Solution Focused Therapy

This is a fast world. To cope up with the speed and to bring their lives and feelings into proper order, there are many people who seek help from psychotherapists. Psychotherapy has many classifications in it, and one of them is solution focused therapy.  Though it is a branch of psychotherapy, it has certain characteristics that make it stand out. This is therapy that gives importance to your future, and a solution focused therapist talks or counsels you on your future, without probing too much into your past. They try to bring in solutions, without stressing upon the problems you face.  During the therapy, you will be encouraged to choose methods as solutions to all that you face. These therapists believe that you should be the best solution provider to your own problems, and you will have to suggest solutions to solve the problems you face. It is seen that solution focused therapy takes much less time than traditional therapy.

Steve de Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg are known to be the founders of solution focused therapy. They both were practicing therapists at the Brief Family Therapy Center in Milwaukee.

The therapy focuses bringing in solutions, rather than waste time pondering over problems. It focuses on the truth that the solutions to all your problems rest with you; and so, you should be choosing your way, on your own. The therapist only helps to you make this decision, by splitting your problems into smaller chunks, for easy solution. A treatment cycle takes about six sessions between the client and the therapist. In some cases, the number of sessions may be slightly more. As the name indicates, here, the focus is on solution to a problem, and not the cause to it. Every person will have his or her own dreams and aspirations. The therapist focuses on your future and helps you to fulfill your desires. You will also be made to list down a few goals that you think will bring in happiness in future.

According to solution therapists, there is no point thinking about the past. Talking about the problems from the past, and your past experiences will take up a lot of time and effort, and there is very little that can be done to rectify it. That is why solution focused therapy does not take as much time as traditional psychotherapy. The therapy has its roots in two aspects; the client is made to think of how he or she wants their life to change, and, the steps they think should be taken to bring about this change. However, this mode of therapy is very efficient in offering solutions. The solutions will be the best possible ones. During these sessions, you are discouraged to speak or think about things that are certain not to work out.

It has been proven in many cases that solution focused therapy is very effective in most cases that seek psychotherapy treatment. There are clients seeking solutions to depression, family problems (especially families attempting suicide), and dependence issues. Another advantage that most of the clients point out is that they do not need to pour out their emotions while discussing the problem, or the past. For many clients, digging up the past experiences and events can be a painful experience in itself. Instead the clients get more confident when the therapists actually speak about solutions. This ensures that the client does not need to waste his or her time at all.

By the end of a range of sessions, the therapist focuses on making the client to set objectives or goals, and take necessary steps towards achieving these goals. But, for this to be efficient, the client needs to open up to the therapist about their wishes and dreams. The client is then made to think of a situation when these wishes or dreams are fulfilled. The client understands that the wishes and dreams can be fulfilled by a miracle, which they can bring into realization. The client is then made to think of how you will get started on your journey to realize the miracle, and how you will end it.

You can think of visiting a therapist when you know that there are certain problems in you that need help. Some of these problems are; you are burdened with many problems in life, and not able to solve them how much ever you try, you are in need of a quick solution, you think you may harm yourself or others at the slightest provocation, you suffer from problems like depression or anxiety, and so on.

However, it is advised that you do not attempt to do this without the help from a therapist. Attempting to do things on your own will lead to more problems. You will not be able to see any solution to your problem, and that will cause even more depression. That may also make you more emotional and affect the people around you as well.