The Power of Intentionality and How it Connects to Solution Focused Therapy

So I just got done doing an event that is almost like a career defining event for me. Not that my career is over. I got a lot more to do and a lot more to contribute. But this event specifically has me thinking about the power of intentionality, the power of your mind, the power of words. Some people call it manifestation, but it actually goes to the root of Solution Focused Brief Therapy.

If you’ve been following me for a while, you’ve seen me post on social media about speaking at the Evolution of Psychotherapy conference. That confidence been on my mind for literally 15 years. I learned about it when I was in graduate school, something called the Woodstock of psychotherapy. Because all of the biggest psychotherapists in the field, the ones who created stuff and changed the field, innovators in industry, went to this event.

And in grad school, one of my professors said, if you guys want to go, you’ll get extra credit. I couldn’t afford to go to Anaheim, California back then, so I didn’t. Years later, I became friends with a guy named Bill O’Hanlon. Bill was a speaker at this event. He posted a picture of the faculty one year, I think it was 2010, and everybody in this picture was white. Most of the people were male.

I called Bill and I said, “Bill, how could it be that in a conference called ‘Evolution’, there’s literally no diversity in faculty?” And he said, “Elliott, one day you’re going to be the person to create diversity at this event, and you’re going to change the field.”

At that moment I was like, “I’m speaking at that event.” There was no hesitation. I knew I’m going to be speaking at that event. And then in 2024, I got the invitation to speak at the 2025 iteration of that conference.

I think back, if it wasn’t something that was totally a part of everything I was thinking, would it have happened? And I don’t think it would have.

So what makes Solution Focused Brief Therapy so beautiful is we ask people, “What is that North Star?” When we say to our clients, “What are your best hopes from our talking?”, what we’re really asking is, what is that North Star ‘thing’ that you want to accomplish, that you need to accomplish, that when it’s in your mind and in your vision and in your line of thinking, your life just starts moving in that direction. That’s really what we’re about. That’s really what this approach is about.

I just lived it, and it’s a great, extraordinary feeling.

So make sure when you talk to your clients and you’re asking about the outcomes they want to achieve, you’re literally thinking, “What is that thing that you would put on your vision board for a decade? And keep moving in that direction until you achieve them.”

[Being introduced onto the Evolution of Psychotherapy stage…]
“Our speaker for today’s session is Elliott Connie, MA, LPC, and president and founder of the Solution Focused Universe. Please help me welcome him to the stage.”