Scaling questions can be used in solution-focused therapy to help clients assess progress. The therapist first explains a scale from 1-10 and has the client rate their current status. They then have the client describe what is better already and earlier successes to build a platform for further progress. From there, the therapist helps the client envision higher positions on the scale and identify small, achievable steps toward continued improvement. Scales can focus on success, motivation, confidence, or independence. Solution-focused scaling questions keep clients focused on change and empower them to generate their own solutions.

1. Solution Focussed
Approaches to Helping:
Scaling
Nathan Loynes

2. Scaling Questions
Steve De Shazer (1940 -2005)
Co-founder of the solution focussed
approach with Insoo Kim Berg.
After asking a client “what is better since
last time?” The client said “I’m nearly a 10
now”.
Hence, numbers used to understand
development

3. Benefits
Easy to use
Focus on change
Focus on clients phenomenological
existence (Like Person Centred)
Broad application

4. Scaling… ‘Steps’
1. Explain the scale

5. Alternative scales:

6. Where are we now?
2. The current position

7. Like a jigsaw…
3. Establish a platform:
Find out what has
already worked.

8. Vision
Visualise a higher
position; describe
how things will look.

9. Success and Strengths
5. Identify earlier
success – what
happened?

10. Small steps
6. Step forward – Ask
the client what small
steps they could take

11. Types of Scale
Success scale
Motivational scale
Confidence scale
Independence scale

12. Conclusion
Being a cognitively flexible mentor might mean
that at times you have cause to employ solution
focussed techniques. This might be when:
Discussions of the problem are creating
stagnation and or frustration.
The mentee is in a contemplative stage of
considering the benefits of change.
You are being motivational (interviewing).
You are empowering the mentee to employ
divergent thinking and offer their own solutions
that are more likely to succeed than mentor led
solutions.