child and adolescent counseling chapter 10

Chapter 10Brief Counseling If you want truly to understand something, try to change it... Chapter ObjectivesAfter reading this chapter, you should be able to: • Outline the developmen

Chapter 10

Brief Counseling

If you want truly to understand something, try

to change it.

Kurt Lewin

Chapter Objectives

After reading this chapter, you should be able

to:

• Outline the development of solution-focused

counseling

• Explain the theory of solution-focused counseling

• Discuss the counseling relationship and goals in

solution-focused counseling

• Describe assessment, process, and techniques in

solution-focused counseling

• Demonstrate some therapeutic techniques

• Even when people are not doing well, pieces of solutions are happening

• Find out what the client is doing that works

• Those things become the building blocks of therapy

• Talking about positive parts of the client’s life builds

self-worth, creates optimism, and begins a change

process that starts with existing strengths and resources

SOLUTION-FOCUSED BRIEF

COUNSELING (SFBC)

Nature of People

• People are free to make choices and are not

victims of their genetics or environment.

• People are basically good.

• People are basically rational.

• People respond better to a present and future

counseling orientation.

• People have the ability to work through their own problems.

Bruce’s Components of

SFBC

• Develop a working alliance to attack the problem.

• Identify clients’ strengths as a foundation for

confidence in their abilities to make positive

changes.

• Implement active, eclectic counseling strategies and interventions.

• Establish clear, concrete, measurable goals in order to evaluate progress.

Bruce’s SFBC Intervention

Tasks

• “Do something different.”

• “Pay attention to what you do when you overcome the urge to … ” for the client who has trouble controlling impulsive behaviors

• “Tell me about a time when you had a good day at

” for clients who have taken on the victim

mentality of believing that nothing good ever happens

to them

• “Observe and take notes” for clients who have trouble avoiding problem situations and interactions.

Counseling Method

• Orientation: Clarify the SFBC counseling process.

• Setting Goals: heart of counseling including statement

of the problem:

o The problem

o The feelings associated with the problem

o The intensity of those feelings on a 1 to 10 scale

o The client’s expectations of what the client would like to have happen in counseling and the goals the client would like to accomplish

• Active Listening

• Scaling: “Where are you on a scale of 1 to 10?”

Setting Counseling Goals

• Goals owned or set by the client work best.

• If clients need assistance, be sure goals are co-created.

• Set goals that are behaviorally oriented

• Goals work best when they are positive,

concrete, and reduced to small steps.

• State a goal in terms of what behavior will

occur, how often it will occur, and under what

Counseling Method

• Miracle question: “Should a miracle occur this

evening while you were sleeping and when you woke

up, you suddenly realized that your problems were solved, what would you be doing that would indicate

to you that the miracle had actually taken place?”

• Relationship questions: “What will your _ say

that will be different after the miracle?”

• Asking and reinforcing exceptions to the problem

solution.

• Using positive blame.

Counseling Method

• Scaling progress toward the goal.

• Asking for 10% improvement

• Flagging the minefield: “What things might prevent you

from moving up 10% on the scale or what might

sabotage your plan?”

• Closing the session.

• Writing the note: Write the client a message with at least

3 compliments and a bridging statement from each

compliment to one of the tasks the client needs to

accomplish to raise the scale score 10% or one level

from a 4 to a 5.

Five Question Method

1 Ask “How do you experience the problem?”

2 Ask “When do (or did) you not experience

the problem? What were you doing then?

3 Have clients rate their current progress on

solving the problem on the 0 to 10 scale.

4 Ask the miracle question.

5 Set goals based on increasing what works

for the client.

Benefits of SFBC

• Wide appeal among cultures and clients who

emphasize individual responsibility over family and community.

• The approach has much to offer counselors who are working under the constraints of managed

health care and who are working with large client loads.

• Methods of SFBC are not easy to master.