35. Misunderstandings about Solutions Focus

The approach looks so simple – how can it be so effective?

This piece was written a long time ago (in 2005) and was not published at the time. I had an inquiry from one of the co-authors (Kirsten Dierolf) about it this week, and have decided that it’s still relevant. Kirsten says she still gets challenged that Solutions Focus (SF) is fine for the ‘easy’ cases but not for the more challenging ones. This view is understandable at one level, and also misses the point about the approach, how it was developed and how it works.

The Solutions Focus by Paul Z Jackson and Mark McKergow (2nd edition), Nicholas Brealey Publiching, 2007

My first book The Solutions Focus (written with Paul Z Jackson in 2002, 2^nd edition 2007) introduced the world to the SF approach in relation to coaching, team development and organisational change. Our book was the first to take SF out of the therapy room and into a much broader context. We introduced some new terminology and re-thought the work from a well-defined practitioner/client context into the much more variable world of work with managers, trainers, facilitators, team members and outside experts all potentially playing a part. Jenny Clarke and I then put together two collections about SF in action, Positive Approaches to Change and Solutions Focus Working: 80 real-life lessons for successful organisational change (with a cover quite from Stephen MR Covey, no less).

My latest SF book The Next Generation of Solution Focused Practice (Routledge, 2021) examines some of the developments which have taken place over the last two decades and also offers an account of how SF works in interactional/enactive terms. In the meantime I also achieved some level of thought leadership in the SF world overall, and so some of the remarks below also apply to therapy and other settings. Paul Z and I are working on a completely revised third edition of The Solutions Focus which we hope will appear in 2024.

Misunderstandings about Solutions Focus

Mark McKergow, Jenny Clarke and Kirsten Dierolf  

Like most other SF practitioners, we have often found it difficult to explain what we do –  how to describe the essence of the SF approach.  So, we frequently resort to just talking about “it“, most often as in the phrase “I’m not doing ‘it’ now!“   Perhaps because of the difficulties in describing this “theory without a theory“, we regularly hear remarks and comments which suggest that the speaker hasn’t got ‘it’ at all. 

This article is our attempt to respond to oft-heard misunderstandings about the Solution Focus approach.  These misunderstandings may be about the theoretical basis for the approach, the process of a solutions focussed conversation or about the relationships and contexts in which it is used.

First, though, let’s get one source of misunderstanding out of the way – what we mean by “Solution”.  According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary, solution means “Resolution, solving, answer, method for the solving, of a problem, puzzle, question, doubt, difficulty etc”.  The Chambers 20^th Century Dictionary definition is “an explanation; the removal of a doubt; the solving of a problem” (solving means finding an answer or a way out).  For us, “solution” is a term of art – it’s what is possible when the problem has been “dis-solved” or disappeared (de Shazer 1991 Putting Difference to Work, Norton, page 121].  To aim for a position diametrically opposed to the problem is to stay in touch with the problem – to be defined by it.  We observe that the world without the problem is almost certainly on a different axis to the world with the problem.

Many of the misunderstandings we’ve encountered simply arise from different interpretations of the word “solution”.  Perhaps we can help ourselves by being clear about what we mean when we use the world when we observe some misunderstanding or another.

Finally by way of introduction, we must also remind ourselves of the value of creative misunderstandings: “Creative misunderstanding allows ….[people] to together construct a reality that is more satisfactory” - de Shazer 1991, page 69.

MISUNDERSTANDINGS ABOUT THEORY AND PRINCIPLES

SF is a panacea – it will solve all problems

We should state right away that the SF approach was designed for use in complex interactional settings where people are involved,  Where mechanical and man-made systems are under investigation, conventional problem-solving approaches will work as well as they work.  There is undoubtedly some interesting work to be done applying SF ideas to these situations, but this was not the area for which SF was intended.  The ‘interactional view’ of John Weakland, Don Jackson the MRI team was derived for use with persistent difficulties – problems about problems – and this is our area of interest.

One of the most commonly asked questions about SF in therapy is “Does it work with alcoholics/depression/name your disorder here?”  This question is in itself revealing – it is based on the assumptions of conventional thinking and diagnosis, that what should be done depends on what is wrong.  The SF approach is a different kind of approach – what should be done is found from examining (in the first instance) what is working, related to what this specific client wants. 

The research on SF therapy (at the time some forty studies, now many hundreds) shows effective results (a success rate of 65% – 80%) in many different settings, including alcohol abuse and depression, in impressively small numbers of sessions (around 4 or less).  This research has not yet indicated an area of ‘illness’ where the SF approach does not achieve these kinds of results.  So at the moment, we conclude that the success of the SF approach is not defined by the problem.

This is not at all the same as claiming that SF works in every case.  Clearly it does not – at least in a few sessions. There have been efforts to establish the key factors in particular cases which lead to successful applications of SF, but these have so far proved fruitless.   The latest situation, in therapy at least, is that SF provides a useful first line of treatment – most of the time something useful will happen, and if it does not then some other approach can be applied. 

Another way of looking at this question is to examine the three key tenets of SF work:

1.  Don’t fix what isn’t broken.

2.  Find what works and do more of it.

3.  If it doesn’t work, stop doing it and do something different.

One might say, at least philosophically, that this is a complete system.  If there is anything that will work in a given situation, it ought to be findable using these principles.  However, this neglects the possible amount of time and effort sorting through the things which don’t work (which might also include ‘finding what works and doing more of it’)  In this situation, one could still be seen to be working in an SF way, even though the usual tools and concepts may not have proved fruitful.  

If SF is about finding what works, then if I did something that worked I was using SF

‘Doing what worked’ in a case simply on the basis of experience is not using SF.  It is, however, our main strategy for getting on with life, and is to be commended highly!  SF comes into play when this conventional strategy breaks down – someone has a persistent difficulty, and their normal strategies don’t work.  SF is about then investigating what works in this particular situation. 

This specifically contextual investigation is a key part of the SF approach.  We certainly do not claim that anything ‘works’ all the time, even SF!  And to claim that ‘this works, therefore my using it is Solutions Focused’ is to be playing a very different game altogether. 

Incidentally, this is why SF cannot be a ‘way of life’, as is claimed for some other approaches.  To examine every situation anew, down to making coffee for breakfast every morning, would be tedious and unnatural in the extreme. 

SF is simplistic and naive

We are sometimes asked how an approach which looks so simple can possibly tackle complex problems without aiming to “understand” them in detail.  Without understanding the ‘real problem’, we cannot tackle the ‘real issue’, it is said.

This is precisely the revelation of the SF approach.  The ‘solution’ on which the focus is placed is not ‘the thing to be done’, but rather ‘the difference that is sought’.  You don’t need to understand the problem in detail, you need to understand what it is that people want and where it is happening already.  The SF approach clearly challenges the assumption that problem state and solution state are related.

However, the level of detail involved in investigating what is sought and therefore what is working can be forensic.  There is a great deal of understanding and investigating to be done – of the solution, not of the problem.

SF is just positive thinking

Positive thinking - “Don’t focus on the bad things at all, always look on the bright side.” – seems to us to be very different from SF.  The approach is often characterized as positive, yet it doesn’t have to be – it’s about finding what works, often in very dire circumstances.  At very difficult and stressful times, simply being told to ‘look on the bright side’ is likely to be seen as flippant and demeaning by our clients.

We are looking at what works in dire conditions and at enlarging it.  SF is not about wanting to make the client think that there life better than it really is to them.  Rather, it is about changing this life by identifying what will work under these circumstances, not glossing over the difficulties.  We do this first by finding out about what is wanted and what is already working.  And if nothing is working, then we start doing something different. 

Also, thinking on its own is useful, but seldom sufficient.  Taking an interactional view, differences are made in the world by action and interaction – sometimes as a result of thinking, other times by happenstance or sheer good fortune. 

SF is culturally biased towards American / Western priorities

The SF approach, like its predecessor the Interactional View, was developed originally in the USA.  Steve de Shazer, however, is of German descent while Insoo Kim Berg has Korean roots.  One of the things which has struck us is that way in which Asians (Japanese, Koreans, Chinese) have taken up this approach in management not simply because of its effectiveness, but also because they see their own cultural alignments – saving face, making people look good, being respectful, not focusing on assigning blame.  

This looks a bit like NLP

SF and NLP share some common ancestors – particularly Gregory Bateson, who founded the MRI team which included John Weakland and Don Jackson, and Milton Erickson, a friend and collaborator of the Bateson group.  It is not surprising, therefore, that the approaches seem to have something in common. 

However, the endeavours of the two fields seem to us to be very different.  NLP seeks to help people model excellence in others and apply it to themselves.  SF seeks to find ways forward in difficult situations, by finding what works and doing more of it – initially by search for what is already working for that person in that situation, rather than looking at other ‘excellent’ performers.  It could be said that we help clients model their own excellence and not other people’s excellence.

Other differences seem important too.  NLP is based (at the outset of the first book by Richard Bandler and John Grinder, The Structure Of Magic) on a structuralist view of language – there is a code to be broken by examining what people say.  This has led over the years to a plethora of patterns, techniques and structures to identify the underlying explanations of people’s language.  SF, on the other hand, has parallels in post-structural linguistics, where what people’s words are tools they use to get things done in everyday unmysterious interactions with others.  People’s words are the basis for negotiation, not a code to be broken.  We try to keep our practice as simple as possible and try to look at the case in front of us and not at the ceiling of our theories.

Solution focus can be improved by doing other things

The usual way of the world is that things are improved by making them more complicated.  A modern motor car, for example, has many more components and utilizes technology undreamed of by Henry Ford.  But not all fields work this way. 

In Solutions Focus, as in science, the principle of Occam’s Razor is important.  This principle, introduced into philosophy by 14^th Century monk William of Occam, can be rendered in modern English as:

Assume as little as possible – do not assume or use anything you don’t have to. 

The scientific method revolves around experimenting with various hypotheses and then throwing out the ones which do not work – a process of simplification.  SF works in a similar way – we try in each case to assume as little as possible and investigate to find what’s working.  Our objective is to stay ‘as simple as possible, but no simpler’.   

The SF approach, then, is improved by making itself simple.  To combine it with other things is to make it more complicated, and therefore not of itself desirable.  Of course sometimes adding things will make SF fit a certain context better, but that does not per se improve the approach itself.  On the other hand, approach X might be improved (simplified) by using SF.

MISUNDERSTANDINGS ABOUT PROCESS

Solution Focus is formulaic

Solution Focus is often taught by giving students the experience of posing a set of solution focused questions and seeing what these questions and the answers to them can do in a conversation about change. A lot of textbooks on solution focus like Interviewing for Solutions by Insoo Kim Berg and Peter DeJong might also seem to suggest that solution focus is “merely” about following a rather formulaic set of questions.

While it is a good idea to learn about this approach by following sets of questions, you will notice with experience and when looking at live demonstrations or tapes (for example the ones available at www.brief-therapy.org) that it does end up as a conversation. This means that the next question always depends on the previous answer. Steve de Shazer is often quoted as saying “I only know what question I asked when I hear the answer that I get.” Therefore, a solution focused conversation is very emergent and has much more in common improvisation than with following a fixed format.

The solution focused emphasis on really listening to the client (which you must do if you presuppose that you only know what you asked when you hear the answer to your question) is in stark contrast to other approaches which require the practitioner to diagnose or put the situation or client into a theoretical framework in order to know which intervention is appropriate in the given situation.

Some of the roots of solution focus can be found in the work of Milton Erickson. Bill O’Hanlon and Jeff Zeig, both students of Milton Erickson tell a story about Ernest Rossi studying with Erickson. Rossi would be sitting in on Erickson’s therapy sessions and while Erickson was talking to the client, Rossi would be looking at the ceiling, theorizing about what Erickson was doing. Suddenly he felt an elbow poking him in the side. Erickson looked at Rossi saying: “Ernie, the client is over there!”

So as in its ‘ancestor’ Ericksonian hypnotherapy, solution focus is about listening to what the client says, reacting, and strengthening of what already works – not about merely following a formulaic set of questions.

It’s a quick fix – the problem may resurface

When you compare solution focused conversations with other forms of coaching or therapy, it might seem like solution focus only addresses the “symptoms” and is therefore very superficial.

As in the above example, we are concentrating on what is said in the room, we listen carefully for any information that could help the client reach or maintain a solution state. As mentioned above, this also entails that we do not do other things that one might associate with “thorough coaching” or “deep therapy”, such as diagnosing, classifying according to a theoretical framework, uncovering the “real” causes of the neuroses / problems or “letting our feelings out” as dramatically as possible. We simply don’t believe that any one “cause” can be found in the multiparametrical, complex system that a human being is or lives in, and therefore, we are not looking for it.

You will generally find less talk about “symptoms” in a solution focused conversation than in many other kinds of helping conversations. Of course, if the client needs to talk about what is wrong, we listen carefully: Insoo Kim Berg tells a story about an old lady who came because of a depression. She continued talking about what is wrong with her life long in to the second hour of the treatment. Getting a bit restless, Insoo asked her how long she would need to talk about the problem. The old lady said: “Probably 3 more hours”. She did just that and in the end, Insoo and the old lady moved on to talk about what she wanted instead of her life of depression. During the previous hours, Insoo had established a good relationship, had listened for resources and they were able to find signs of the looming solution rather easily.

Change is really not something that is extremely difficult: The problem vanishes overwhelmed by the signs of the solution rather than anybody actively solving it.

Solution focus doesn’t deal with deep problems –  it is only good for minor problems

Given the nature of the problems that solution focus has been proven to be effective with like schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, acquired brain injury, substance abuse, and learning disabilities, this statement can hardly be held up. Solution focus works in many very difficult cases and outcome research shows its sustainable success in 70% or more of the cases in 3-5 sessions.

In therapy, there is the very fuzzy line between psychological and physiological illnesses. This distinction is also useful for us in so far as if a problem is not interactional but more “medical / mechanical” in nature, other approaches, like medication, might be more useful. In any case, a solution focused therapy would be one of the fastest therapies to realize that the therapy is not working since we adhere to the tenet:  “If something doesn’t work, do something different”.

In Ben Furman’s book Kids Skills, you will find a story about a boy, who had the bad habit of eating threads from his garments and destroying them this way. Ben’s solution focused program helped the boy reduce his consumption significantly, but the problem was not solved – a later medical check-up revealed that the boy was suffering from a severe case of anemia, and he was cured from the anemia and his bad habit by an iron supplement therapy. Solution focused coaching or therapy does not stop until the problem is sufficiently better for the client.

It is not generative enough, not challenging enough, it doesn’t stretch the client

Solution focus is used in many settings. Sometimes when applied in coaching, solution focus is accused of not stretching the staff or of refusing to help the employee realize how bad his or her performance is on the job.

We do not think that an employee necessarily needs to see what a bad job he or she is doing in order to improve. The traditional process of:  sin – remorse – insight – betterment is less useful than the solution focused process of: problem – signs of solution – future perfect – first small step. One key element here is that the motivation of the employee to change is kept up rather than destroyed: Being happy about improving your performance feels different from feeling the threat of being fired.

Additionally, it is the task of a good manager to select the right people for the task at hand and engage them in the things they are interested in, so that both the organization and the individual employee pursue the same goals. As a manager, you then set and agree on the standards and help your staff fulfill them, preferably by coaching them in a solution focused way.

In summary, it is very useful to ask “who is a customer for what” when looking at how challenging therapy or coaching should be. In solution focused therapy, we go as far as the client wants to go and do not assume that he or she should be anywhere else than where he or she wants to be. In management, you have dual roles: Manager/leader and coach, and therefore you might sometimes need to stretch your employees more than they would stretch themselves. The difference here is how you accomplish it.

MISUNDERSTANDINGS ABOUT RELATIONSHIP & CONTEXT

Insistence on solution talk devalues the client and their problem

SF practitioners listen carefully to what our clients have to say.  We listen very purposefully.  Early on in the relationship, we are engaged in “platform building” – establishing what the client wants and whether they themselves are willing to do something about it.  What the client wants may not be the same as what other people in their lives think they want, be they friends and family in the therapy context or managers, colleagues and subordinates in the work context. 

We are not problem phobic and we do let clients talk about their problems.  And while they are doing that, we are listening. We listen for clues about what they want , for signs of what they want happening already – or at least some of it, some of the time – and for evidence in their story of resources, skills and attitudes which will be helpful to them.   We also listen for signs that they are ready to move on in the conversation, confident that their problem story has been heard.

In itself, this purposeful listening is a very effective way to achieve rapport and empathy. Our non-expert tenet is that every client and situation is different.  This demands that we listen to find out what we can about our client  “not knowing”.   Far from devaluing the client, our stance puts him or her back  where they ought to be – expert in their own lives and situations.

SF is naive in taking things at face value and ignoring hidden agendas

This follows nicely from the misunderstanding above.  We believe that clients are best able to decide the pace of the conversation - what they are willing to tell us and when it is appropriate to do so.  By respecting this, not forcing the pace and accepting what we are told, we gain clients’ trust and willingness to let us know what is important to them.  SF practitioners are less likely to meet ‘resistant’ or ‘difficult’ clients precisely because we take them at face value and respect what they say.  And gentle SF questions like  “Is there anything that I have forgotten to ask?”   “Is there anything that you think I should know?” can relieve us of any nagging worries that there may be something important as yet unsaid!

SF doesn’t take client’s emotions seriously

Emotions cannot be placed carefully onto a specimen dish and studied through a special instrument like a microscope.  They cannot be stored in the deep freeze or pickled in brine, to be brought out of storage and examined later.  Emotions are activities – anger, love, grief, jealousy etc are things that we do, in particular contexts an intrinsic part of an experience and cannot be separated from it.  Emotional experiences are not private, internal events – they manifest themselves in given contexts.   Nor do we think that these activities can be usefully generalised – at least not in stuck situations: it’s different for poets!.

Hence we do not find it useful to initiate talk about emotions. To talk about emotions is to take them out of context and to turn them into abstractions.  This strips the stuck situation of much useful data – the interactional context.  The client has experienced emotion in a particular context; but it is not necessary to revive that emotion in order to change it. 

It seems to us that in many other disciplines, talking about emotions is a goal in itself.   We do not share this view.

It is tricksy – not transparent

We have heard it claimed that SF practitioners use verbal tricks and strategies to lead their clients and that this is unethical because the methodology is not transparent.  SF coaches, consultants and managers take great pains to establish what our client is a customer for – what they want and whether they are willing to do something themselves to achieve what they want.  We constantly influence people whether we want to or not – and our job is to influence people in the direction they want to go.  Most clients are interested in the outcome of a conversation, not the process followed. (SF clients are no different from any others in this respect).We do talk about the process with the clients if they express an interest in it.

SF is amoral 

This misunderstanding is voiced in comments like “So, if you think the client knows best, I suppose you would have coached Hitler !”  Of course, the model or approach is morality -free.  Morality resides in the practitioner and in the context and not in the model. This means that we are quite at liberty to decline to work with people we don’t like! 

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Dates and mates

Jenny and I wrote this piece with Kirsten Dierolf 18 years ago (!). We are still very much in touch. Kirsten leads Solutions Academy, a one-stop shop to learn SF coaching and get International Coaching Federation or EMCC certification all in one process. She has assembled a really first-class team including people we trained ourselves over the years. The Solutions Academy website also offers free resources and the opportunity for a free info call in various languages. If you’re looking to develop as an SF coach as well as gain internationally recognised credentials, I’d recommend them very highly.

Kirsten Dierolf leads Solutions Academy. She’s a long-term colleague and friend of ours. And she likes a boldly coloured dress. :-)