Solution-Focused Work with Children

Solution-focused therapy (SFT) is different from many other forms of therapy. In SFT, the therapist focuses on goals rather than problems. Instead of trying to find out what is causing the child’s problem, the SFT practitioner is interested in the opposite of the problem, or the goal; in figuring out what good things people want to see in the future, not on what bad things they want to get rid of. When working with children, the goal of therapy, the preferred future so to say, is usually a skill that the child needs to learn in order to overcome the problem. Once the needed skill, or ability, or competence has been identified, various techniques are used to build the child’s motivation to learn that skill and to provide help and support for them while they are learning the skill.

In this chapter, I present a simple step solution-focused -by-step procedure for helping children overcome behavioral and emotional problems. I will illustrate the steps of the method with a case study...