1) Solution-focused counseling focuses on a client's strengths and abilities rather than weaknesses and problems. 2) It was developed in the late 1970s based on observations of what questions and techniques helped clients make progress in therapy sessions. 3) The approach empowers clients by recognizing them as the experts of their own lives and working with them to discover their own solutions.

1. Solution Focused
Counseling
Promoting Success in
Students

2. A creative look into
Solution Focus
Counseling
Click for a video below
The Answer is right there!!!

3. “The greatest challenge to any
thinker is stating the problem in
a way that will allow a solution”
– Bertrand Russell

4. What is Solution Focused
Counseling?
Solution-focused therapy focuses on people's
strength, competence, and possibilities instead of
their deficits, weaknesses and limitations
The counselor encourages the client to move through
the emotional stress that keeps them from being
able to clearly see solutions to their issue.
The client is encouraged to build upon these solutions
to continue the path to positive change.

5. Where did it all begin?
Solution-Focused Therapy (SFBT) was developed by Steve de
Shazer (and Insoo Kim Berg and their colleagues beginning in
the late 1970’s in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
The entire solution-focused approach was developed inductively in
an inner city outpatient mental health service setting in which
clients were accepted without previous screening. The
developers of SFBT spent hundreds of hours observing therapy
sessions over the course several years, carefully noting the
therapists’ questions, behaviors, and emotions that occurred
during the session and how the various activities of the
therapists affected the clients and the therapeutic outcome of
the sessions. Questions and activities related to clients’ report of
progress were preserved and incorporated into the SFBT
approach.

6. Assumptions about Solution Focused
Counseling
• 1. Change is constant and inevitable: therapeutic change is most likely to be rapid.
• 2. There are many ways to solve any problem, since there are always various
• possibilities for personal choice, regardless of the situation.
• 3. People always have untapped resources for coping, learning, and problem solving
• which can be accessed and focused toward therapeutic change.
• 4. The helping relationship is facilitated by respecting client's emotional experience
• (pain) as well as intensely focusing on their potential for change (hope).
• 5. Life is a learning process which often involves two steps forward and one back.
• Useful helping focuses on how to get on track, get back on track, & stay on track.
• 6. To solve a problem one needs to know more about possible solutions, not more
• about the problem. It is easier to start a solution process than stop a complaint
• process. Focusing on goals, potential solutions, and future possibilities opens
• intrapersonal and interpersonal space for therapeutic change.
• 7. People generally want to change and tell us behaviorally how to cooperate with
• them. The helper's job is to join them in a way that motivates them to
• change and helps them discover how to make useful changes.
• 8. People must be the ones who define the problems and goals they are willing to
• address, as well as the most fitting ways to achieve their goals.
• They are always the experts on their own lives.
• 9. Complex problems don't necessarily need complex solutions. Small changes often
• lead to bigger changes since change in any part of a system influences change
• throughout the entire system. Change is most likely when the focus is on small,
• concrete, practical, achievable and observable goals.
• 10. Seldom does anything happen all the time in exactly the same way. "Exceptions"
• to problems contain strengths, resources and abilities for solution development.

7. Why does it work?
There is no digging into the past, but instead the focus is
on the future. Students are able to envision their life as
they would like it to be, minus the problems troubling
them
Students are recognized by the counselor as the best
expert for themselves and are empowered to find the
answers to their issues

9. Techniques
Problem-free talk
Goal Clarification
Compliments
Scaling questions
Exceptions

10. In summary…..
To summarize solution-focused counseling in
one phrase, you might say
IT’S ALL ABOUT THE CLIENT
Students, parents, and teachers know
themselves and their circumstances better
than we ever will. Effective solutions are most
likely to occur when clients are viewed as the
heroes of change, and their goals, resources,
and perceptions occupy center stage
throughout the counseling process.