Goals in Solution-Focused Therapy

(Based partly on De Shazer, 1991, Putting Difference to Work)

Workable Goals in brief therapy will usually have the following qualities:

1. Important to the client, and seen by them as involving their hard work.
2. Small rather than large.
3. Described in specific, concrete, behavioural terms who will be doing what, where, when, how.
4. Described as the start of something and not as the end of something: what the first steps will be, not the end point.
5. Framed in positive terms: The presence of new behaviours rather than the absence or cessation of existing behaviours: What the client will do, not what they won't.
6. Achievable within the practical constraints of clients' lives.
7. Interactional - who is going to notice the changes and how? What will the changes mean to friends, colleagues, family?

"Establishing realistic and concrete goals is not an easy task, yet experience shows that the more we can help a client clarify his or her 'problem-free' future the more likely it is to happen."

Chris Iveson, Solution Focused Brief Therapy, article in Counselling at Work, Summer 1994.

Goals can help you in your work perhaps alongside the use of scales, to help you and your client to identify progress, and to notice when you finish! Solutions can often be DIFFERENT to goals. They often show up as original and unexpected ideas and actions from your client, or from others around them. Clarity about goals and purpose can help you and clients a great deal and you need to have your ears wide open for the unique, new things they will bring to your meetings.

©Rob Cumming 2003. http://www.gethelp.co.uk
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