Just when I needed it, right when things had gotten so desperate that I was thinking of leaving the field, I met four men that would completely change the direction of my life.
I had just left my last agency job and opened my private practice. While attending a conference, I met Chris Iveson, Harvey Ratner, Evan George and Adam Froerer.
They were each established names in the Solution Focused field and, even though I was far from that, we all somehow connected and my learning continued long after the conference ended.
I quickly learned....
Having access to professionals who are more experienced with this approach makes a huge difference.
I didn’t feel alone anymore. Finally, there were people I could reach out to that would guide me within the parameters of Solution Focused thinking instead of away from it.
Also, I didn’t feel crazy anymore. I no longer felt that there was something wrong with me due to making a choice that everyone around me seemed not to understand.
For the first time, when I encountered a clinical situation that I felt “stuck” in, I had someone to turn to for help.
There were now others around me that had made the same choice too.
I can not overstate how profound of an impact these connections made for me.
These connections did a lot for me.
For example...
I realized SFBT was so much more than just a collection of techniques.
Much of the early writing and teaching about the Solution Focused Approach was based on the standard techniques.
The miracle question, exception finding, the scaling question, and more. I studied these techniques but at times still struggled.
Why?
Because the Solution Focused Approach is much more than just knowing about these techniques. It is also about knowing how to apply them in your work.
It’s about knowing how to ask the next question in the session.
It’s about knowing how to ask questions that produce meaningful answers that lead towards positive change.
Also, this approach is about being able to facilitate conversations about solutions, even when the client seems “stuck” in the problem.
Then something else happened...
People started calling me for therapy, and my practice exploded.
I had only been in private practice briefly when I started to accelerate my use of the Solution Focused Approach, and I had some fear of how it would impact my business.
After all, how could I make a living if I was only seeing clients a few times? I was sharing an office with a psychotherapist who practiced a problem-focused kind of therapy, and she just needed one new client each week to grow her practice. If I was going to doing Solution Focused work, I knew I needed more than that.
Then it happened...
People started calling me because they heard about my questions, they heard about how rapidly my clients were improving, and they heard about me.
Before I knew it, I was getting more calls than I could handle and I had a full practice.