A practical, strengths-based approach to meaningful change

Solution-Focused Therapy is a collaborative, goal-oriented approach that focuses on where you want to go rather than spending all of our time looking at what's wrong.

Rather than assuming that we need to fully understand the cause of a problem before change can happen, Solution-Focused Therapy helps you identify what you want to be different, notice what is already working, and build on your existing strengths, resources and successes.

The approach is generally future-focused, practical and relatively brief, although the number of sessions depends on the person and what they are hoping to achieve.

Where did it come from?

Solution-Focused Brief Therapy was developed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, during the late 1970s and 1980s, primarily through the work of Steve de Shazer, Insoo Kim Berg and their colleagues at the Brief Family Therapy Center. Their approach grew from observing therapy closely and paying attention to the questions and conversations that appeared to help people make real-life changes.

One of the central ideas that emerged was that the solution does not always need to be directly connected to the problem. Instead, therapy can explore times when things are already a little better, what the person is doing differently, and what they would like their preferred future to look like.