Despite falling in love with the Solution Focused approach in 1987 and remaining in love ever since, during every introductory training that I deliver I try to remember to say ‘Solution Focus is not the best approach, it is just one of the approaches that works well’. Indeed I typically add that the only thing that really matters is whether clients get fantastic outcomes and any way of working that achieves fantastic outcomes for clients has to be good - (well more or less). What is important in my view is that practitioners find an approach that inspires them, an approach that they can believe in, indeed an approach that they love, that leaves them enthusiastic about their work, since when they do clients will tend to get the best outcomes. And for some people this will turn out to be Solution Focus and for some it will not – no one approach can ever be right for every practitioner. Years ago when delivering a face-to-face 4-day introduction I remember one participant, early on day 3, putting up her hand and saying to me ‘Evan I don’t know how you can bear to do this stuff’. No-one had ever said this to me before and I was somewhat flabbergasted and wondering how to respond when she helped me out – ‘because problems Evan they are so interesting – how can you bear not to focus on problems?’. And she was right – in order to use the approach you have to let go of a fascination with problems and what causes them and be massively more interested in the unique and extraordinary ways that people find of moving their lives forward. So if we can accept that there are many effective ways of working with people and that Solution Focus is just one of those ways then the USP‘s of these various approaches become significant. So what might be the unique selling points of the Solution Focused approach?
1. Effective. There is plenty of evidence now that the Solution Focused approach works. If any of us were to fall in love with an approach for which there is no evidence of effectiveness then it would be better to get over it and look around for another.
2. No exclusion criteria. I have always loved the fact that the evidence does not allow us to know when we should we the approach and when we should not. This means that we can legitimately see anyone referred to us with no prior assessment for suitability and get on with the work from the very first minute ad we can start every piece of work equally hopeful for a good outcome.
3. Brevity. Solution Focus does not waste clients’ time. Despite offering open-ended input, the client decides when it is time to finish; people typically attend 3 to 4 times and often fewer sessions can make a difference, sometimes just one.
4. Building engagement. Even when people attend ‘arm-twisted’ ‘unless you change you will be excluded’, the approach has a great track-record for building engagement. This means that Solution Focused practitioners are more than happy to see mandated clients.
5. Fun. Even when we are addressing tough things in people’s lives there is typically a lot of smiling and a lot of enjoyment and some laughter. And we know that people are more flexible and open when there are smiles on their faces.
6. Protective of the worker. There is a nice paper by Medina and Beyebach which confirms our instinctive sense that adopting the Solution Focused approach protect workers against burnout.
7. But above all for me the most important feature of the approach is the way that clients are ‘treated’. Insoo Kim Berg wrote n Family Based Services ‘It is assumed that the client is competent to know what is good for her and her family. It is further assumed that the client has the ability to solve problems and has solved problems in the past’ (Berg, 1994, p61). It is this assumption of client competence, the framing of the client as the expert in their own life, that for many may well be the most attractive feature. It certainly is for me!
It is perhaps ironic that I have used this concept of unique selling point in relation to Solution Focus practice given that I always try to say that I am not attempting to persuade anyone that they should use this particular way of working. It is, I always emphasise, merely my task, when I am training, to introduce the approach clearly enough for people to be able to make their own good decisions about what part the approach may (or may not) play in their future practice. No selling, no persuading, just trying to describe the approach in a way that does it justice – quite a pressure each and every time.
Berg, Insoo Kim (1994) Family Based Services: a solution-focused approach. New York: Norton.
Evan George
London
05th October 2025
