lens of unlimited possibilities, capability and exceptionality. And that’s why my work has evolved in this way.

Sometimes clients are going to bring up problems. Clients are going to say things like, “Oh, my gosh, I’m so depressed.” And instead of saying, “Tell me about times when depression isn’t a part of your life.”, I’m going to say, “What would you rather be?” And then when people say they’d like to be happy, I’m going to say, “Suppose you woke up tomorrow happy. What would you notice?” So we don’t even have to talk about times when the problem wasn’t there, because it’s not as impactful as saying, “Gosh, it sounds really terrible that you’re struggling with all this depression right now. How would you rather be feeling?” And then people say, “I’d rather be joyous, happy…”, whatever they say. And then you start asking about the presence of that as opposed to the absence of the problem, which is what exceptions are all about.

I’ve gone so in on asking about the presence of the outcome that I just don’t see any reason to ask about the absence of the problem.