The First Step to Building Your Confidence in Solution Focused Brief Therapy

I’m out here in L.A. where I’m gonna be attending an award show later tonight. Super excited to be here. I got in yesterday and immediately went to a comedy club, a world famous comedy club, called the Comedy Store. And when you walk into the Comedy Store, there is this big row of pictures. There’s this long hallway, and there’s a big row of pictures with comics from the history of comedy. Jerry Seinfeld, George Carlin, Sam Kinison, Eddie Murphy, Richard Prior, all of the people that represented the history of standup comedy. There’s just pictures of them on this big long hallway.

I was asking some of the staff, ‘why’ they have the comics of the history of the past there and not as many comics that are performing now. There are a few, but most of it is from the past. And they said, because you have to appreciate the history of comedy, in order to be a current good comedian. And they talked about how important having the base of history impacts the way that you go about and understand and appreciate comedy now.

And I thought about that, and I think that’s completely true. If I were to want to become a full time professional comic, I’d have to study the history of it. I’d have to want to know what people did, and how they got good at it, and what styles did they develop, and how did they develop them. I’d have to know the origin of comedy so that I can then kind of pick up where we left off.

And I started thinking to myself, when I was driving home, I started thinking to myself, that that’s very true, and it’s true in everything, including psychotherapy.

A lot of people struggle with their confidence in Solution Focused Brief Therapy. They struggle to apply Solution Focused Brief Therapy effectively. They struggle to use this approach in a way that fits for them. And I’ve been thinking a lot about, why is that?
When I was in graduate school, I was reading a book, the book that the professor assigned to read (I don’t remember the name of the book), but in that book it said that Bill O’Hanlon and Michelle Wiener Davis are the creators of Solution Focused Brief Therapy. Now, I already knew by that time that that was not the case. I already knew by that time that Solution Focused Brief Therapy was created by Steve de Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg, Elam Nunnally, Eve Lipchick, and a whole team of people that worked in Milwaukee. I knew that that wasn’t the case. And over the years, while I’m in grad school, I would hear lots of information that wasn’t fully accurate about Solution Focused Brief therapy.

It started with research. It wasn’t just some sort of random idea that somebody had in their kitchen. It was collaborated by a team. It was a multicultural, multi gender, very diverse team.

So knowing the history, it really means you have a proper foundation for the thing, whether it’s comedy or psychotherapy.

And having an accurate understanding of the history is the only way to really build a solid foundation. So one of the reasons I think a lot of clinicians struggle with their confidence in using Solution Focused Brief Therapy is because they don’t have that solid foundation. They don’t have a good base underneath them holding up their work. And thus they struggle with confidence when they’re trying to apply Solution Focused in their work.

I share all that to say a couple of things.

Number one, make sure you study the history of anything that you’re doing. If you don’t know the history, it’s hard to move forward with all of the information of the things that have come before you. So make sure you study the history, and make sure that you understand where something has come from, so you can understand what it’s doing now, and where it’s going.

If you’re watching this immediately after I send it out, I’m actually hosting a lecture that’s all about the true and real history of Solution Focused Brief Therapy. You can sign up to attend. I’ll put the link somewhere in this video, or in the description, or whatever. I’ll put the link around so you can get it.

Knowing the history is really important. I’m going to host a lecture where I’m going to share the true, honest history.

I’ve been all around the world, and I’ve talked to the people that were actually there when the approach was created. I went to Milwaukee and hung out with a woman named Sarah Berg, who is Insoo Kim Berg’s daughter, Steve de Shazer’s stepdaughter. And she took me on a tour. She took me to the homes where they lived. She took me to the office where they worked. She took me all over the place, so I could understand and learn where this approach came from. Because she recognized that I was one of the leaders carrying this approach forward, and she wanted me to understand what it was, and how it got created.
So, I’m super excited to do this lecture. So, again, if you watch this right away after I send it, go ahead and sign up. I’ll put the link somewhere in there.

But even if you’re not, if you’re watching this long after I post it, make sure you get the true and accurate history of Solution Focused Brief Therapy. It’ll help you more than you know.