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Some people looking to master this approach believe that the key is in the techniques. The truth is, the key is much deeper and in this video I share the one thing you really need to know.

For more than one reason today. Um, the, the topic of trauma and how to apply solution focused brief therapy when you’re working with clients who’s experienced trauma is on my mind. I mean, one of them is, I mean, throughout my years of teaching and writing about solution focused ideas, how do you use this approach with trauma? Honestly might be the number one question that I have received. And I know there’s tons of reasons for that. You know, research says that over 70% of people experience a trauma, a significant trauma at some point in their life. And also like everybody understands solution focused brief therapy. And we find it easy to use as approach when the client won’t like is there because they have a problem, like they’ve just not been feeling well recently and maybe a little bit blue or having a transition adjustment or some marital problems, that sort of thing.

But when the problem is as grandiose as, um, um, have survived sexual assault has survived a violent assault, has survived significant drug use and, and parental abuse, uh, we start wondering like, can this approach really work? Uh, in this setting. One of the other reasons why trauma is on my mind is, is just today, uh, I woke up to yet another mass shooting that’s taken place in America. And all I can do is think, um, what is like for the people who have lived through these experiences? And it’s, it’s troubling to me. Like it really genuinely is troubling to me. So today in today’s video, in this video, the one thing I think I want to convey to you, the one thing I want every single person out there who’s interested in using a solution focused approach to know and to believe and to get deeply into your bones is that clients and people are amazing and they have the ability to achieve their goals in spite of any circumstances that have impacted their lives.

I want to say that again because it’s so important that people have the ability to accomplish their goals in spite of any of the troubles that have impacted them over the course of my 15 years in practice. The things that I have seen clients achieve in spite of where they come from is mind boggling to me. I met a woman once. I’ll give you an example. I met a woman once and have you ever been talking to someone who has survived something that you don’t think you could have survived, like they’ve been through something that you are sure would have just broken your spirit? Well, this one time, the early, early, early in my career, I met a woman who was dealing with a lot of drug abuse and she got into some significant legal trouble as a result of the drug abuse that she was going on.

She, uh, she was really young, but she had had two children and those children, two children been removed from her home. And when she told me her story of her childhood, when she was growing up and she hit puberty, she developed early and her mother’s friends became attracted to her even though she was a young girl and her mother started trading. I won’t be too explicit, but her friends could spend time with her if they gave their mother drugs. And this took place throughout malt, most of this young person’s life to cope with that pain in her teenage and late teenage years, she started using drugs and I mean serious drugs, cocaine, crack cocaine, crystal Methamphetamine, serious drugs to the point she gets herself in legal trouble and she loses custody of her children and the court mandates. She come to therapy. So I asked this young person and by the time I’m seeing her, she’s in her twenties.

What are your best hopes from our talking? And I can almost feel myself getting emotional talking about it and what are your best hopes from our talking? And uh, she said that she wanted to get her children back, um, and she didn’t think I was going to be possible because all the things that were going on and how much trouble she was in. If it were possible. What difference does it make to you? I’d feel like a good mom and I could break the cycle. That’s when she told me about what her mother had done, her and what her mother’s mother and her mother and mother, brother and all that kind of stuff. So if you could overcome that, what would you notice yourself? And she starts just describing herself as an overcomer instead of as a victim. Now we met a few times and at the time I had no idea where she got the children back or not.

She met the standard that the court mandated for her to come to therapy, stuck on therapy. And that was that a few weeks ago, um, that woman invited me to see her children. She said that you were so helpful for me, you know, 10 years ago, 12 years ago, whatever it was. Um, I’d like you to meet my, my two children. And the two children are now in their teenage years, their, uh, their teenage girls and, um, struggling in school. And, um, at the end of that session would met for teenage girls. Uh, the mom, the client I saw previously talked to me about, um, how her life had been after those sessions. She said, I got my children back, I got clean. Uh, I went to school, I met my current husband and uh, I’ve been clean from drugs since that time and uh, I just couldn’t believe that this person had been able to turn their life around in spite of this amazing trouble that she had getting it started.

And to be honest with you, I’ve got a thousand stories like that from a thousand different clients because if, one thing I’ve been convinced though is that people can achieve their goals in spite of any negative circumstance in their past. That’s what to me makes me so excited about using solution focused brief therapy because I think that we are the light in this world where there is so much darkness. And I think I have a compulsion now to share even more than I ever have before because I keep waking up to news of these incredibly dark things happening and as long as there are dark things happening that I think we have to share the light things that are happening too. And the thing I want to share today is if you’re going to use this approach, I beg you, I beg you to hold into your heart, get into your bones.

Every single client can achieve anything in spite of their past. We need to know that now more than we ever have before because we are being inundated with more dark news and more difficult times than I can remember in my 42 years on this earth. So let’s remember. Look, it’s important that you know how to ask the best of question and about out how to ask about the exceptions and the miracle question, all that kind of stuff. But you have to really believe that people can achieve any goal from any circumstance in order to be fluent with these questions because the questions aren’t relevant unless they come from a proper framework. And that’s what this is all about. So, um, I want you to just go out and be a light in this dark world. And maybe if we have enough lights, we will try now out the darkness. So I hope you enjoyed this video. Please give me a like, give me a share. If you’re watching someone youtube channel clip, subscribing a little button so you get the little bell so you get notified when I post videos. Head on over to elliottconnie.com Where I’ve got loads of free stuff and thank you for watching this video and I’ll see you next time.