Solution Focused Thinking

By Lori Gard, Your Life Design

What difference would that make if you were to achieve your best hopes, how would that change your life in a meaningful way?

WHAT DIFFERENCE?

What difference would it make? I often ask clients this “difference” question at the beginning of a conversation. “If you were to achieve your best hopes? How would that change your life in a meaningful way?”

As a solution-focused brief therapist, I am always looking for ways to shift people’s thinking toward considering their preferred future. We know that ruminating about the past or worrying about the future can cause distress. Being stuck inhibits movement. However, contemplating a desired outcome can bring about hope.

A PREFERRED FUTURE

If someone suggests that their best hope for our conversation is to gain acceptance about a certain situation, my next question to them is what difference that would make to gain acceptance. I am curious about the details, as we are now on a path leading to change and desired expectations. Micro-questions around this new hopeful path that the client has suggested they are desiring will elicit details that lead toward a preferred future.

Every decision we make brings about a difference in our lives. When I lead solution focused brief therapy sessions, I am interested in the difference or change that the ideal will bring to an individual’s life. I want to hear about how elevated hope will make a difference, increased motivation will make a difference, strengthened resolve will make a difference, amplified clarity will make a difference and how many other things will bring about a stark contrast between “what is now” and “what can be.”

SOLUTION FOCUSED MINDSET

children. As a school counsellor, I believe children are drawn toward hopeful ways of thinking and being. After several sessions with a young student, I recently met her in the hallway. This student would have traditionally been problem-focused in her thinking. This day when we connected, the first words I heard her say were: “things have been going better.” She was responding with a solution focused mindset, thinking about possibility and hope. That’s the power of thinking about “what I’d rather” instead of dwelling on “how things are.”

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

What difference would it make to you if one thing changed?

What would be the first thing you noticed, signaling to you that change was possible, perhaps even underway?

What difference would that hopeful thinking bring to your life?

FIVE ASPECTS OF HOPE ACTIVATION

Five key aspects of hope activation are important to be aware of when thinking through a solution focused lens:

1. Awareness about the outcome you are desiring. 2. Awareness about times when the problem was either not happening or was more manageable. 3. Awareness of how important this goal for change is for you. 4. Awareness of what those VIPs in your life might notice is different as a result of your change. 5. Awareness of what could help you cope and manage along the pathway toward change.

What difference would it make for you if you were to try thinking in a solutionfocused way? I would wager it would make a big difference. Lori Gard is a registered counselling therapist at Your Life Design Inc., a PEI based company offering online therapy and training. Gard is also a Canadian Certified Counsellor and holds separate bachelor’s degrees in history and education. Gard also has a Master of Science degree from the University of West Alabama, as well as a Master of Education from UPEI.

She has a certificate in Solution Focused Brief Therapy through OISE at the University of Toronto, and she is currently studying her Advanced Certificate in Couple and Family Therapy at the University of Guelph. Gard specializes in working with children and their parents working with youth, teenagers, couples, and families, and offers Solution Focused Brief Therapy to her many clients.

Gard lives in Mill River East with her husband Brian, and their four children.

www.yourlifedesign.ca 902.316.0745

(above L-R) Melanie Faye (Business Manager), Jill Stewart (Founder), Dr. Laura Campbell (Clinical Consultant), Heidi Lutz (Therapist), Magan MacDonald (Director), Karen Miligan (Therapist)

Get Online Counselling with Therapists from Your Life Design

By Brianne Hogan Photo Jacqui Chaisson

Jill Stewart is the founder of Your Life Design Inc., which provides professional therapy services online to help people improve their quality of life by moving forward in their lives with as much resilience as possible. She has been a registered social worker for 25+ years.

“Ithink the biggest reason for creating my own company was so I could be part of helping as many Prince Edward Islanders as possible,” she says. “I want to make going to mental health therapy as normal as going to physiotherapy for a sprained ankle.”

Stewart launched her business in the fall of 2019 with the intention of offering remote virtual services for people who live in rural areas or busy professionals who have limited time in their daily lives to schedule counselling sessions. Since then, her company’s team has offered thousands of sessions for people during the highly stressful period of the COVID pandemic.

Your Life Design’s original focus was on aiding helpers and caregivers, but has expanded to offer therapy to children age 4+, individuals, couples, and families. Your Life Design specializes in working with people with differing abilities and neurodiversity, and their families. Jill says her current and former students at Holland College for more than fifteen years inspire her to do this. “I want to stay connected to frontline work in my field which makes my teaching more relevant,” says Stewart.

The Your Life Design team provides clients with online virtual remote counselling and training in both English and French. Clients can get matched with a therapist that aligns with issues they’re wanting support with, including ten therapists who are Registered Social Workers and Certified Canadian Counsellors. Your Life Design therapists also have access to regular clinical supervision by a Ph.D psychologist, Dr. Laura Campbell, and together, says Stewart, they have “over 100 years of experience in counselling people to be their best selves.” The Your Life Design senior management team includes Magan MacDonald, who provides clinical support and direction. Magan’s mantra is “connection is protection,” valuing our need for connection as a means of managing our anxiety and stress especially during these difficult COVID times.

Magan provides the Your Life Design team with the opportunity to have a private practice with zero business headaches as well as clinical support and supervision. Her goal is for Islanders to have top notch clinical intervention and she works hard to be sure all processes are in place to make that happen.

Your Life Design’s business manager, Melanie Faye, is new to the Island, having moved from British Columbia. An experienced business owner herself, and fluent in Japanese, Melanie says that living on Prince Edward Island has exceeded her expectations. It means so much to Melanie to be a part of Your Life Design and make a difference to the lives of so many Islanders. “We will continue to grow so there are no wait lists for people wanting private therapy,” says Faye.

As for what Stewart enjoys most about her work, she says it comes down to the people she works with, whether it’s her own team or clients. “I always want to be doing work that is making an impact on others. I like that Your Life Design can provide opportunities for all sorts of social workers and counsellors to join this online private practice. I like working with a fantastic team that supports people with differing strengths, and also the people that I meet who participate in our training. Most of all, I am inspired by clients that I work collaboratively with to redesign their lives so that they can be the best that they can be.”

To book a free consultation, email info@yourlifedesign.ca or visit the website and use the self-serve option at www.yourlifedesign.ca.

“I want to make going to mental health therapy as normal as going to physiotherapy for a sprained ankle.”

- Jill Stewart

Your Life Design 902.316.0745 info@yourlifedesign.ca www.yourlifedesign.ca