Chapter 5

Brief Counseling:

Solution-Focused and Paradoxical Counseling Strategies

CHAPTER OVERVIEW

Brief counseling is designed to help clients reach their goals in quicker and more efficient ways. Paradoxical counseling strategies focus on symptom reduction. In Solution-Focused Brief Counseling (SFBC) the focus is on solutions for the client rather than the client’s problems. The counseling process takes on a future orientation as clients set goals for positive behavior changes.

CHAPTEROBJECTIVES

After completing this chapter, the student will be able to:

1. Describe the philosophical assumptions of brief counseling.

2. Discuss the understanding of human nature and process of change in the brief

counseling approach.

3. Describe the necessary conditions under which psychological growth and behavioral

change occur in brief counseling.

4. Demonstrate specific procedures and techniques from brief counseling.

5. Specify the limitations and contributions of brief counseling.

6. Explain a case study as it would be conceptualized and treated by a counselor using

brief therapy.

CHAPTERSUMMARY

Two types of brief counseling that have emerged are described in this chapter. Solution focused brief counseling (SFBC) that focuses on solutions rather than the client’s problem is one approach. The second is paradoxical brief counseling (PBC) that focuses on symptom reduction.

A counselor using solution-focused brief counseling discovers what people are doing that seems to be helpful and sets goals to increase those successful strategies. Practitioners base their work on these concepts about the nature of people:

  • People are viewed as being basically good, capable of rational thought and free to make choices. However, without directions from the counselor, people seem by nature to want to focus on the negative aspects of their lives.
  • Once the counseling focus has shifted from the negative to the positive, people prefer to talk about what is going well in their lives.
  • People have the capacity to act on common sense if given the opportunity to identify commonsense problem-solving strategies.
  • Children may respond better to this counseling that helps them make positive changes in their behavior rather than working on the cognitive and affective components of the problem situation.
  • People will respond better to a present and future counseling orientation than they will to a past orientation focused on why they have a problem they cannot solve.

SFBC practitioners is based on the theory that people will respond better to building up the positive aspects of their lives and that small solutions can lead to big changes. Goals need to be stated in positive and observable terms to be effective. Bruce identified the following are four components of solution-focused brief counseling:

  1. Developing a working alliance to attack the problem
  2. Identifying clients’ strengths as a foundation for confidence in their abilities to make positive changes
  3. Implementing active, eclectic counseling strategies and interventions
  4. Establishing clear, concrete, measurable goals in order to evaluate progress

Bruce also described four useful intervention tasks:

  1. “Do something different.”
  2. “Pay attention to what you do when you overcome the urge to…” for the client who has trouble controlling impulsive behaviors.
  3. “Tell me about a time when you had a good day at school” for clients who have taken on the victim mentality of believing that nothing good ever happens to them.
  4. “Observe and take notes” for clients who have trouble avoiding problem situations and interactions.

Brief counseling generally requires more structuring than most methods. Counselors always begin by clarifying the counseling process to new clients and children. In SFBC that is a mandatory first step and includes explaining the counseling process followed by the statement of the problem. Counselors need to understand these four things about the client’s situation: (1) the problem, (2) the feelings associated with the problem, (3) the intensity of the emotions on a scale (10=high, 1=low), (3) the client’s expectations for counseling and (4) the goals the client would like to accomplish. Visual presentations of rating scales may help children explain the intensity of their emotions.

The heart of many counseling methods is to set productive goals. Good goals are set by the client and are behavioral, positive, and concrete, and are reduced to small steps. The terms of the goal include what behavior will occur, how often it will happen, and under what conditions. Unproductive goals are negative, harmful, or unidentified. Descriptions of each of these are included in the text. The miracle question, developed by de Shazer in his frustration with some people’s inability to form good, behavioral goals, is used to help client visualize and hypothesis what their problems would be like if suddenly they were solved. Children respond better if the question is stated in magic terms such as “If I were to wave a magic wand and wave your problems away, what would you be doing?”

The remaining common steps for the session from which the counselor may choose after (1) providing the client with an initial orientation to the SFBC process and (2) goal setting, are (3) active listening, (4) scaling, (5) working with negative goals andworking with positive goals, (6) using the miracle question, (7) using relationship questions, (8) asking andreinforcing exceptions to the problem solution, (9) using positive blame, (10) scaling progress toward the goal, (11) asking for 10% improvement, (12) flagging the mine field, (13) closing the session, and (14) writing the note.

Some additional statements that assist clients in moving away from the problem impasse toward solutions are (1) normalizing statements, (2) restructuring statements, (3) affirmative statements, (4) bridging statements, and (5) between-session homework statements.

The application of techniques and characteristics of SFBC are described as they relate to Eriksonian play therapy. The type of play is modified for each child and relies on the flexibility and creativity of the counselor for success. The solution-oriented aspect of this therapy requires well-defined goals focusing on the present and the future. The counselor searches for exceptions, uses the miracle question as well as reframing and positive connotations to the problem situation.

Paradoxical counseling practitioners differ in one significant way from SFBC. They view people as having a drive toward independence and, therefore, resistant to complying with counselors’ suggestions and directives. Not only do people resist cooperating with their counselors but they also often do the opposite. The resistance can be either passive or active. Working on this assumption, counselors harness this resistance and make it work for the client rather than against the counselor. In slight contrast form the SFBC focus on solutions, the PBC focus is on problem formation and problem elimination. The methods are specific and eclectic, as the particular client requires.

PBC practitioners attempt to use a client’s resistance as a source of energy for positive change. They have two ways to approach their clients. One approach is to take a one-down position that elevates the client to the expert and drops the counselor to the less-than-expert role. The other way is to approach the client in a one-up frame of reference in which the counselor, as expert, prescribes the behavior the client is to follow. The counselor, for instance, may prescribe the client to do more of his symptomatic behavior (Ex., direct the client who is having trouble losing weight to gain 20 pounds) thus putting the resistant client in a double bind.

Brief counseling enjoys 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. Although these methods appear easy to master, they are not.

KEYCONCEPTS

  1. Brief counseling includes solution-focused brief counseling and paradoxical counseling strategies.
  2. Counselors who practice solution-focused brief counseling view people as basically good, capable of rational thought and free to make choices.
  3. In SFBC counselors help clients act on common sense problem-solving strategies to make positive changes in their lives.
  4. Ericksonian play therapy includes some solution-oriented aspects such as well-defined goals focused on the present and the future, searching for exceptions, the miracle question, reframing, and positive connotations to the problem situation.
  5. Paradoxical counseling strategies utilize the clients’ resistance to activate change.

KEY TERMS, CONCEPTS, and PERSONALITIES

Flagging the mine field – A technique of helping client identify what might sabotage their plan and asking them what they can do to prevent that interference.

Miracle question – A method in which the counselor helps the client set good behavioral goals by hypothesizing what his/her situation would look like if all problems were solved.

Paradoxical counseling – A type of counseling which focuses on problem formation and problem elimination and using the client’s resistance as a source of energy to be redirected for positive change.

Positive blame – A technique of giving the client credit for any exceptions to the problem situation.

Scaling – A technique of asking the client to assign a number from 1 (low) to 10 (high) for measurement of intensity of feelings, for instance, or progress toward a goal.

Skeleton key question – A method of goal setting in which the counselor asks the client to focus on the good things in his/her life in order to figure out future goals

Solution focused brief counseling – A type of counseling which focuses on solutions rather than the client’s problem. The SFBC counselor helps the client find exceptions to the problem and helps transform these into solutions.

Writing the note – A message from the SFB counselor to the client with at least three compliments and a bridging statement from each compliment to one of the client tasks.

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1.Solution-focused brief counseling embodies many of Carl Roger’s humanistic principals. Which of the following descriptions is applicable to SFBC alone?

A. People are basically good and rational.

B. Clients have the ability to make good behavioral choices.

C. Counselors help direct a client’s thoughts towards creating positive goals.

D. The client’s input is always sought.

2.SFBC is based on the all of the following ideas except:

A. Small changes in behavior lead to bigger changes in behavior.

B. Less structure is required for counseling sessions.

C. More counseling is not necessarily better.

D. Goals need to be stated in positive and observable terms.

3.Properties of good goals include which of the following?

A. Goals are behavioral, concrete, and positive.

B. Goals are set by the counselor in the client’s interest.

C. Goals encompass a broad base of the client’s problems.

D. none of the above

4.The most unproductive client goals include all of the following except:

A. negative goals

B. harmful goals

C. “I don’t know” goals

D. “Why bother” goals

5.Paradoxical counseling methods include which of the following?

A. one-up position

B. one-down position

C. consultative position

D. both A and B

6.One useful SFBC intervention task according to Bruce is

  1. do something different
  2. use the resistance
  3. focus on the past
  4. mirror the frustration

7.SFBC believe which of the following about the nature of people

  1. they are basically bad
  2. they are basically irrational
  3. that are basically good
  4. they are basically neutral and become good or bad depending on their environment

8.Paradoxical brief counseling basically focuses on

  1. solutions
  2. symptom reduction
  3. chains of thought
  4. emotional reactions

TRUE/FLASE

1.___ Brief counseling methods appeal most to individuals who prefer counselors to act as consultants.

2.___ SFBC counselors view clients as having a drive towards compliance with the suggestions of the counselor.

3.___ Paradoxical brief counselors feel that confronting the client with conflicts is helpful to the counseling outcomes.

4.___ Brief counseling is generally completed in less than 10 sessions.

5.___ The nature of brief counseling, in which the future and not the past is the primary focus, is attractive to many cultural groups.

ESSAY QUESTIONS

1.Discuss the nature of solution-focused brief counseling and the potential positive and negative outcomes. Would you practice SFBC with clients? Why or why not?

2.Address the importance of goal setting in SFBC. Describe both effective and ineffective client goals.

3.Discuss the implications of using SFBC in cross-cultural settings.

ACTIVITIES

1.Make up four negative goals. Exchange your negative goals with a partner and work to reframe them into positive goals.

2.Create a case study for SFBC. Outline the counseling process and methods you would use for at least 5 sessions.

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