Chapter 10
Brief Counseling:
SOLUTION-FOCUSED AND
PARADOXICAL COUNSELING
STRATEGIES
Solution-Focused Therapy
A GENERAL OVERVIEW
FOCUS = SOLUTION
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.
 Focuses on “what” people are doing and not “why” they are doing it.
 Focus on success instead of failure
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:
The problem.
The feelings associated with the problem.
The intensity of those feelings on a 1 to 10 scale.
The client’s expectations of what the client would like to have happen
in counseling and the goals the client would like to accomplish.
Use Active Listening when identifying the problem: (given the
brief nature, then identifying the wrong problem is extremely
problematic
Scaling: “Where are you on a scale of 1 to 10?”
Working with positive and negative goals.
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
conditions it will occur.
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.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Ask “How do you experience the problem?”
Ask “When do (or did) you not experience
the problem? What were you doing then?
Have clients rate their current progress on
solving the problem on the ) to 10 scale.
Ask the miracle question.
Set goals based on increasing what works
for the client.
PARADOXICAL BRIEF
COUNSELING
A BRIEF OVERVIEW
FOCUS = PROBLEM
PARADOXICAL BRIEF COUNSELING (PBC)
 People are independent and resist compliance
(actively or passively).
 PBC focuses on problem
formation/elimination.
 PBC methods are specific and eclectic.
 Problems reframed as opportunities.
PARADOXICAL BRIEF COUNSELING (PBC)
Two approaches in PBC:
1) one-down position: elevates the client to the
expert role and the counselor to the less-thanexpert role.
2) one-up frame of reference: the counselor,
as expert, prescribes the behavior the client is to
follow. “Do more of your symptomatic behavior.”
Puts the resistant client in a double bind.
Benefits of SFBC and PBC
 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 and PBC are not easy to
master.
Chapter 15
FAMILY COUNSELING
What makes it different?
 Focus on family and its members’ interactions and
relations
 Involves interventions to alter the entire family
system
 Problem diagnosis is circular causality, roles each
person plays in maintaining problem
What defines a family?
Webster’s Dictionary definitions:
 Group of people who are (1) bound by
philosophical, religious, or other convictions, (2)
common ancestry, and (3) living under the same
roof.
And
 Basic biosocial unit in society having as its nucleus
two or more adults living together and cooperating
in the care and rearing of their own or adopted
children
Systems Theory and Families
 System = organized unit made up of
interdependent parts
 Whole unit is greater than the sum of its parts
 Change in any part affects all other parts
 Family is system in which each member has a
significant influence on all other members
Systems Theory and Families
Families may struggle to find a healthy balance
between two extremes:
 Enmeshment = over involvement in each others’
lives
 Disengagement = too much detachment from one
another
Systems Approach to Family Therapy:
Murray Bowen
 Focuses on how family members could maintain a
healthy balance between being enmeshed and being
disengaged.
 Believes each member should have an individual
identity, while maintaining closeness with family.
Murray Bowen
 Spousal Relationship
 Are they able to differentiate themselves as individuals apart
from the couple?
 Differentiation of Self
 ability to separate thoughts from feelings
 struggle to develop identity and remain part of the family
Murray Bowen
 Differentiation of Self
 Highly differentiated = better at handling stress/anxiety
 Increased differentiation by one family member is likely
to lead other members to become more differentiated
 Self-differentiation is principal goal of family
therapy
Murray Bowen
 De-triangulation of Self from Family Emotional
System
Triangulation refers to the practice of two family
members bringing a third into their conflict
 Can be someone inside the family or outside of the family
that is being used to “side” with one of the parents.
 Examples include

One parent siding with one child to manipulate the other parent.
 One parent starting an affair with an outside party to meet needs
not addressed in the marriage.

Murray Bowen
 Emotional Systems of the Family
 Understanding the emotional system and how they work
central to the theory
 Again achieving differentiation primary
 Uses “genograms” (fig. 12-2 in textbook) to demonstrate multigenerational trends.
 Used these genograms to plot family events, visually represent
enmeshed families, show patterns of behavior, and
demonstrate triangulation
 Modeling Differentiation
 Using “I” statements and taking ownership of his own
thoughts, feelings, and behaviors
Structural Family Therapy
 Founder viewed as Minuchin
 Goal: to alter family structure and empower
dysfunctional family to move towards functional
family communications
 Functional families characterized by each member’s
success in finding the healthy balance between
belonging to a family and maintaining a separate
identity
 Structural family therapy = a zoom lens that can
focus on the entire family or a close-up of any family
member
Structural Family Therapy
One way to find balance between family and individual
identity is to define and clarify the boundaries
between the subsystems
Boundaries range from rigid to diffuse
Secret is in finding the right boundary balance that is
well defined
Structural family therapy directed toward changing the
family organizational structure
Take the focus off of the referred patient and back
onto the system (often by focusing it on a nonreferred member of the therapist).
Strategic Family Therapy
 Family members’ behavior can only be understood
within the family context
 Haley (1973) - therapist initiates what happens in
therapy and plan for solving each problem
 Focuses on paradoxes (similar in many ways to
individual PBC).
Strategic Family Therapy
Haley (1976) describes four stages of a typical first
interview:
1. Social Stage: build rapport and assess
2. Problem Stage: get clear statement of concern
3. Interaction Stage; family interacts (therapist
observes)
4. Goal Setting: define therapy goal in concise,
observable, behavioral terms
Communications Approach to Family
Therapy
Gottman’s Behavioral Interview
 therapist = educator
 accurate communication is key to problem solving
 communicate openly and honestly
 match intent and impact in communication
Focuses on solutions (similar in many ways to
individual SFBC).
Virginia Satir’s
Conjoint Family Therapy
 Satir had a positive view of human nature
 People are rational and have ability to make
choices
 Self-esteem and effective communication are
important
 Behavior is directly related to one’s family position
 People need a high degree of self-esteem to be a
good marriage partner
Theory of Counseling
 Four components in family situation are subject to
change and correction:




The members’ feelings of self-worth
The family’s communication abilities
The system
The rules of the family
Theory of Counseling
 Family unit becomes dysfunctional when members
do not understand the rules
 Analyzing interactions and communications is
important for change
 Emphasis is on development of trust in relationship
 Communication = most important factor, the main
determinant of the kinds of relationships people
have with one another and of how people adjust to
their environment, as well as being the tie that binds
the family together
Theory of Counseling
 Fear of rejection common source of anxiety
 Because people fear rejection, they resort to one
response pattern or a combination of patterns
 These universal roles are described as placater,
blamer, computer, distractor and leveler
Theory of Counseling:
Communication Styles
 placater - peace at any price, try to please others or




apologize
blamer – faultfinders, compensate for lonely feelings by
bossing others around
computer - calm and correct, with no feelings, pretend no
conflict exists
distractor - make irrelevant statements, evade issues,
withdraw from situations
leveler - communicate in a straightforward way, honest
thoughts, verbal and nonverbal communication is
congruent
Keys to Satir’s System
1. Increase self-esteem of all family members (children
should be included in all stages)
2. Help family members better understand each other
(and their roles) in order to make changes.
3. Use experiential learning techniques (such as family
scupting, simulating each other, and role play)