Focusing on Solutions

I spent last week in Belize doing crisis counseling with high school students. I spent 2.5 days in the classroom teaching about strengths and healthy relationships, and the remainder of the week was spent in individual counseling with students. I was privileged to walk with these teens through some very challenging situations and deep hurts. 

We focused our counseling efforts on Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT). This is a culturally humble approach that honors that each person has resources within themselves to help improve their situation or live healthier lives. The counselor's job is to create a space where the client can identify and focus on their strengths. And it's an effective and liberating approach, especially when we only got to see each teen once. 

There are elements of SFBT that you can apply to your daily life! Here are a few questions you can ask yourself:

• Are there times when the problem is less of a problem? What is different about those times?
• When do things feel just a little bit better or a little less bad? What are you doing that helps things feel better?
• How have you managed to cope with your daily life despite your problem? What is it about you that let you get this far?

SFBT isn't about minimizing the difficulties of your problems, and it's not about sugarcoating the hard realities you're struggling with. It's about honoring the deep resourcefulness within yourself. Because your problems are big, and so are your strengths.