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...
We are in the middle of our most popular free training that we do every year, and I received an excellent question about helping clients overcome their boundaries that I wanted to talk about here.
We are right in the middle of our most popular training we do every year. It’s a free training. It’s called the Solution Focused Brief Therapy Diamond Masterclass. And we just hosted the live VIP part of the training. And a conversation happened that has inspired me to want to share it with you.
In Solution Focused Brief Therapy, it seems important that if you’re going to help a client to achieve something or to do something, you need to help them overcome the barriers to doing that thing. So the person was asking, “How do you use Solution Focused Brief Therapy to help somebody overcome barriers to doing whatever the thing is that they want to do?”
And I thought a lot about that, and I was like, well, that’s an interesting question. I haven’t heard that a whole, whole lot, or at least not worded that way.
In Solution Focused Brief Therapy, how do you overcome barriers? And here’s the example I gave them and what I want to share with you. I actually think Solution Focus Brief Therapy is, I don’t want to say perfect, but close to perfect for helping people to overcome barriers. Because when you ask your client about the desired outcome, and as you know, a Solution Focused Brief Therapy session starts by asking, “What are your best hopes from our talking?”
When you ask a client what their best hopes are from meeting with you, your reason for asking that question is you want to get something that is really deeply, personally and powerfully meaningful to that client. And the more meaningful and purposeful, and the more desirous that thing is that the client wants, then they’ll overcome their own barriers.
For example, I currently live in Arlington, Texas. If I said to one of you who doesn’t live in Arlington, Texas, I want you to to jog all the way to Arlington, Texas. And let’s say you live in my hometown, where I grew up. Let’s say you live in Massachusetts, Boston, Massachusetts. You’d be like, I’m not running there. That’s way too far. There’s no way I’m running all the way from Boston to Texas.
But if I said, if you did it, I’ll give you $100, you’d probably say to me, $100 sounds nice, but that’s not enough for me to run all the way to Arlington, Texas, from Boston. That’s like a thousand miles. I’m not jogging or walking a thousand miles. That’s crazy. Not for a hundred dollars.
But if I said I’ll do it I’ll give you $10 million if you do it. Now the $10 million is now something that’s really desirous. I really want that. So you know what? I’m willing to walk all the way to Arlington, Texas, from Boston, Massachusetts, or Cleveland, Ohio, or Chicago, Illinois, or wherever. I’m willing to walk all that way for $10 million because I really want that. Right?
So think about the desired outcome in terms of, like, if I can talk to my client about something they really want, that is the quickest and best way to make something that is desirous for your client so strong that the obstacles between them and accomplishing that thing they desire completely obsolete.
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’.
