Solution-Focused Brief Therapy: Family Therapy Analysis

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Family counseling is necessary to helping dysfunctional families improve in their communication skills and abilities to resolve conflict. There are a variety of therapeutic approaches that counselors may use to help families navigate their issues and seek solutions. One such approach is Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT). Many therapeutic approaches seek to discover why families are having problems and how to fix them. SFBT seeks to bring families to a solution through a variety of techniques. Solution-Focused Therapy is a short-term therapy approach. This therapy has developed as a social construct from influential leading figures, with innovative concepts, and a few techniques that make it a prominent approach among family therapists. …show more content…
These techniques include “miracle questions”, specific goals, exception-finding questions, compliments, homework, and scaling questions (Gingerich & Peterson, 2013). “Miracle questions” are questions designed to help clients find a solution and describe what they want from therapy. The counselor has the client pretend that a miracle has just happened and imagine the problem’s solution (Gingerich & Eisengart, 2000). Scaling questions are also used in Solution-Focused Therapy to help clients rate their feelings and find a solution. The counselor uses this technique by asking clients questions in which the client provides a number to quantify how they feel, which is supposed to help the client construct a positive view and encourage success (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2013). Another technique that is used in SFBT is exception questions. The purpose of exception finding questions is to help families discover exceptions to behaviors that clients may have previously considered inflexible (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2013). By showing clients exceptions to their behaviors they are able to change their thinking and view of themselves as all bad or all good. Another notable technique used in this counseling approach is the use of compliments. Complimenting the client focuses on their strengths, encourages growth, and this technique also helps with counselor-client …show more content…
Family therapy includes a variety of approaches to help individual families receive the best treatment. Other leading therapies include Collaborative Therapy and Narrative Therapy. Aside from both of these social constructs sharing the same ideas about reality, both systems emphasize communication and conversation. Solution-Focused therapists insist on conversation that looks at the language used between family members. Collaborative therapists seek to have a conversational relationship with the clients. Both therapies seek to enact change rather than discussing what brought the clients to therapy or “why” there are problems within the family (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2013). Both of these social construct therapies seek to help clients develop new stories or attitudes and change dysfunctional