Episode 9: Solution Focused Brief Therapy Everything & Everywhere
Episode 9: Solution Focused Brief Therapy Everything & Everywhere
Welcome everyone! I hope that everyone’s had a restful week wherever you’re listening from. Two weekends ago the Solution Focused Brief Therapy Association, of which I am a member (and sit on their Diversity and Programming Committees) pulled off an amazing feat: the SFBTA managed to put together an online Solution Focused Conference with 240 participants, from 22 countries, over 5 continents. Wow!
There was an incredible amount of diversity in the programming – which follows, since this year’s theme was “putting differences to work!”
It got me thinking, especially as my favorite Kiwi called me from New Zealand this morning to talk rugby (I’ve been an All Blacks fan since I had hair, so it was nice to talk to someone who had a similar love of my favorite team). During our conversation he asked me if I’d be interested in talking to some of his fellow coaches in his municipality, and he asked if SFBT had anything to offer Rugby. I said of course it did! When we’re not using Solution Focused Brief Therapy we’re using it for coaching (and as Insoo Kim Berg once said, the difference between SFBT and SFBC is that you’ll get paid more if you call it coaching)!
SFBT, when you become a practitioner, it becomes a part of you – and all that you do. You can be a Solution Focused doctor, lawyer, teacher, nurse, parent, nutritionist, artist, dancer, circus entertainer, and yes, a Solution Focused rugby player, coach, or referee. What was so nice is that our latest conference exhibited so much of that. Yes, we use it as a therapy, but as much as it is a therapy…it is a philosophy, and a way of living our live that can bring balance, and contentment, and empowerment, and answers – SOLUTIONS – to our hardest decisions.
When I was first studying SFBT work, I was studying under my professor, Denise Krause, at the University at Buffalo, in my interventions course. I was also studying under two social workers and one psychologist in my initial field placement. Bob, the psychologist always gave a baseball example if he could (he didn’t watch rugby, no one’s perfect).
I’m going to paraphrase because I have an inkling that maybe the insert ever changing sports team here didn’t really have this happen, but it’s a good metaphor: picture a clutch hitter, the baseball player who’s supposed to bring everyone in when all bases are loaded…the player who’s supposed to hit a home run, or just knock it out of the park. Suddenly, the clutch hitter isn’t doing well. So the clutch hitter starts watching tape after tape of all of his misses trying to spot the problem. Week after week. His batting isn’t getting any better. All he can think about and tall he can talk about is what’s not working, how he’s “messing up.” Now…they bring in a Solution Focused Coach…what do you think that coach does? That coach has him stop watching all of the videos of his errors and misses, and start watching videos of every time he was getting it right. When was it working out? When was the problem not a problem? How can we make that happen again? If you had to scale yourself right now, where would you be? And if you were 10% better, how would you know it? What would we need to do to get there?
Solution Focused Brief Therapy (and Self SFBT work) also got me through some of the most physically difficult moments of my life, when my body was failing all around me. It is powerful, and a gift, from Insoo Kim Berg and Steve DeShazer, and it is as applicable in a therapists office as it is on the rugby pitch.
Which is good news, because as my first semester of my doctoral in social work program winds down, I find myself preparing to move out of a direct mental health therapy role in the next year, into one as a Solution Focused Financial Social Worker, combining both my Master of Business Administration and my Social Work and Counseling Background to help folks understand their relationship to money, and their behavioral health…and if I can’t do it as a Solution Focused Brief Therapist, then I don’t want to do it all.
Fortunately for me, you can SFBT all the things!
Thank you for listening. Please tune in again next Sunday (and every time in-between), as we continue forward together down our solutions focused path. Comments, constructive criticism, feedback, and questions can be sent to [email protected]. Yes I’m on Social Media at @TheMattSchwartz on all of the platforms you’d think to look at. I’m Matt Schwartz, and it’s a pleasure to be your host.
The music you’re listening to in the background today is Boston Landing on “Blue Dot Sessions” generously shared through a creative commons license. Please find more of their music at www.sessions.blue, that’s w-w-w- dot s-e-s-s-i-o-n-s- dot b-l-u-e. I’ll see you next Sunday with more; until then, make good choices.