Elliott Connie
Founder/PresidentElliott Connie, MA, LPC is a Psychotherapist that practices in Arlington, Texas. He has worked with thousands of individuals, couples, and families applying the solution...
I recently shared a demonstration from me that was almost 20 years old, and it sparked a dialogue about the importance of training and practice that every mental health clinician should do.
Inside of my Solution Focused Brief Therapy online community, which we call The SFU, we host a webinar every single week for training. And this past week, I did something I’ve never done before. I showed a video of me doing therapy with a client from a session that took place somewhere around 2008. That’s before I met Chris Iverson, Harvey Ratner, and Evan George. That’s before I met Adam Froerer.
It was literally me not too long out of graduate school, practicing the way I learned in graduate school, and from books I was reading at the time. But I wanted the audience to see that all of us have a learning curve.
I’m now one of the most, if not the most prominent person practicing Solution Focused Brief Therapy. Very much the face of this approach. But it didn’t start like that.
I too had to go on a learning curve. So I wanted to show them. I didn’t start off this way. I had to work and build and train and practice to get good at it.
But then something was highlighted in this training.
And what it was was I did a very standard Solution Focused Brief Therapy session with this client. If you watched that session and anybody asked, “What is Elliot doing?” Very obvious, Solution Focused Brief Therapy. If I took that session and showed it to somebody who was one of my professors, or somebody that was in charge of me being certified or something like that, they would all say, this is a standard textbook way of practicing Solution Focused Brief Therapy. No one would argue that.
But it wasn’t really impactful.
And as I watched it, I had this huge realization that it’s not enough just to do it. You have to do it in a meaningful way.
So a lot of times people will email me and they’ll ask me, “Hey, I’m working with a client. I’m really struggling. It’s not going well. What do you suggest?” And sometimes it’s just, you have to get more meaningful content in the session.
It’s not just enough to ask about the desired outcome, and ask about the preferred future, and do a description, and all the things associated with Solution Focused Brief Therapy.
You also have to be very, very sure that you’re having conversations about things that are really meaningful to the client, or else it’s just a superficial conversation that goes nowhere.
So even though this was a very textbook, standard Solution Focused Brief Therapy session, it wasn’t as impactful as it otherwise could have been. And over the years, I’ve gotten better at being impactful because I’ve gotten better at being able to decipher from my clients’ responses what’s really meaningful content to them, and what’s not.
So when you practice Solution Focused Brief Therapy, understand, it’s not just about following the rules. It’s about following the rules and having a conversation that the client would experience as meaningful.
Elliott Connie, MA, LPC is a Psychotherapist that practices in Arlington, Texas. He has worked with thousands of individuals, couples, and families applying the solution focused approach to help them move their lives from the current problems towards their desired futures. As well as being the Founder and President of The Solution Focused Universe, he is recognized around the world speaking at national and international conferences and events throughout the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, South Africa, Russia, Switzerland, England, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, Scotland, Holland, Canada, and Asia training practitioners to apply solution focused questions and techniques in their work. He has authored or co-authored 4 books including “The Art of Solution Focused Therapy”, ‘Solution Building in Couples Therapy”, ‘The Solution Focused Marriage’, and ‘Solution-Focused Brief Therapy with Clients Managing Trauma’.
