Chapter 11

Question 1

solution-focused approach looks for exceptions

Answer 1

times when the problem wasn’t a problem.

Question 2

takes the elegance of the MRI model and turns it on its head.

Answer 2

Solution-focused therapy

Question 3

The way people talk about their problems plays a powerful role in how they handle those problems. Thus solution-focused therapists encourage talking about

Answer 3

solutions and discourage “problem talk.

Question 4

helped to set concrete and minimal goals, they are then encouraged

Answer 4

to build on exceptions to their problems

Question 5

________ _________ are used to identify and encourage even small steps toward progress, and compliments are used to encourage clients to feel more confident in their problem-solving abilities.

Answer 5

Scaling questions

Question 6

De Shazer’s term for times when clients are temporarily free of their problems. Solution-focused therapists focus on exceptions to help clients build on successful problem-solving skills.

Answer 6

Exception

Question 7

The art of solution-focused therapy becomes a matter of helping clients see that their problems have

Answer 7

Execption

Question 8

Solution-focused practitioners assume that the capabilities of people who come to therapy have been blunted by

Answer 8

A negative mind set

Question 9

Drawing their attention to forgotten abilities helps release them from preoccupation with their failures and

Answer 9

restore them to their more capable selves.

Question 10

The late Steve de Shazer was the founder of

Answer 10

solution-focused therapy:

Question 11

Steve de Shazer’s term for a style of therapy that emphasizes the solutions that families have already developed for their problems.

Answer 11

solution-focused therapy

Question 12

Early in his career de Shazer worked in Palo Alto and was strongly influenced

Answer 12

The MRI approach

Question 13

Insoo Kim Berg was, along with de Shazer, one of the primary architects of the

Answer 13

Solution-focused approach

Question 14

Although Bill O’Hanlon never formally studied at the Milwaukee Brief Family Therapy Center (BFTC) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he was trained in brief problem-solving therapy by

Answer 14

Milton Erickson

Question 15

Milton Erickson is a popular workshop presenter and has written a number of books and articles on his pragmatic approach, which he calls

Answer 15

possibility therapy

Question 16

As a student of Berg and de Shazer since the mid-1980s, Yvonne Dolan has applied the solution-focused model to

Answer 16

the treatment of trauma and abuse

Question 17

Lipchik, who worked at the BFTC for eight years until she left in 1988, pioneered the application of the solution-focused model to

Answer 17

Wife battering

Question 18

______________________________ believe that people are constrained by narrow views of their problems into perpetuating rigid patterns of false solutions.

Answer 18

Like the MRI group, solution-focused therapists

Question 19

The MRI model was inspired by Milton Erickson’s view of people as containing a vast reservoir of untapped creativity. According to this view, people may need only

Answer 19

a shift of perspective to release their potential

Question 20

The language of problems tends to be different from

Answer 20

the language of solutions

Question 21

Problem talk is usually negative, focuses on the past, and implies the permanence of problems. The language of solutions is more

Answer 21

hopeful and future oriented

Question 22

Part of a therapist’s job is to steer clients from

Answer 22

problem talk to solution talk.

Question 23

Clients are assumed to be the experts on their own lives. Just as they know what’s troubling them, so, too, they know what they need. This philosophy is exemplified by

Answer 23

practice of routinely asking clients “Is there anything else I should have asked you or that you need to tell me?”

Question 24

Solution-focused therapists assume that people are

Answer 24

more resourceful than they realize

Question 25

problems people have are not seen as evidence of failure, but rather as

Answer 25

normal life-cycle complications.

Question 26

_________ ___________ assume that people already have the skills to solve their problems but have lost sight of their creative abilities because their problems loom so large

Answer 26

Solution-focused therapists

Question 27

Sometimes a simple shift in focus from what’s not going well to what’s already working can remind

Answer 27

clients of these resources

Question 28

solution-focused therapists aren’t out to reorganize personalities or family structures, they’re willing to settle for

Answer 28

modest goals.

Question 29

Helping clients set concrete and reachable goals is a major intervention in itself, and the process of thinking about the future and what one wants to be different is a large part of

Answer 29

What solution-focused therapists do

Question 30

From Berg and de Shazer’s (1993) point of view, what’s needed for change is a shift in

Answer 30

the way a problem is “languaged”:

Question 31

Rather than looking behind and beneath the language that clients and therapists use, we think that the language they use is all that we have to go on . . . .

Answer 31

What we talk about and how we talk about it makes a difference

Question 32

Getting clients to talk positively will help them think positively—and ultimately to act positively to solve their problems.

Answer 32

Solution focused therapy assumption

Question 33

After a brief description of the presenting complaint, the therapist asks clients

Answer 33

how things will be different when their problems are solved

Question 34

Then instead of formulating some kind of intervention plan, the therapist asks about

Answer 34

times in the clients’ lives when their problems do not happen or are less severe.

Question 35

they aren’t interested in family dynamics, solution-focused practitioners don’t feel the need to convene any particular group of people. Instead they say that

Answer 35

anyone who is concerned about the problem should attend.

Question 36

Solution-focused therapists don’t act like experts in determining what’s wrong (e.g., enmeshment, triangulation) and planning how to correct it. In this therapy

Answer 36

clients are the experts in what they want to change

Question 37

Although solution-focused therapists don’t play the role of authority figures who will help clients solve their problems, they do take an active position in

Answer 37

moving clients away from worrying about their predicament and toward steps to solution,

Question 38

Once this description of the goal has been developed, the therapist asks clients to assess their current level of progress by imagining

Answer 38

a scale of 1 to 10,

Question 39

De Shazer’s term for a client who does not wish to be part of therapy, does not have a complaint, and does not wish to work on anything.

Answer 39

Visitor

Question 40

De Shazer’s term for a relationship with a client who describes a complaint but is at present unwilling to work on solving it.

Answer 40

Complainant

Question 41

With complainants, it may be useful to suggest noticing exceptions in the

Answer 41

problem behavior of the other family member

Question 42

people who steadfastly maintain that everything is someone else’s fault. With such clients you can always ask

Answer 42

“How were you hoping I might be useful to you?”

Question 43

De Shazer’s term for a client who not only complains about a problem (“complainant”) but is motivated to resolve it.

Answer 43

Customer

Question 44

With an apparently unmotivated complainer, the therapist’s job is to engage in a

Answer 44

solution-focused conversation, compliment the client,

Question 45

By not pushing for change but shifting attention away from problems and toward solutions, the therapist may mold the relationship into one in which the client becomes a

Answer 45

customer for change.

Question 46

The first is developing well-focused goals within the clients’ frame of reference; the second is generating solutions based on exceptions. Therapy is usually brief (three to five sessions), and appointments are made one at a time, on the assumption that one more may be enough.

Answer 46

Solution-focused techniques organized around two strategies

Question 47

After hearing and acknowledging the clients’ description of their problems and what they’ve tried to do about them, the next step is to

Answer 47

establish clear and concrete goals.

Question 48

Part of the process of solution-focused therapy is helping clients think about constructive actions they can take, rather than

Answer 48

how they can get others to change.

Question 49

_______ __________invites clients to envision positive outcomes and begins to activate a problem-solving mind-set by giving them a mental picture of their goals

Answer 49

Miracle question