Solution News Vol 2 Issue 4 January 2007

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Bulletin of the United Kingdom Association for Solution Focused Practice Volume 2 - Issue 4 • January 2007

Articles in this issue: Collaboration, Collaboration, Collaboration Bob Bertolino stresses the importance of involving our clients Group Work with Parents Kylie Gregory finds new uses for scaling and miracle questions UKASFP Next Steps Steve Freeman reflects on changes to the association since the launch of Solution News Obituary: Insoo Kim Berg

Also in this issue: Editorials

Self-administered Solution Focus Shelley Lewin shares her experience of dealing with a personal crisis, SF style.

Distribution News Competition News Win! Stuff!

Association News Details of what the UKASFP sub-systems have been up to Book Review Correspondence Member News Information on what our members are doing and plan to do

Well here we are again (eventually!) with another issue of Solution News. And for the first time it’s not just me welcoming you to all of this, but also our two new associate editors, Svea and Dave, who have kindly come on board to help out with keeping Solution News going, and who knows, maybe even expanding what we do! You’ll find them introducing themselves properly on the next page, but let me just say that their help is already proving invaluable.

Although more of the founders are leaving us, most notably Insoo Kim Berg this last quarter, solution focused practice continures to grow and develop, with well-known (and not so well-known) people continuing to find novel ways to apply solution focused ideas to new areas of life as well as inspiring more and more newcomer ‘solutioneers’ and exploring ways to integrate SF ideas with the more interesting ideas that have come from other approaches. Somehow this is also being managed in a way that stays true to the values and philosophy that we all hold dear. So, our hopes for the future?

I’d suggest that in these times of increased diversity in the areas where solutioneers work, our associations and interest groups need to find ways to help us join together and keep sharing with each other so that we can both help those new practitioners develop their use of the approach and also provide maximum benefit for our clients from the innovative ways of working msny out there are trying. My best hope for this issue is that we manage to reflect a little of this, and for future issues is that we can find and share as many innovative and respectful practice ideas as possible.

Happy reading!

Ian C. Smith Editor 2

Solution News - Credits: Solution News is freely available at www.solution-news.co.uk Editor: Ian C Smith Associate Editors: Dave Hawkes Svea Van Der Hoorn Graphic Designer: Marcia Tavares Smith marcinhatavares@hotmail.com The opinions presented in Solution News are those of the relevant authors and do not represent the views of the UKASFP. UKASFP membership is only £10 per annum. To join, visit www.ukasfp.co.uk Contributions and correspondence should be sent to: editor@solution-news.co.uk.

Copyright to the articles published in Solution News is vested in the relevant author(s) whose permission should be sought before reproducing their article elsewhere. A copy may be made for your personal reference. If you would like to contact any author the editor will forward your request.

Design and layout are copyright © 2006 United Kingdom Association for Solution Focused Practice. All rights reserved. Solution News may be distributed freely in its entirety. Please tell others about us!

Solution News • volume 2 issue 4 • January 2007

Associate editorial – Dave Hawkes Using a short slot to introduce oneself is never an easy thing to do. I am really pleased to be accepted as an associate editor of Solution News alongside such capable writers and editors as Ian and Svea. I am a mental health lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University and have been using SFT since the late 1980’s. I trained in Milwaukee under supervision from Steve De Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg in 1992 on the Brief Therapy Practices residency training. Since then I have

contributed articles and book chapters and co authored a book on mental health applications of SFT. My interest is in working with voice hearing and psychosis and I run groups and see clients with these issues. Currently I supervise staff on the Brief Diploma course in London and am the module leader at degree and masters level on courses on SFT here at the university. I am studying for my PhD and my thesis will be on miracle questions and language games in SFBT.

Associate editorial – Svea Van Der Hoorn Living in the southern hemisphere brings with it the challenge of staying in touch. I feel privileged to be able to contribute to the ongoing wellbeing and development of SFP by being given the nod when I responded to the request for editorial assistance for Solution News.

Rather than introduce myself through the lens of SFP, I’d prefer to use the lens of being a writer. Being a writer is interconnected with being a reader — I love both. I began drawing and writing little books around the age of four and haven’t stopped since. I’ve had a go at a variety of ‘voices’ and styles — academic journals, doctoral dissertation, short stories, an abandoned novel, one poem — an unexpected haiku that appeared at a very troubled time, research reports, annual reports, minutes of meetings, strategic plans, scenario plans, performance management reports when working as a senior manager, truck loads of scribbles and post-it notes, plenty of personal letters, professional references, psychological assessment reports, and more.

What has helped me to bridge from the world of ideas to the world of action?

• write everyday, however little • while inspiration is helpful, it’s not essential. What IS necessary is bum on seat.

• trust the process, and respect the freshness of first thoughts and words • welcome editorial and review comments AND maintain your own writer’s voice • and so the list continues…

My hope is to be part of encouraging and enabling practitioners to document their thoughts and their experiences so that the written world of SFP continues to expand. This feels particularly important at this time when both Insoo and Steve will no longer be active participants in the SFP writing community. I look forward to conversations with you all — many of which will be written!

Solution News • volume 2 issue 4 • January 2007

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Collaboration, Collaboration, Collaboration!

Bob Bertolini talks to John Wheeler about what’s changing in solution oriented practice, his own work, and what he’s learned from Bono out of U2.

John: This is the second time you come to us in the North East to speak to people here that are interested in working in a solution focused way.

Bob Bertolino, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Rehabilitation Counseling at Maryville University in St. Louis, Missouri.

He is also Senior Clinical Advisor at Youth In Need, Inc. and founder of Therapeutic Collaborations Consultation and Training. Bob has taught over 250 workshops around the world, and has authored or co-authored eight books including the forthcoming, Creating Effective Helping Relationships: A Strengths-Based Approach. Bob has a wonderful eight year-old daughter and enjoys movies, and playing music.

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on. I think the root features still exist, but I also think we’ve begun to expand them as we’ve looked at other ways of being collaborative with clients. For example, our conversations One place I would like to start with clients are taking on a is differences. Would you be bit of a different shape these hoping that people might have days, where we’re not just seen you last time you came sitting down with people and to the northeast and will see asking them about you again this time exceptions, we’re will think “Ah! also looking at how There’s some e over v a h e we can work with “W differences there”? dels of o m 0 people from the 0 6 What would you py a r e h t o very beginning of psych hope would stand I’m d n a , our interactions w no out compared to n i d e t s with them to intere the last time you es i t i r a l i find a better fit m the si were here with us in ” m e h t between being n terms of what you betwee solution based wanted to convey to and with what people? it is that the client expects Bob: Well, It’s been four or five from our services. So we might years since I was last here and have conversations with people I think a lot has changed during about their ideas on how we that time and hopefully some might approach a situation has changed with me personally, more effectively, their ideas but looking at solution focused about how they think change therapy and thinking in the field might come about in terms of us as a whole, I think there’s been meeting together. We tend to a lot of changes. One of which ask them more about their ideas is that we have become a lot at different junctures of therapy, more interested in expanding the during the initial session, the idea of solution focused therapy. second session, maybe the fifth We’ve had the structure in session. Having conversations place for a long time now, and with people about whether a lot of the basics have been what we are doing makes sense present: being future focused; for them and maybe making looking at client’s strengths; adjustments to what we are being collaborative, looking for doing as a result. So we are exceptions to problems and so staying true to solution based

Solution News • volume 2 issue 4 • January 2007

Collaboration ideas, but I think we are also monitoring the effectiveness of our services a little more closely and that means also being willing to look outside of the model itself to find other approaches which complement solution focused therapy and provide a better fit [with the client]. That’s a lot of what I’ve been doing and thinking about over the last few years and I think, we’ve evolved from thinking just about solutions to expanding that model by looking at other models and seen how they can fit together.

John: I wonder which models you feel that solution focused working has benefited from being in dialogue with?

Bob: You know, I think that there are quite a few. Narrative therapy has had an influence and I also think that even some of the original family therapy ideas. Looking at some of the strategic approaches we can trace them back and see some of the links.

Many solution focused therapists would see those links anyway, but I think they have become a little more apparent these days. We have something like 600 models of psychotherapy, and I am interested in what some of the similarities are between these approaches. We are also a lot more interested in seeing what’s happening in other fields, so it may be looking at business models, or maybe looking at health models and so on to see what we can take away from them to strengthen solution focused therapy in general. So it’s expanding, it’s what Bateson used to call an ecology of ideas that can come together to complement one another and broaden the model. And that is combined with the concern with outcomes that I alluded to earlier, which consists of more of an interest in whether what we are doing is effective with that person in that situation with that concern.

John: Would there be other practitioners or other areas of practice that have added to your curiosity to adapt and develop?

Bob: There’s certainly a lot of people who I think influenced the field as a whole and

by Bob Bertolini have influenced me as well, who have added some new ideas. Bill O’Hanlon, Scott Miller. I think there are also people that are more on the fringe that we don’t hear about quite so often but who are doing some really terrific things. There’s a practitioner in California, David Nile, who has some really wonderful ideas and I think if we sift through some of the more recent journals on systemic family therapy and so on, there is some writing that hasn’t made its way into books yet but which is quite novel and we just have to dig a little bit deeper to look for those.

John: And I heard you mentioning earlier that there’s another book you are working at the moment. What has made you write that particular book?

Bob: I actually have three different projects I’m working on, but the one you’re referring to is called ‘Strength Based Client Engagement in Therapy’. And the idea is to look at what kinds of practices we can use in psychotherapy, and in helping professions in general, to increase the strength of our relationships to find a better fit between our approach and clients’ expectations. The book looks at three primary research and practice agendas. One is evidence-based practice, which has gained some prominence here in the UK as well. The second is the common factors approach, which many people are familiar with, which looks at commonalities of effective approaches, and the third is outcome management which I’ve been referring to earlier. All of those are very different directions, but they all have points of convergence which we know as practitioners we ought to be looking at because they are linked with successful outcomes. So the basis of the book is: What can we take away from these different research agendas? How can they inform practice? Ultimately being collaborative, strength based, focusing on change and so on.

John: The next question I want to ask is What do you think the reception might be to those three approaches being pulled together in that particular way?

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Collaboration

by Bob Bertolini

Bob: It’s a great question. Well, I’m hopeful.

I’m hopeful that people will see it as a novel contribution to the field, because it really is honouring each of those different approaches. It is not saying that one is more effective than the other, but yet they all have limitations. The intention is to find out how they all fit together, complement one another. But I think inevitably, in doing so, criticisms will come from people who have a strong allegiance to one of those particular agendas. And people that are very much tied to evidence based practice may believe that that’s the way to go, whereas people who believe that no one model is more effective across the board may go more to the common factors model and there’re also people that will say “ You just have to pay attention to outcomes and that is pretty much it”. Again I think that’s the kind of thinking that tends to limit us. And my hope is that people will be willing to reexamine practices associated with those research agendas and say “you know, there’s something in this that we can learn from”.

And ultimately today, as we try to solve world problems, whether it’s looking at how to resolve economic debt, or whatever, we have to borrow from different disciplines and see how they complement one another, because no one model is able to give us all the answers we need. So it makes sense in that way, but I do expect some people won’t be as accepting as I’m hoping they will.

John: In general, how are things going in America with collaborative approaches to practice?

Bob: Well, I think it is a work in progress. I think ten years ago the terms collaborative, competency, strength base and so on were used as’fluff’. In other words, they were just thrown in to proposals to secure funding but I don’t know if people took them to heart.

Then, maybe five years ago people started thinking “maybe we do really need to do this?

Maybe there’s something of great value here for our clients and for our organisations and our field”. And now I think we’re further along that continuum at a point where we

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are saying “It’s not that we’re just writing about this. And it is not just that it makes sense. We believe we should be doing this.”

But I think it’s a process because I think people have ways of being collaborative and they understand the importance of that, but I don’t know if people always take the time to sit back and re-analyse their own processes to understand if they truly are being collaborative. And to really know that, we have to include our clients much more in that feedback process of learning what their perception is. Because I think we still use those words lightly at times. And so in North America I think there is now much more attention being paid to collaboration.

More people are taking it to heart. Is it as widespread as I think it could be though?

Not yet.

Well you know there’s a saying the orhganisation that I work in that “you have to walk the talk”. That means that we have to build into our programmes ways of monitoring whether we’re doing what we say we’re doing.

And that’s scary, because people often don’t want to know what their clients are thinking about what we’re doing. It’s much easier to sit back and to say we’re being collaborative, but that’s such a broad term. True collaboration happens at many different levels, but we have to have a willingness within our organisations and our practices to look at how we monitor that, how we support it in all different levels.

So it’s a process.

John: You were talking earlier about the agency you work in and how it’s a place that suits you, and where the approach is that it is for clients who come along to the service to guide you and how you endeavour to run the organisation.

Would that be pretty much the case?

Bob: Yes. It definitely is. In fact we spend a day and a half with all new employees training them just on our philosophy, because you can teach people all kinds of methods and techniques, but at heart if they don’t believe in what they’re doing, if it doesn’t make sense for them, then it’s really a tough road to go. So we introduce people early

Solution News • volume 2 issue 4 • January 2007

Collaboration on to taking a look at themselves and reexamining their beliefs. And then we find that when you teach people after that the strength based, the solution based stuff, that makes sense. It really makes sense. It’s not a stretch for people. But if we don’t start with the philosophy, I think what happens is a certain percentage of people haven’t taken the time to see how this fits with who they are as people and ultimately, I’m pretty convinced that that is what makes most people effective. They find a way of taking the materials and they assimilate it in a way that makes sense for them. So that when John has taken the information in, it comes out ‘John’, it doesn’t come out ‘solution focused’ like it would for somebody else, it comes out like you. And that’s what people relate to.

John: I imagine that there are probably all sort of structures and practices you have in place in the organisation to keep that philosophy alive and maintain and develop it?

Bob: Yes, and the structure is really the important thing. Stylistically people are very different, and you want to give them room for that so they can be who they are, but we do have to have those layers in place where the support is there to carry that out administratively and operationally.

John: Suppose if for example I was able to speak to maybe a new employee within your organisation. They’ve had the day-and-ahalf introduction and maybe they’ve been there for a month or so. So they’ve seen the extent to which the philosophy is ‘lived’ in the organisation. And maybe this is a person for whom this has been quite a new experience.

If I asked them “What have you particularly noticed in this organisation? “What would you hope they would comment on?

Bob: I would hope there was a range of things for people, because it is going to make sense for them in different ways. But I would hope that a unifying thing is that they see hope and possibility for people. That

by Bob Bertolini it’s not just that they feel like they were trained in something that they have to go out and replicate, but that they really believe in it. It makes sense for them and they feel hopeful as a result. They feel hopeful that people under the right conditions with the right support and so on can achieve amazing things in life and at the very least can achieve a better level of living than they currently have. And so I hope that that happens and out of hope comes more possibilities for change. When you hope, you see a panorama of possibilities, but when you’re hopeless and diminished you tend to see less opportunity. And so I would hope that that’s something that would come across for people.

John: And the clients themselves who’ve maybe come from having a different experience before? What would you be pleased to hear them report back about their experience of coming in to the service?

Bob: Well I would hope that some of the core things would be that they felt heard and they felt understood and they felt listened to and respected and that their views were honoured and so on. Beyond that I would hope that they would feel that what we provided was a good fit for them, that it was effective in the sense that they made gains and improved their lives. For some people, it may be a pretty dramatic change, and for some people maybe it’s something smaller, but nonetheless it could be an important stepping-stone for them. So I would hope that they felt like we were ‘with them’ in the process, working together with them, rather than that we were trying to fix them. That they really felt that sense of collaboration. And again I think that increases the sense of hope.

John: And can I ask you about how the political context in North America, at the moment is effecting funding for orgaisations like yours? Is it making it easier or harder to secure the funding you need to continue the work of your organisation?

Solution News • volume 2 issue 4 • January 2007

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Collaboration

by Bob Bertolini

Bob: Well, it varies, but I think, it there have been a lot of cuts across the board in the US in funding, especially at the federal level, and it certainly has affected us as an organisation. At the same time, it has a lot to do with that ‘walking the talk’, which is that we have to be more active socially at local government level and in the US federally. Being more active in making sure that the politicians are aware of what our needs are and also encouraging people to get out and speak, and to vote, and exercise their political rights, because that influences funding. And that still remains the biggest threat the we have.

John: I imagine that your central philosophy would show up in those conversations with funders, and so on, even if the climate isn’t too favourable, Do you find that you keep trying to hold to that philosophy of hope and so on, even if things look bad?

Bob: Absolutely. You know, you and I talked before about this. We have a different way of looking at it. I really like how Bono from U2 approaches that. He goes out and he goes to Washington DC and he is from another country, but he goes and he sees a situation that’s affecting people greatly and he knows it’s something he can change, so he goes in and he speaks to Jesse Helms, who is a very right-wing and conservative politician and appeals to him. And it’s very interesting, because people say: “why would you be speaking to Jesse Helms?” Why? It is because he knows that Jesse Helms has something within him that he can evoke and Bono knows it’s better to build relationships with people and to build on the intention of wanting to help people, rather than just say “It’s my way or your way.” Which is what tends to happen in the US a lot. It’s this party versus this party and just indifference between the two. I think that we can learn a lot from building relationships and encouraging people to do the right thing.

And I think that happens more when we engage people in conversations and try to get them involved, rather than constantly putting people on the defence. We can always hold

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people accountable and challenge them, but we don’t necessarily have to make enemies in the process of doing that.

John: Finally, we had a discussion not so long ago in the UK around what our contribution to the development of the solution oriented approach might be. We wondered whether there is such a thing as a kind of “UK solution oriented identity” that gets added into and colours the way we use the approach. From your point of view, as a visitor, is there something that has stood out to you about how we use the ideas?

Bob: The commitment to blending community practice with academics. I think that those two things are necessary, and they are a very good fit, but we too often have people that just work in the university setting or just work in the community and then there are arguments going back and forth: “you don’t understand what we’re doing and we don’t understand what you’re doing”. An ‘us and them’ kind of thing. And what you do well in the UK I think is saying we need to make sure that we have those two working together, that’s true collaboration. To say we need to understand that we need to understand the research, the academic side of things, and we need to understand the community part as well. And in the UK you have a real commitment to that.

Solution News • volume 2 issue 4 • January 2007

DISTRIBUTION NEWS Solution News is still spreading the SF word around the globe. We also now have a new more accurate method of telling us who’s reading! As at 03.02.2007: The total number of copies of Solution News October 2006 issue downloaded from the website was 1,219 The total number of first time visitors to the Solution News web-site since launch was 4186 The total number of countries Solution News had been downloaded from was 73 We also know that many of our readers get given Solution News in hard copy form by colleagues who have downloaded it, and these (obviously) arenít included in the above figures Solution News articles now also show up as as results when searching with google scholar!

Countries Where Solution News Is Read, In Red!

World map created by World66 (visit www.world66.com)

COMPETITION NEWS After the roaring success of last time’s competition (not a single entry) this time around we’ve made it somewhat easier for you. Those nice people at Sage are keen to promote Alasdair MacDonald’s new book, Solution-Focused Therapy: Theory, Research & Practice, which you can find details of here http://www.sagepub.co.uk/booksProdDesc.nav?prodId=Book230577 and so are offering free, yes FREE copies of the book to the first five people to email us with their postal address to competition@solution-news.co.uk. They’ve also promised not to use your addresses for marketing or other such jiggery-pokery. So what are you waiting for? Get emailing!

And for any of you that fancy more of a challenge, we still have a copy of ‘The Handbook of Solution-Focused Therapy’ up for grabs for whoever somes up with the best idea for helping us increase UKASFP membership! Email us your thoughts to the same address.

Solution News • volume 2 issue 4 • January 2007

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Peer reviewed article

Group Work with Parents Scaling and the Miracle Question as process resources by Kylie Gregory Context

Kylie is an occupational therapist, with training in psychodrama and an interest in creative techniques for group work. Her role as Parenting Co-ordinator at the Rivendell Child, Adolescent and Family Service in Sydney, Australia includes facilitating group work with parents. Like many SF practitioners, Kylie is also a musician and enjoys making time to practice the discipline of fluteplaying. She can be contacted at kylie. gregory@email. cs.nsw.gov.au

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and questions, I recognised that SF principles might I work in the area of parenting complement my own training in the Sydney South West and experience in occupational Area Mental Health Service therapy and psychodrama.

(Australia). My role involves For me, occupational therapy co-ordinating and delivering is premised on working with parenting information and people’s capacities in order to initiatives, including group work find solutions, rather than being with parents. While my work problem or deficit focused. In involves facilitating programmes my psychodrama training, we with parents of singletons, my had been challenged to take a particular interest is in offering first small step and customised then to describe programmes what the small step rved a for parents of represented. This “I obse tion a m r o f multiples (twins s sounded very similar tran aces f r i and triplets). e h t to what I was in te o r w These families y e hearing and reading as th sed s u deal daily with c s i about scaling. Also, d and e l c a how different and r i in psychodrama their m ” how similar it is to s e r we experimented u pict parent more than with gaze, posture one child of the same and the physical age simultaneously. shape of our bodies as a way Similarly, group work challenges to focus on the future. When practitioners to reflect on what I encountered the miracle is the same and what is different question, I conceptualised it about solution focused practice as a verbal sequence that I (SFP) when working with many could use to encourage people rather than with an individual. to use imagination as well as How might SFP look when used information to begin to develop with a group of parents who were new pictures of what their attending a parenting programme parenting futures might look like. focused on information and skills, not on therapy?

My initial encounters with solution focused therapy (SFT) involved picking up my husband’s texts for his family therapy course, and hearing interesting stories from him based on his subsequent supervision sessions.

From my reading, listening,

Best hopes

When I was contemplating the start of another round of a structured, evidence-based parenting programme (one which is well known in Australia), I wondered about how I

Solution News • volume 2 issue 4 • January 2007

Group Work with Parents might this time approach the group from a strengths-based perspective and use solution focused principles. One of the challenges would be to figure out how to integrate these with the delivery of the proscribed material and a structured programme delivery process. How might it be done?

I chose to try the two particular techniques - scaling, and the miracle question - that had caught my attention. Feedback from the parents during and after the sessions, indicated that both produced very pleasing results, and experiences that were different from previous occasions when I have facilitated this programme.

Scaling multiple points of view The programme introduces numerous parenting strategies and techniques. It is only too easy to have a group conversation around the value and usefulness of these become stuck in ‘either / or’ disputing. For example “That’s no use. That wouldn’t work for us” versus “That’s great! We tried that and it really worked for us”. Using scaling enabled a very spirited discussion in the group, in which parents’ responses to the numerous parenting strategies and techniques were all valued and linked to their particular circumstances and preferences.

My question to the group: “On a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 is ‘I would never use this strategy, we tried it and it doesn’t fit for our family’ and 10 is ‘This is great, we use it all the time, and it makes a big difference in our family’ where do you place these different strategies and techniques?”

Aided by the use of a whiteboard, the groupled discussion systematically discussed strategies, how individual families had used them, what happened, how parents felt about their efforts, where they would place them on the scale and why. The whiteboard allowed the group to create a visual picture of the techniques along the scale, enabling adjustments, and the placement of techniques more then once where they had worked differently for families. There

by Kylie Gregory were, of course, many times where the group agreed with each other. What I noticed about the times where group members felt differently was that the discussion was more about HOW the strategy did or didn’t work, and what they chose to do instead (rather than WHY it didn’t work or justification and defensive arguing). The group respectfully accepted differing points of view, adding more ideas to the list of possibilities along the scale, rather than reducing the list only to items with which they all could agree.

Miracle question — developing a possibility of a parenting future The miracle question was another particular moment in the group. I had been struck by a parent’s description during the initial meeting, where he had said “I have no picture of the father I want to be.” The possibility of asking the miracle question provided a means for enabling him to start to create something from this nothing.

However, I was slightly daunted by what I had heard from some about how the miracle question resulted in tricky responses, and the fact that it seemed important to ask it well. Together with a colleague I mapped out a script for asking the question in a group session. I also decided to allow myself to read what I had prepared based on what I had heard about how unobtrusively effective this had been when done by someone in a workshop of experienced practitioners.

While preparing, I had a sense of the importance of the language, the timing, the pauses, and the ‘finger click’ delivered with the words ‘just like that!’. Perhaps I was particularly alert to the sounds from my training as a musician? So, when we sat down in the group after the supper break, and I began with my written script, I was surprised at how melodic the script was, and the magic of the pace and rhythm. Here is what I read out: “I have a strange, perhaps unusual question, that may take some imagination. Let’s

Solution News • volume 2 issue 4 • January 2007

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Group work with parents

by Kylie Gregory

imagine that you make your way home after the group this evening. When you arrive home you do what you’d usually do.

You might speak with your partner, have something to eat, catch-up on some emails, watch some telly. Or whatever else you do before getting to bed. You might go to the bathroom, and then you go to bed, with the intention of sleeping — uninterrupted! And while you are asleep, a miracle happens.

And the miracle is that you have resolved whatever it was that brought you to this group and are becoming the parent that you hope to be. And this happens just like that (click fingers)! But, because you were asleep, you can’t know that this miracle has occurred. When you wake up in the morning… how will you discover that this miracle has happened? What might you be doing differently? What will your partner notice that is different? What might your children notice? What will you have absorbed in terms of parenting knowledge, information and experience into your own style?”

I was a bit taken aback when I had finished and someone said “Gosh, that is an unusual question, I think you had better ask it again!”

So I did, only this time I made the pace slower, and used fewer words. When I had finished the second time, people sat quietly and wrote, some looked into the distance and then started writing. And kept on writing!

An example of a miracle day description: “I am really happy when the girls wake up happy — there are no tears or whining so I am happy. Because I’m happy, there’s a flow on to other areas e.g. I am relaxed, more patient — I see things with greater clarity, such as good behaviour because I actually notice it — I can acknowledge the girls which in turn makes them proud, pleased, happy and eager towards working in repeating that behaviour, which means that the girls behaviour improves so I no longer need to yell so the girls remain happy and they flourish with all of my attention and they feel confident and secure and they play happily

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for longer periods of time alone so I can enjoy some ‘me’ time sufficient enough to feel rested and to look at other areas of my life ie. husband, friends, family etc… and life is good!” (with permission from Rosemary, mother of four-year-old twin girls).

After people had written their individual responses, we went on with the discussion in the group about the miracle days. I was interested in particular, how two parents in the group would manage this task. The dad I mentioned previously and a single mum of three-year-old twins. What I observed was a transformation in their faces, as they wrote and then as they discussed their miracle pictures. They, more than others referred back to the exercise or the process in subsequent sessions. The ideas stayed alive although we had spent only a relatively brief amount of time in the group discussing the various miracle pictures. One mum developed her miracle picture as a miracle flow chart of how the day might evolve given the new start to her miracle day. Similar themes of the discussion were that when the parent feels positive and hopeful, things generally flow in a better direction.

I had planned to continue with the following questions.

“On a scale of 0-10, where 10 is how things are the day after the miracle happens, and 0 is where things were at the beginning of the programme, where, between 0-10 are you at this point?

“What tells you that you are there and not at 0?

“Where do you hope to be?

“What will be different when you are there? What needs to happen to make it more likely you’ll get there? And stay there?”

However, I never got to actually DO this bit — there was so much writing of individual responses and then rich discussion in the group that our time was over while

Solution News • volume 2 issue 4 • January 2007

Group work with parents

by Kylie Gregory

I was still listening in astonishment and appreciation. I hope to use these questions with a future group.

Acknowledgements and References

The structured programme presents parents with ideas, information and strategies that from the research seem to be effective for many families. The miracle picture provided the group members with a method to find an individual and personal stance, from within which the various strategies or techniques then had a place and a context to emerge.

Miracle question adapted from Steve de Shazer, www.brieftherapy.org/steve_miracle.htm

Next steps and next hopes As a facilitator, I was touched by the willingness of people to engage in the process. I discussed what I had done and the parents’ responses with colleagues who also work with groups and are part of a strengths-perspective network I meet with.

Since then, two colleagues have also used the miracle question in groups. They too report wonderful stories, and experiences, for themselves and the participants. Both have agreed to document their experiences and to contribute these as more examples from solution focused practice (SFP) with groups.

My appreciation and thanks to the group of parents who worked hard to achieve their goals, gave generously of their thoughts and experiences and who allowed me to be a part of their lives for a short time. Particular thanks to Rosemary, a mother of twin four-year-old girls, for giving permission to quote her response to the miracle question.

Trying something new was made possible by the encouragement and skill of Svea van der Hoorn.

Working collaboratively, and discussing outcomes and next steps is such a pleasure.

I have heard from many practitioners that, despite training in group facilitation, they are hesitant to facilitate groups, mostly because they struggle to integrate the multiple points of view in useful and meaningful ways.

Scaling and the miracle question provided process resources which enabled myself and my colleagues to harness the groups diversity in a productive way and to develop a pattern of parenting options. My hope is that my contribution will encourage others to write up their experimentation with SFP in the context of working with groups. I look forward to trying out other possibilities.

Solution News • volume 2 issue 4 • January 2007

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ASSOCIATION NEWS A round-up of the work of the UKASFP sub-systems Beth Billington gives a brief to this process. Now that update on what the general Solution News has a team of committee have been up to three editors, we have also The UKASFP is starting to have an impact in government and on public awareness of SF and our task is now to build on this over the next 6 months. The association is looking healthy financially, although there has not been a continued rise in membership, as we would have hoped. We invite any ideas on how to boost membership — enter the competition in Solution News and you could win a book! The committee is currently looking into clarifying the processes of election to the committee and responsibilities of committee members, in preparation for the annual election in June. We are also hoping to reconvene the accreditation committee in light of the consultation on the development of National Occupational Standards for Psychological Therapies, so that they can help the association provide input

been looking at ways we can suport them in working together effectively even though they are dotted around the globe!

✎ Steve Freeman has this to say on preperations for the 2007 conference The 2007 UKASFP National Conference will be entitled ‘Next Steps in SFA’. Things are really coming together for the conference now. I had forgotten just how much work was involved and how quickly ‘volunteers’ find themselves unable to help out!

We now have hosted conversations covering a range of areas of Solution Focused practice including; health, social care, education, developing SFA communities of practice, various aspects of SFBT and organisational development, sales and influencing.

There are still spaces for people to share their ideas and experiences with an eager and generous group of delegates.

Just a reminder, hosted conversations are a lowtech way for hosts to discuss their experience of SFA. The approach debuted in April 2006. Delegates and hosts reported less stress, greater involvement from delegates and more sharing of ideas.

The ‘Big Talk’ panel in the afternoon now includes Julie Cotton, Rayya Ghul, Paul Z. Jackson and John Wheeler.

Each will offer their thoughts on the next steps in SFA and will then engage delegates in developing these ideas and how they might influence the Associations future work.

Accommodation is available for the Friday night and is proving popular with the majority of delegates.

Plans are afoot for the management of the AGM to make it as inclusive as possible.

REVIEWING BOOKS Let us know what you think of a book... Solution News has a number of books available for members to review. If you would like to review one of the books below, or another book, please contact books@solution-news.co.uk.

Books currently available: • Solution Focused Stress Counselling by Bill O’Connell • The Solution Focus by Mark McKergow and PAul Z. Jackson • Solution Focused Therapy by Alasdair MacDonald

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Solution News • volume 2 issue 4 • January 2007

UKASFP: Next Steps Steve Freeman reflects on developments in our association over the last two years Taking a Solution Focused wanting to take up the approach.

Approach (SFA) appeals to a lot For those wanting more than an of people because of its future introduction to solution focused focus. Occasionally, however, a working, there are now a nod to the resources invested in number of well-recognised the past is not a bad idea. Ian longer courses offered around (the editor of Solution News) the UK. In fact, the training in has asked me to consider what the solution focused approach has been happening with the is now being included as part of association and the UK solution professional training programmes focused community over the for nurses, social workers, past couple of years. These are clinical psychologists and a host my thoughts and recollections of other professional which may or groups. This may not may not agree all be new since Bill’s KASFP with yours. article, but there is “Many U are s t c e j o r p Please let me certainly far more of only y b e n know how well it, and it is a trend o d o w t r o my memories which has grown. one als u d i v i and experiences For example, in d in t h g u o match what you the past couple of who th e b t i ’t n remember! years more people d ‘woul ’” ? . . have managed great if.

Back in March 2005, to obtain an MA in the first issue of in SFBT from the Solution News, Bill University of Birmingham. 2006 O’Connell wrote a short piece saw twelve people graduate, called “UKASFP - the Story which is great strides from Paul so Far”, which described the Hanton graduating alone a few beginnings of the association. years ago.

A lot has happened in the two years since then. There have New books have arrived: SFA been arrivals and departures, books are now so common that more highs than lows, and we often have to pick which ones progress where there might have to buy, whereas only a few years been more but could have been ago new books were eagerly a lot less. Arrivals have been in awaited by the practitioners all shapes and sizes with people who were going to snap them joining the association, people up. Conferences are not a arriving at training events and new arrival but the increase in generally being enthused and quantity, quality and range is impressed by the approach. notable. The arrival of Solution The number of trainers (and a News took the world by storm trainers’ network) has hopefully [steady on! - Ed], readership is improved access for people avid and widespread, I suspect

Solution News • volume 2 issue 4 • January 2007

Steve is the current chair of the UKASFP. Originally trained in nursing, he has completed an MA course in Solution Focused Brief Therapy at the University of Birmingham, and works for North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare NHS Trust, as well as lecturing at Keele University. He can be contacted at chair@ukasfp.co.uk.

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UKASFP: Next Steps

by Steve Freeman

that Ian and Dave and Svea (newly arrived associate editors) would welcome ‘avid and widespread’ contributions, too! The UKASFP website and mailing lists have developed from the (now defunct) smartgroups account started by Andrew Duggan that served us well in the early days, and we now have our very own discussion lists, database of practioners, and a place to share resources online. There have been a few technical problems and a few human ones too along the way, but our web expert and committee member Barry White has handled all of these efficiently, quietly and modestly.

All of these things have contributed to what Carl Plant refers to as the ‘quiet revolution in SFA’. The development of communities of solution focused practitioners across the UK and across the world, formal and informal groups of people who meet both virtually and in person to discuss their use of, and passion for the SFA are the backbone of the UK community and of the association.

Departures have been fewer, profound and affected many people in some way. We cannot fail to mention the deaths of Steve de Shazar and Insoo Kim Berg. Regardless of any individual view of icons and hero worship we should acknowledge their contribution to the development of SFA and how much many members of the UKASFP will miss them. In a strange way I suspect that they will be missed most by those who did not get the chance to meet them.

Less dramatic but significant for the association in another way was the change in the committee at the 2006 conference in Preston. As our founding Chair and secretary Dominic Bray and Carole Waskett stepped down, a new committee was formed from existing and new members which has then spent six hard months forming a team and dealing with the day to day running of the national organisation.

I hope that the UKASFP general committee hasn’t seemed slow or inefficient, but if you’ve ever found us to be like that, please try counting to ten and be patient with us; ten is certainly the maximum number of

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people involved in organising any UKASFP activity you may have come across (and many are done by one or two who said “wouldn’t it be great if...?” and then made it happen all by themselves), and ten is also likely to be the number of other things most committee members are supposed to be doing at any time that they are attending actual or virtual meetings or keeping UKASFP projects on course. Colleagues from other fields as well as those involved in solution focused practice continue to be surprised when they discover that the UKASFP is run on goodwill by officers who do so mostly in their spare time.

A friend recently asked me how the UKASFP does so much with so little when her professional body does so little with so much? She went on to compare our annual conference, website and journal with the noticeable absence of the same in her profession’s association, despite the fact that the organisation she belongs to is not only much larger but demands an annual fee several times greater than the £10 levied by the UKASFP. That our association was constructed so that it could be steered by the membership for the membership (in line with the solution focused approach itself) perhaps has much to do with this.

It is often said that “you cannot not influence”.

When thinking about the past two years and some of the, as yet, unrealised ambitions for the UKASFP I have to recognise the influence which members and the group have had. The solution focused approach is not centre stage in the government’s planning of health, social care or education. There are still successful organisations who have not heard of the approach at all. There are people from all walks of life who do not know what ‘solution focused’ is because we have not had the widespread media impact that might have been hoped for. But that is not to say that awareness and influence of the solution focused approach is not growing in the UK. More and more people from more and more organisations are recognising the approach and finding that it influences the way in which they work. More and more individuals from

Solution News • volume 2 issue 4 • January 2007

UKASFP: Next Steps many walks of life have also been influenced by ‘solutioneers’ and their thinking.

The association has met many of the best hopes of the Friday 13th Group who met and Birmingham just over 4 years ago and the

by Steve Freeman pioneering folk who met formed an association in Lancaster shortly afterwards. The question now for us is “Where next and what else?”

Answers on an (e) postcard, please!

Following the success of previous sell out National Conferences, the UKASFP are pleased to announce:

The 4th National Conference & Annual General Meeting Next Steps in Solution Focused Approaches Friday 15th June 2007 AGM and informal get together.

Saturday 16th June 2007 Full day Conference.

Keele University, North Staffordshire. www.keele.ac.uk A.M.

Choice of hosted conversations, an informal discussion with leading practitioners from the UK exploring the creative use of solution focused approaches in a wide variety of settings.

P.M.

‘The Big Talk’ presentations and conversations with a panel of SFA leaders from the UK followed by the ‘Conference event of the Year!’

COST (Including lunch and refreshments): £40 TO UKASFP MEMBERS £50 TO NON MEMBERS

For details and registration please contact; Denise.Nixon@northstaffs.nhs.uk or chair@ukasfp.co.uk

Solution News • volume 2 issue 4 • January 2007

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BOOK REVIEW Meier, Daniel (2005) Team coaching with the Solution Circle: a practical guide to solution focused team development. Cheltenham: SolutionBooks. UK ISBN 0 954 9749 1 3. Reviewed by Svea Van Der Hoorn.

A strength of this resource is that it goes beyond techniques and skills and thereby opens a door to developing the discipline of thinking in a solution focused (SF) way. Daniel’s hopes are expressed in the introduction where he invites us ‘to learn about a simple yet effective way of developing a team sustainably and systematically — even in turbulent situations’ (p xi). ‘I wanted to find out how teams can succeed in moving in a desired direction toward their goals together.’ (pxiii). He goes about delivering on his hopes by providing nine chapters plus a playful postscript. The content ranges from four basic principles, through attitudes, to steps and tools. While the book focuses on being useful to teams in turbulent and complex situations, it also encourages readers to select bits and pieces to apply during the everyday, calm periods in the life of teams.

This book grew from Daniel’s work as a coach with teams and its origins in business rather than life coaching are evident. Many will be relieved to read that this book is not about creating warm fuzzies, but rather upholds a sound interplay between learning, enjoyment and performance in the workplace. Too often, an approach that appears to flow from therapy into the life of organizations is poorly received due to its over-focus on the people element without due consideration for productivity and bottom lines. What Daniel presents is likely to enthuse leaders and managers concerned with triple bottom lines, while also capturing the attention of those who value the single bottom line of financial success.

This book focuses squarely on change, and particularly on the processes by which webs of relationships and activities in teams change themselves. It bridges the problemsolution debate proposing that ‘A team is not a problem that needs to be analysed and solved but a potential to be unfolded’ (p5). It offers possibilities of how to intentionally and

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purposefully harness the change processes which are already ever present in teams and organizations.

Although Daniel claims to be ‘less interested in theoretical models than in concrete ideas that have been tried and tested in real life’, he calls what he presents in this book ‘my model’ (pxiii). Perhaps in the translation some confusion has arisen through the variable use of the words ‘model’, ‘perspective’, ‘method’, ‘approach’, ‘principles’. A pity, as Daniel presents both a coherent ecology of ideas and a cluster of pragmatic options for action. This book well demonstrates a both-and stance, rather than getting stuck in the theory versus method debate. Perhaps a future edition may wish to bring the language in line with this?

The style is conversational — this gives rise to a strength and brings with it a dilemma — to whom is this book addressed? Much of the book is written as if speaking directly to a manager, team leader or a team coach they are likely to feel welcomed and actively engaged. The dilemma is that others may feel excluded or that this book is not for them. I do hope that people will notice that Daniel intends this book to be read more widely, for example, by team members.

Examples are drawn from many contexts, for example, an IT department, a school for children with special needs, and a team in a tax office. The level of detail in the examples is very valuable. It offers those who are unfamiliar with working in an SF way a rich experience of how this approach looks and sounds; for those who are familiar, it provides filters for reflection on their SF thinking and practice.

There are enough catchy phrases (the hopscotch principle, hot topics, scaling dance) and metaphors (gourmet cooks, surfing the waves) to enable this book to find a home with as well as stand out from the crowd of books on teams and organizations. At the

Solution News • volume 2 issue 4 • January 2007

BOOK REVIEW same time, there is enough more neutral and measured language to please and reassure those who prefer a more reserved approach.

Those who are looking for specifics are likely to return often to the chapters ‘Setting up a workshop with the SolutionCircle’ and ‘A look in the toolbox’. These provide a detailed outline of a one-day event for twelve managers, and lists of verbatim questions and statements explicitly connected to the SolutionCircle conceptual map. Although a book premised on the principles of being brief can get away with offering only beginnings, this book goes that next step and offers ways to sustain change by transforming beginnings into patterns. The chapter ‘Keeping things going’ offers ideas and tools by which to integrate a SolutionCircle approach and the changes it invites into the day-to-day and on-the-job lives of teams. This attention to transferring what happens in workshops to what happens in the workplace is likely to be welcomed with relief by those who feel that too often change initiatives spend too much time, energy and effort away from the context and outcomes that matter — the

workplace and performance targets and indicators.

For those who cannot bear the idea of reading yet another book on teams and change, go straight to the appendix where you will find an overview of the eight steps in the SolutionCircle presented as a series of sketched pictograms each with a goal, brief procedures and some helpful questions.

Have a go at experimenting with these and perhaps you’ll find yourself paging backwards to get some more from this book!

I suspect that Team Coaching with the SolutionCircle will become one of those unusual book purchases — a resource that gets returned to again and again. In terms of value for money, be reassured - it has a strong spine so will withstand being opened repeatedly, folded back to be read on trains, buses and planes, and a water and stain proof jacket resilient enough to endure doubling as a coaster for coffee cups, and perhaps even splashes when read in the bath!

Happy reading and experimenting.

USEFUL WEB-LINKS Download past (and present, and future) issues of Solution News (and coming soon, podcast versions) at www.solution-news.co.uk UKASFP web-site and national email discussion group is at www.ukasfp.co.uk European Brief Therapy Association web site is at www.ebta.nu The SFT-L international discussion list is at http://www.lsoft.com/scripts/wl.exe?SL1=SFT-L&H=LISTSERV.ICORS.ORG SOLUTIONS-L is an international discussion list for those using a solution focused approach with organisations. It’s at: http://www.solworld.org/index.cfm?id=5 The Brief Family Therapy Center (Milwaukee, US) website is at www.brief-therapy.org

Solution News • volume 2 issue 4 • January 2007

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Insoo Kim Berg 25th July 1935 10th January 2007

“Without her this book would not have been possible. In fact without her the approach to therapy described in my books would not have been possible” DeShazer 1994 pg ix

It is with great sadness that the UKASFP learned of the passing of Insoo Kim Berg on Monday 10th January, 2007. We would like to express our sympathy to Sarah Berg and Insoo’s family and colleagues around the world.

If one person can be said to be the spark behind the SFBT movement it was Insoo, and she will be sorely missed. Her ‘intuitive’ way of interviewing whilst working with therapists such as Watzlawick, Weakland and Haley encompassed the ideas that became Solution Focused Practice. Respect for the person, co-operation with their wishes and goals, a focus on strengths and individuals’ resources, and a humour and warmth that went beyond technique were all natural to her. This was simply how she ‘did therapy’. Steve (de Shazer) was always at pains to highlight Insoo’s contribution and he stated on many occasions that all he had done was to watch how she interviewed and then write it down. She also wrote; clear, insightful pieces which were always based on clinical examples. Her video tapes show a warm and humorous interviewer, but if you were lucky enough to see her work in person with only a screen (or a few audience members’ heads at conferences) separating you from her work, then you would have had the chance to see so much more warmth and compassion that couldn’t be seen on her tapes.

There was no one better than Insoo at building a therapeutic relationship and breaking down barriers of class, race and power, even with those who had been sent to see her against their will. In this she was a magician. That said her work wasn’t all supportive and warm; where risk was concerned she could be tenacious and incisive in pursuit of goals of safety and responsibility for one’s actions. She could also be tough with clients who were vague about their own part in drug use or violence. Central to her approach was the question “what are you going to do about this?” (not think about or reflect on but DO) and questions such as “supposing your wife believes you… that you are working and not with other women, how will this be helpful to you?” were met initially with looks of disbelief but then accepted by even the most argumentative and defensive of clients. It is not by accident that this petite bespectacled lady worked so successfully with mandated forensic ‘high risk’ clients with histories of violence, drug use, and criminality.

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Solution News • volume 2 issue 4 • January 2007

There was a hint of the impish about Insoo, potent impishness! I recall at the Brief Family Therapy Centre watching in an observation room through the screen as Steve performed a typically barnstorming interview with someone who was seeing and hearing things that weren’t there. A rare and valuable master-class performance was given. However, when Steve came back to the team at the end of the session, Insoo had to inform him that the tape had not been switched on, and so the session had not been recorded. This caused a good deal of mild blasphemy from Steve and a flinging of the tape into the bin. Insoo’s response was to calmly, clearly and tunefully interjected ‘get your hair cut’. DeShazer obediently left and returned later that afternoon relaxed and philosophical with a short and handsome hair style. Hypnotic suggestion? Do something different injunction? Distraction device? Strategic intervention? I’m really not sure, but whatever she did certainly had an effect!

Given her dynamism it seems fitting that Sarah Berg tells us Insoo passed away peacefully after a session in the gym. It also seems fitting that, just like so many times before, she joins Steve after a short break during which she held sessions all over the globe teaching people to do therapy well and enabling others to change their lives. They always met up after conferences and workshops in different places, so perhaps this can be seen as another meeting after another short separation.

We will miss you Insoo. Perhaps it is those troubled clients who might have been seen by you who lose out the most. And yet, perhaps not? You made enough of a difference to enough people to make it very likely that your contribution will live on in the lives and work of many all around the globe. Thank you.

Dave Hawkes January 2007.

There is a page of remembrance for Insoo on http://www.solutionscentre.org for those who wish to contribute or read messages of sympathy. There is also a planned memorial service in Amsterdam on Sunday May 20 2007 between 2-6 pm details will follow on http:// www.solutions-centre.org BRIEF in London are also holding a day to remember and celebrate Steve and Insoo’s work on 4 April 2007. For more information and to book a place (places are free but limited because of space) click the link here or call BRIEF (+44 (0)20 7600 3366) for more information.

Solution News invites you to send a short quote from Insoo’s body of work (audiotapes, videotapes, workshops, writings) and tell us briefly what difference it makes for you in your life and/or your work, for inclusion in an article fotr our next issue. Please try to send only a few lines as we would like to include all contributions received. Mail your contributions to difference@solution-news.co.uk.

Solution News • volume 2 issue 4 • January 2007

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CORRESPONDENCE We welcome your views and comments on any article in Solution News, the UKASFP, or on any other solution focused topic. Send your correspondence to letters@solution-news.co.uk, indicating clearly whether you intend your correspondence for print or solely for consumption by the Solution News team.

Dear Editor

could be my mis-understanding? Or flawed assumptions?

Greetings from Malaysia.

I am new to Solution Focus, and find SF useful and powerful from what I read.

As I come from traditional problem-solving regime, I have difficulties to switch to Solution Focused.

For that I appreciate very much you or your associates can give me some pointers to my expressed views on SF as per http:// www.360q.com/NLP/SF&NLP.htm what

Regards Andrew Wong

If you’d like to respond to Andrew’s questions and discuss SF working with him, please email us and we’ll forward your correspondence to him.

Get more solution news!

Solution News Radio is a new internet broadcast from the creators of Solution News.

Our ten-minute shows feature interviews, discussion, coverage of live events and spoken-word versions of articles.

Subscribe now FOR FREE through itunes (if you don’t have itunes already you can get it for free at www.apple.com/itunes/download) just click podcasts>podcast directory and search using the phrase ‘Solution News Radio’.

OR you can download individual episodes at www.solution-news.co.uk

Happy listening!

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Solution News • volume 2 issue 4 • January 2007

Peer reviewed article

Self-administered Solution Focus A solution-focused approach to helping myself prevent and cope with post-natal depression. Written by Shelley Lewin.

Assisted by Belinda Druker and Svea Van Der Hoorn I am currently training to become a coach. The following is a reflection on my personal experience. It draws primarily on the solution focused ideas and writing of Steve de Shazer, Insoo Kim Berg and Harry Korman. These have been introduced to me through a number of Solution Focused Brief Therapy workshops, as well as an Solution Focused Therapy (SFT) training and supervision group that I belong to.

I recently experienced a life change which alerted me to how I might use what I was learning as a professional to help me cope in my personal life. This is a description of how I applied and experimented with using SFT ideas and skills as a means of self-help. I am making this public to encourage others to take action when life presents challenges, and also to offer hope that applying SFT can provide valuable self-help.

I have had a baby recently and he was nearly three months old when I put myself through the process. Since most new mothers can relate to the mind-boggling, life-changing, emotional rollercoaster one experiences, and because this is SFT, I won’t delve into the problem too much, other than to say I was on the edge of falling into the deep black hole called ‘post-natal depression’.

To start with I used the SFT approach of defining an outcome, or ‘common project’ (based on the ideas of Harry Korman). I asked myself “How will I know when things are better?” Answer: “Well, for starters I won’t be crying so much. I will feel more capable and less ‘all over the place’. I will feel more like my old self, i.e. sane”. So, once I knew where I was headed, I asked myself an ‘exception finding’ question: “When do I feel less depressed and/or desperate?”

I came up with a number of answers, namely when: 1. I have had some sleep 2. I feel supported by my husband 3. The baby is content and I feel like I’m doing something right (feeling capable) 4. I am not physically exhausted 5. A childminder allows me some freedom 6. The baby does not wake up every hour

Among many things, Shelley Lewin is a life coach in training and more recently, a mother. She has travelled extensively and says adjusting to motherhood has been her greatest adventure so far.

This article was written in response to a query about her attempts to coach herself through postnatal depression.

Please forward any enquiries to shelley @newlifecoach.net.

I noticed that my list included both descriptions of when something other than feeling depressed was present (1, 2, 3, 5) and descriptions which were about the absence of things (4, 6). In retrospect, it could have been useful to go on to ask myself a follow-up question

Solution News • volume 2 issue 4 • January 2007

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Self-administered SF

by Shelley Lewin

of the “What is happening instead?” type or the “What difference does that make?” type.

For example, “When I am not physically exhausted, what am I instead?” and “When the baby does not wake up every hour, what difference does that make for ME?” After thinking through these exceptions, I decided to track which things I could do something about (behaviourally) and what was working for me, so that I could come up with some strategies to do more of the same. The strategies or ‘next steps’ that emerged were:

Of course there were a few things on my list of exceptions that I could not change behaviourally. For these items I decided to focus on making the changes internally. A change of attitude and thought processes would probably be more difficult than I expected, but on a scale of zero to ten, I was at ten for motivation and commitment. I decided on the following strategies for my thoughts: 1. Normalising: if I look rationally and compassionately at my problem I see that these are fears that are typical of and normal for first time parents.

1. Prioritise: sleep came up as the number one priority. I can help myself by asking 2. Acceptance: “What you resist, persists”, for support and hand my baby over to so I need to accept where I am right now willing family / friends so that I can have and acknowledge that this is temporary. a break / sleep as often as possible. In This will lessen feelings of despondency reaching out to people for their support and resentment.

I am exposing my vulnerability and 3. Reframing: seeing the time humanity in this tough I spend with my son in the d time. Reaching out also e t r a t s night differently will also help.

“Things provides others with n r u t a Instead of resentment, reframe e to tak opportunities to bond with r e t t e it. I am blessed to have a b for the my son. There is also the d e s i l thriving, happy baby and I a e after I r possibility of him sleeping t h appreciate our special night ig that I m out once a week at granny h g time bonding sessions. u o thr which needs to be explored. just get

nd ll this a

a 2. Speak up: I can e e out th m o c Things started to take a turn communicate to my husband r side in e h t after I realised I might just o about how desperate I feel, ” e c e i p e get through all this and come on and what is making me feel out the other side in one alone in this, and ask for his piece. There were times I really support. Perhaps he can have doubted this and needed to remind myself ‘night duty’ one or two nights a week.

The open communication and sharing with of my strengths & resources in order to keep moving forward towards being my old self. my husband improves our relationship Some of what helped me prevent things and the ‘team / partnership’ we have, slipping down the scale and also to move knowing that we can rely on each other forward were: when we need to.

3. Patience: by reframing crying as my son’s way of communicating, it is up to me to learn what his message is. I need to keep trying different things and if one strategy is unsuccessful, try another.

When I start to understand the language of crying — at which I am a novice — better, it will make me feel more capable.

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1. I have shown real commitment to resolving the problem.

2. Observation of my thoughts and then taking the steps to reframe them has a profound effect on how I feel about myself.

3. Being resourceful has improved the bond with my son and created a positive experience from something that could be ‘perceived’ as bad.

Solution News • volume 2 issue 4 • January 2007

Self-administered SF 4. Having faith/believing in myself and realising that I can achieve anything if I put my mind to has made me feel empowered.

5. This attitude has given me a sense of confidence in dealing with my situation.

6. Being compassionate toward myself plays a big role. When I do have a bad day I remind myself, gently, “I’m human, it’s okay to fall off the wagon occasionally” or I think to myself, “Be tolerant of the relapses!”

7. My personal spiritual beliefs are that everything is exactly as it is meant to be, so therefore there is learning in this for me. There is a reason I was chosen to have a difficult birth and baby. Before this child I had many preconceived ideas about post-natal depression. I believed it happened to people that did not really want a baby. Since I was more than thrilled to be pregnant, I thought I was exempt. So, in alignment with my beliefs, I was put to the test. The universe decided to show me how wrong I was. Along with many preconceived ideas about how I was giving birth (e.g. it was supposed to be natural, but I ended up having an emergency Caesarean section); breast feeding (I had planned to do this for at least the first six months, but circumstances compelled us to try formula after just three weeks), and parenting style (I had been certain that my baby would not run the home and our lives — I have learnt that when my child is miserable, I will do what I have to, to survive, even if this means planning our lives around him and his routine).

All my pre-birth ideas of life with a baby were shattered, because I thought I had it all worked out. I had read a hundred books, prepared financially, mentally and physically for the stress it would put on both my body and my mind, only to find that nothing can prepare one for this experience. The more I thought I knew, the more humbling the experience — until

by Shelley Lewin I finally acknowledged how ignorant I was.

What an excellent reminder of the value of SFT’s ’not-knowing’ stance!

One good thing about being at rock bottom is that you can only go up. My supervisor’s comment pointed me in this direction. When I started to engage in my problem story, she interrupted with “yet you managed to pull yourself out, even though you felt like you were sliding down this black hole. That’s quite an achievement”. What a compliment!

Thank you.

In conclusion, it has been a blessing to be able to use the SFT tools to help myself. I do not like to think about how different my life might be without having done so much internal processing about my situation. Being both coach and client has its drawbacks, however. Once I am qualified and practising I might expect a little too much from clients experiencing a similar situation. I could reframe this and say that I have strong faith in this model of counselling and coaching. Having pulled myself off the edge of my own black hole, and instead used the ideas and techniques of SFT to help myself, I now feel more confident in my ability to support my clients in ways that are productive and hope-creating.

NEXT ISSUE: ...could feature YOU! Send your articles, letters or other solution focused writing to us at editor@solution-news.co.uk. Or, send us questions if you’d like to see those gorgeous gnus back next issue to answer more of your queries. Our guidelines for authors and book reviewers are available on the Solution News website, so what are you waiting for? Get writing, your ejournal needs you, and the world needs to know about your solution focused thoughts and experiences!

Solution News • volume 2 issue 4 • January 2007

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MEMBER NEWS This section is for members to let people know about what they’ve been up to or is happening for them, and for requests for help. If you have an announcement, please post it to: news@solution-news.co.uk.

Announcements this issue: BTNE wanted to give advance notice of a two-day workshop

by Yvonne Dolan that they will be hosting in Newcastleupon-Tyne, UK, on 24th & 25th September 2007.

Yvonne will be drawing on her extensive experience in helping people live beyond experiences of trauma such as childhood sexual abuse.

There is currently a lot of concern amongst a range of professionals over how to help people who could be diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder: people abused in childhood in various ways, and adults exposed to traumatic experiences either through their work (emergency services, the military etc.) or through other circumstances. Yvonne will share ideas and practical tools she has developed over the years in her work with people in such situations, drawing on Solution Focused Brief Therapy and the work of Milton Erikson. Contact John Wheeler at John@Jwheeler. freeserve.co.uk for further information.

for us in Plymouth 14th March, 1:00-5:00pm. The presentation is entitled “Working in Adult Mental Health in practice and the bigger UK context”. The venue is on the waterfront, and parking is free and easy. Further information is available from Naom (Naomi.

Treeby@pcs-tr.swest.nhs.uk)”

✎ Member Lorraine Debnam went all the way to Rwanda to do some solution focused work! Here’s her brief account: “In June this year my partner and I set of to do voluntary work for an organisation called Streets Ahead Children’s Association

in Kayonza in Rwanda for 3 weeks. SACCA runs 3 homes for boys and girls who are living on the street in the local towns. Many have been directly affected by the Genocide, (no-one in Rwanda hasn’t been affected in some way), others were born since the genocide and are less directly affected by the 100 days of madness 12 years ago, but by the breakdown of the structure of Rwanda.

Many are cruelly treated, beaten, tortured by adults, abandoned or abused by their remaining family.

My plan had been to use my SF skills and my experience as a SFT worker in UK children’s health services to work with some problems the English directors of SACCA had identified. As usual I was

✎ Member Roger Meeson sent us this scoop: “We have persuaded Dr Alasdair Macdonald to present

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Some of the ‘boys’ at Streets Ahead

Solution News • volume 2 issue 4 • January 2007

expected to bring my magic wand and fairy dress to work the usual expected miracle!

So initially I did what the client (SACCA) wanted and worked with their ‘Best hopes’. I started by using an interpreter and saw 5 young men (15 -21). I thought that as SF language can be incredibly simple as well as powerful, the difference would be overcome.

to inspire me. Poverty, deprivation, wonderful people and a real desire to bring something useful to people hungry for input.

not as easy as it is in UK.

Both Duane, my partner and I will go back to Rwanda and to SACCA, and next time I will take a flip chart!”

So I put together a two-day course for 16 adults who work for SACCA. The venue was the front room/kitchen in our accommodation. My presentation media was drawing lots of pictures, scales, key phrases and ideas Then some curious things on faded sugar paper on the began to dawn on me. floor, my areas to practice Although the one-to-one work relaxation and work in small I had been involved in with groups to practice the miracle the ‘boys’ (as they are called) question was outside in the was perhaps useful to them, it dusty back yard sitting on was also being woven by the blankets and rickety chairs.

Rwandan culture, especially Any language problems the need for the Rwandan’s were overcome by having to be ‘good boys or girls’ breaks for the Rwandans who and to seek approval at any had reasonable English the cost, to be seen by this white opportunity to both translate European as ‘being good’ any queries and collectively and to gain their approval. clarify with me any questions In Rwanda being white that arose.

British, ‘Muzungoo’, was a I have never had such eager, real minority (4 in Kayonza). questioning, energetic and Being grey haired too meant I demanding delegates before. must be treated with utmost It was totally interactive respect, compliance, and and every delegate left with honour. I was fast becoming something more than they the great white European started with. expert!! Not a comfortable I can’t be there to support position. them in continuing with the Working through an interpreter enthusiam and the conviction is not easy — language is not directly translatable — words to make changes that they left do not have the same meaning with, but nor can I for every other client or delegate I when you put them next have dworked with or trained, to other words, add to that cultural difference that I don’t whatever country they are in.

So I will put my faith in the understand because I’m not process of SF practice. the same culture and SF was What could I do that would help me get back on track?

I had plenty of things

Solution News • volume 2 issue 4 • January 2007

✎ Dave Hawkes wanted to tell us about exciting developments in East Anglia: “Angklia Ruskin Universit has been providing a degree level module on Solution Focused Therapy Practice since 2001.

The module has been attended by health professionals from social work, child protection and child and adolescent mental health teams, social workers, psychologists, therapists and mental health nurses of all kinds. There is a teaching team of five whose backgrounds are in working with sfbt with voice hearing, learning disabilities, child and adolescent social work and eating disorders and the module is accompanied by a “clinical outreach “ project where the university supervises staff from local health care trusts and voluntary organisations supporting them in delivery of SFT with people throughout Essex and Cambridge. The University is in the process of validating a masters module in SFT and also delivers an open three day workshop once a year without any academic requirement. The university also holds a conference on SFT and it’s application to different health care settings. The next is in April 2007. If you would like any further information on the above, check out the university web site or contact dave@solution-news.co.uk.”

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