In recognizing the limitations of traditional problem solving methods, solution focus has aided many individuals in changing their perception of problems and transforming them into solutions. Regardless of what difficulties one may be tackling, this book offers practical skills for overcoming. Filled with examples and illustrations, it addresses and explains the role of the all important “miracle†questions as well as “exceptions,†“scaling,†and “coping†questions to help identify leverage points for change. Active listening, a key solution focus skill is reviewed extensively.In addition, readers will learn how to establish well-formed goals and understand the truth of the philosophical statement “if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.†Solution Focus’ radical simplicity diverts your attention away from the often frustrating search for the causes of problems and directs it to solutions; away from your weaknesses to your strengths; away from what is going wrong, to what is going right in your life. Though it may not be a fix-all, it will certainly give you a viable alternative to outdated problem solving strategies and teaches how to put solution focused knowledge into everyday practical use. If you want to learn a new way of assisting yourself or others to deal more creatively and effectively with problems, then you are encouraged to explore Solution Focus’ simple principles and tools for positive change.

Solution-Focused Play Therapy is an essential text that blends the process of play therapy with solution-focused therapy. With a focus on child strengths and resources, this book identifies key concepts and principles in solution-focused play therapy (SFPT). The author provides neurobiological and developmental support for SFPT and guidance on how practitioners can transition from using a non-directive approach to a more directive and activity-based approach based on the developmental needs of the child. Chapters describe the 12 basic skills needed for employing this approach with children of all ages and their families. Harnessing a strengths-oriented approach, the author presents expressive ways to use key SFPT techniques, including the miracle question, scaling, finding exceptions, and end-of-session feedback. Clinicians will come away from the book with a suite of interventions, strategies, handouts, and forms that can be employed with children of all ages and their families, from strength-based assessment and treatment planning to the final celebration session.

“Blundo and Simon have successfully outlined how a solution-focused perspective can be a powerful tool for case managers. Their understanding and presentation is based upon practice scenarios that are real and applied...They clearly demonstrate the impact of ‘thinking and language’ and the importance of building a collaborative relationship with clients. Their work challenges the traditional theory-driven interventions that focus on problems and arrive at a diagnosis . They encourage a ‘shift’ to a co-constructive partnership that requires a practitioner to respect that clients are ‘experts of their own lives’...They provide a clear step-wise discussion of techniques and strategies that can be employed working with individuals and families in case management settings. This book is a must read.” -Lawrence T. Force, PhD. LCSW-R Professor of Psychology, Mount Saint Mary College, Newburgh, NY From the Foreword Solution-focused practice is a paradigm that stresses client abilities, strengths, and individual goals rather than disability. Written by a team of educator/practitioners noted for their expertise in solution-focused therapy, this “how-to” text for social work, counseling, and psychology students guides current and future case managers in learning this strengths-based, collaborative approach to case management. It discusses both the philosophical basis for solution-focused casework and demonstrates how it is ideally suited for the case management process. The book is based on teaching materials the authors have developed and used in their classes and workshops with undergraduate and graduate students and professionals. The text incorporates new research and theoretical developments in solution-focused therapy as well as actual practice scenarios demonstrating the process of building a collaborative relationship with individual clients and families. Replete with strategies and tools for practicing solution-focused case management, the text describes such essential skills as identifying goals, monitoring progress, working with other agencies, and transitioning out of treatment. It discusses issues related to ethical practice and presents strategies for self-care. Additionally, the book addresses diversity and social justice and their relationships to solution-focused practice. Student exercises help to reinforce knowledge. The text will assist case managers in a variety of settings—hospitals, nursing homes, rehabilitation facilities, community-based mental health agencies, schools, prisons, court systems, and shelters for the homeless and victims of domestic violence—to partner with their clients towards finding strengths-based and solution-focused approaches to resolving issues in a positive way. Key Features: Authored by noted experts in solution-focused education and practice Facilitates a reframing of casework and case management around client strengths and resources Provides specific case examples that allow readers to troubleshoot and apply solution-focused principles to practice Includes student exercises throughout the book

Valuable patient-centered ideas for treating mental illness Traditional forms of mental health care can often center more on simply avoiding hospitalization than on promoting wellness by focusing on a patient’s personal feelings and hopes. In fact, these established methods can even have a dehumanizing and devaluing effect on a patient. Solution-Focused Brief Practice with Long-Term Clients in Mental Health Services is a practical introduction and guide that provides practitioners an alternative way of thinking about and working with individuals who have been long-term users of the mental health system. Through interviews, case studies, and actual client testimony, this valuable text demonstrates the most effective ways to establish patient-centered conversations that forge collaborative relationships, realize strengths, and use them to move toward healing. Solution-Focused Brief Practice with Long-Term Clients in Mental Health Services is a strength-based approach that utilizes a client’s personal and social resources to help them find a satisfactory solution to the sources of their need for professional help. This book offers a unique approach that can be applied to those who have been in the mental health system for many years and may remain so. Accessible and useable, this guide explores the meaning of conventional diagnosis and treatment and how both can actually reinforce the client’s disability, chronicity, and sense of helplessness as a person. Topics Solution-Focused Brief Practice with Long-Term Clients in Mental Health Services covers include: the tools of solution-focused brief practice working with borderline personality disorder adaptability and application to different contexts “reading” the client during discussion sessions emphasizing an individual’s healthy parts the role of community support rethinking the medical model implementing solution-focused practices in agencies and hospitals poststructuralism, social constructionism, and language games and many more! Solution-Focused Brief Practice with Long-Term Clients in Mental Health Services is extensively referenced with a detailed bibliography. It is an essential resource for psychiatrists, social workers, psychologists, family therapists, counselors, nurse practitioners, and schools of social work and family therapy training programs. Staff of inpatient psychiatric hospitals, psycho-social clubs, and community mental health clinics will also benefit from this indispensable text.

This book is a collection of solution focused practice across Asia, offering case examples from the fields of therapy, supervision, education, coaching and organisation consulting. It demonstrates the usefulness of the solution focused approach in the Asian context by providing practice based evidence, and highlights the diversity of application. By sharing real case examples in action across Asia, it is the aim of this book to stimulate the curious and inspire the converted. It gives readers a taste of what it is like to use this approach within an Asian context, in different areas of practice and within a broad spectrum of clinical issues. The examples offer exciting and creative ways in which solution focused practice can be used within the Asian context – with the hope that more practitioners will be curious enough to give solution focused practice serious consideration as a viable, evidence-based practice.

Therapy is frequently miscast as requiring an enormous amount of time and financial commitment, but helpful, goal-oriented therapy can produce positive results after only a few sessions. By focusing on solutions instead of problems, SFBT asks clients to set concrete goals and to draw upon strengths in their lives that can help bring about the desired change for a preferred future.

With the advance of evidence-based practice has come the publication of numerous dense volumes reviewing the theoretical and empirical components of child and adolescent treatment. There are also a variety of detailed treatment manuals that describe the step-by-step procedures to guide ongoing research and practice. The second edition of Craig Winston LeCroy's Handbook of Evidence-Based Child and Adolescent Treatment Manuals is a forceful combination of the two approaches, as he gathers fifteen varied treatment manuals and brief summaries of the research supporting each to ensure that practitioners will truly understand how to implement the treatments they are using. A completely revised and expanded edition of the handbook's first edition, this is an essential guide to some of the best programs for helping children and teens. Each chapter begins with an explanatory section that discusses the theoretical and empirical underpinnings of the programs. The treatment manual follows, leading readers through sessions with specific details about conducting the treatment that have been refined and improved through extensive testing and research. Organized into three sections: the major clinical disorders, social problems confronting children and teens, and preventive interventions the Handbook brings together some of the most esteemed researcher-practitioners in the child and adolescent field. The book presents an impressive variety of innovative treatment programs and techniques including: the SiHLE program (intended to prevent problems confronting children and teens, and preventive interventions the Handbook brings together some of the most esteemed researcher-practitioners in the child and adolescent field. The book presents an impressive variety of innovative treatment programs and techniques including: the SiHLE program (intended to prevent HIV through education and self-esteem building), the Children of Divorce Intervention Program (a therapy for younger children stressing resilience and skill-building), and Strengths Oriented Family Therapy (which reaches out to substance-involved adolescents and their families). The Handbook of Evidence-Based Child and Adolescent Treatment Manuals is an indispensable reference for researchers, graduate students, and practitioners working with children and adolescents in a multitude of settings, from schools and juvenile correction centers to group homes and family service agencies.

Solution-Focused Brief Therapy with Families describes SFBT from a systemic perspective and provides students, educators, trainers, and practitioners with a clear explanation and rich examples of SFBT and systemic family therapy. Family therapists will learn how SFBT works with families, solution-focused therapists will learn how a systemic understanding of clients and their contexts can enhance their work, and all will learn how to harness the power of each to the service of their clients. The book starts with an exploration of systems, cybernetics, and communication theory basics such as wholeness, recursion, homeostasis, and change. Following this is an introduction to five fundamental family therapy approaches and an overview of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy. Next, the author considers SFBT within a systems paradigm and provides a demonstration of SFBT with families and couples. Each step is explicated with ideas from both SFBTA as well as systems. The final chapter shows how SFBT practices can be applied to a variety of family therapy approaches. This accessible text is enhanced by descriptions, case examples, dialogue, and commentary that are both systemic and solution-focused. Readers will come away with a new appreciation for both the systemic worldview of SFBT and SFBT principles as applied to systemic work.

`A strength of the book is that the solution-focused therapy process was clearly identified in a step-by-step procedure, with many examples of specific dialogues and strategies that would be appropriate with a client. Overall the book presented a coverage of the theoretical and application components of solution-focused counselling that would be valuable reference for health psychologist or allied-health professionals working in a stress-counselling role′ - Journal of Family Studies Solution-focused therapy is of growing interest to a wide range of professional not only because of the tight time limits within which so many have to work; counsellors are increasingly open to using a variety of approaches based on what is most helpful to their clients in their particular contexts. This book aims to help practitioners to extend their therapeutic repertoire of interventions by explaining clearly how solution-focused skills can help clients. Written for a wide range of professionals - psychologists, counsellors, social workers, probation officers, and mental health workers - this solution-focussed therapy manual looks at organizational and work-related stress, and on developing solutions for groups.

"Although I have been a hospice nurse for almost 19 years, I am not a counselor. However, I will be able to use some of the information I learned here to assist my patients and my colleagues with issues encountered during the difficult time when patients are dying and families are struggling with realities. I will definitely share this book with our bereavement counselors and social workers." Score: 90, 4 stars --Doody's "[T]his is aÖbook about possibilities-not finalities...about all the different ways that people deal with loss and bereavementÖand how solution focused brief therapy can be helpful in making sense of the experience that people go through when facing death." --Harry Korman, MD Solution focused practice challenges the conventional approach to bereavement counseling by emphasizing solution building over simple problem-solving. Joel Simon, with over 16 years of experience in the field, demonstrates how this therapy can help clients think of possibilities, rather than limitations, when facing death or the loss of a loved one. This book presents a general overview of solution focused practice, tools, and methodologies for practitioners. Simon also provides real-life vignettes and verbatim transcripts from actual patients in end-of-life or bereavement counseling. This book provides insight into the philosophy and practice of solution focused therapy, as applied to clients with life-limiting conditions and their loved ones. Key topics discussed: The use of language in solution focused practice: theory, meaning making, and the role of emotions Tools of solution-building, with questions, troubleshooting guidelines, and tips for evaluating outcomes The distinction between problem-solving and solution-building Co-constructing goals with clients Applying solution focused principles to hospice, grief, and bereavement practice This resource serves as an invaluable tool for social workers, hospice workers, psychologists, and other bereavement and grief-counseling professionals.