Recently I was asked by a course participant what do you do if someone with whom you are working has no positive language with which to describe themselves, if all that they have are negative and self-critical terms. Would you in those circumstances offer positive language. The question is an interesting one.
Perhaps where we should start is a little clarification. If the service-user has negative language with which to describe themselves then they must have access to positive language even if they are not choosing to apply it to themselves. The concept ‘weak’ means nothing in itself except in relation to the concept ‘strong’. So to describe yourself as ‘weak’ you must have a working knowledge of what ‘strong’ means. To describe yourself as ‘shy’ somewhere you must appreciate the idea perhaps of ‘socially confident’ or ‘outgoing’ or ‘gregarious’. So the issue is not a lack of positive language but a habitual failure to see oneself in those terms.
If this makes any sense then the question is how we can work with people who have failed to apply such positive terminology to themselves. As is well-established Solution Focused practitioners do not ‘praise’. Instead we typically ask questions which invite people to self-compliment and the context of those questions is usually a success that has emerged in the conversation. The service-use might say ‘yesterday I did get up for a few hours in the morning although that was pretty well the only time that I have this week’. If we then ask’ goodness getting up yesterday morning can’t have been easy’ and the service-user says ‘no it wasn’t - I really really didn’t feel that I could face it’ we can then ask ‘how on earth did you manage to do that given that you didn’t feel that you could face it’ and then ‘what did it take to get yourself up on a day when you really really didn’t feel that you could face it?’. The client might brush the question aside with ‘well I had to get up, since I had a doctor’s appointment and if I didn’t go I wouldn’t have got my medication’.
The practitioner’s first response would be to gently, politely, kindly and respectfully to persist ‘sure I understand that – you sort of felt that you had to – and yet how did you do it – what did it take to get yourself up and get yourself out?’. Most people will answer however if the service-user does not we might ask ‘tell me about the version of you that can . . . . even on a day that you really really don’t feel that you can do it’. Many people will answer however if the service-user does not we might ask ‘what would you think about someone else who managed to do that even though . . . ?’. And most people will answer however if the service-user happened not to answer then we might ask ‘so who knows you best in a good way/’, and if we had that person here and we described what you had managed to do even though it was really really difficult what would they think that it had taken for you to achieve this?’.
Deploying this range of questions is almost certain to elicit some positive, possibility self-description. Only if it didn’t, and is truly very very unlikely, might the worker offer ‘some people might think that it would take strength =to get yourself up and out on a day when you really really did not feel that you could face it, others might say determination or will-power – which of those makes most sense to you?’.
Our preference really is to ask questions in such a way that people tell themselves, rather than us telling people. It just seems to work better. However what we must avoid is becoming persuasive, trying to get the client to say something. We truly must ask each question informed by the idea that every answer that the client gives us is the right answer and we are merely asking another question that takes account of the client’s last answer!
Evan George
London
18th January 2026
