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Visser, C.F. & Schlundt Bodien, G. (2009). Supporting Clients’ Solution Building Process by Subtly Eliciting Positive Behaviour Descriptions and Expectations of Beneficial Change. InterAction I (2), 9-25 SF co-developer Steve de Shazer wrote, in his classic publications Keys to Solution in Brief Therapy (1985) and Clues: Investigating Solutions in Brief Therapy (1988), that SF practitioners should help their clients create an expectation of beneficial change by getting a description of what they would do differently once the problem was solved. Also, he claimed subtle and implicit interventions by the SF practitioner would work best. At the time, de Shazer did not support these claims with empirical evidence. This article provides evidence for each of the assertions made by de Shazer. Only part of the evidence presented here was already available at the time of de Shazer’s writing. Evidence is discussed from diverse lines of research like Rosenthal’s Pygmalion studies, Dweck’s ...

© 2008, Coert Visser Effective use of language can be surprisingly powerful. Not only can effective language help to improve cooperation with other people, it also can help you develop a more productive outlook on life. The purpose of this article is to help you make your language more constructive and effective. Many of the suggestions in this article are based on recent findings in psychological research and on techniques which have been developed by solution-focused practitioners and researchers. 1. Improve your questions Asking questions is an important characteristic of the solution-focused approach. Rather than telling clients how to think and what to do, a solution-focused therapist, coach or consultant asks questions which help the client develop goals and find solutions. Examples of useful questions are scaling questions (de Shazer, 1986), desired situation questions , exception seeking questions (Molnar & De Shazer, 1987), what’s better’ questions (de Shazer, 1986) an...

© 2008, Coert Visser 1. Advocates and skeptics of complimenting Complimenting is attractive for many people. Most people prefer to and view it as more constructive to say something positive than to say something negative. After all, who does not want to be appreciated for what he does? Although everybody makes mistakes now and then, most people mean well, don't they? This way of reasoning is surely plausible which may explain why I frequently hear people saying that is good and important to compliment frequently. They claim that this is the best way to motivate people. It is correct that complimenting can be useful. An adequate compliment provides us with the type of feedback that can help us become aware of which of our behaviors are effective. Furthermore, a compliment can make you realize that there is someone who is paying attention to you and who feels involved with what you do. This is why complimenting effectively can be useful in different contexts like parenting, education...

The Origin of the Solution-Focused Approach Coert F. Visser Abstract:  The solution-focused approach to therapy and coaching has its roots in the work done by therapists in the second half of the twentieth century. This article discusses some important precursors, such as Milton Erickson and the Mental Research Institute. Further, it shows how the members of the Brief Family Therapy Center, led by Insoo Kim Berg and Steve de Shazer, developed the core of the solution-focused approach in the 1980s. Key concepts and publications are discussed and a description is given of how the team members worked together closely to find out what works in therapy. Keywords solution-focused, BFTC, solution-focused history, de Shazer, Berg Download full text (pdf)

A results-oriented and appreciative way of making progress © 2007, Coert Visser and Gwenda Schlundt Bodien The solution-focused approach Just before the turn of the millennium, a relatively new approach to psychotherapy began to raise curiosity among some organizational consultants, coaches, and trainers. Articles and books claimed this approach to be quite different from other approaches. They claimed it was simple, positive, and amazingly effective. Around that time, several groups of people in different parts of the world started using the approach in organizational settings. Now, roughly ten years later, these pioneers have made considerable progress. They discovered the solution-focused model is also very useful outside the field of therapy. Coaches, trainers, consultants, and managers have started to apply the approach, or parts of it. This has helped them to be more effective in achieving their goals. Moreover, often, at the same time, it has made their work more enjoyable. Belo...

© 2006, Coert Visser and Insoo Kim Berg This article presents some thoughts about the not-knowing posture. Is it easy? Is it valuable? Is it ethical to charge money for your services while assuming a not-knowing posture? Does the not-knowing posture mean you have to completely discard expertise? Many who are new to the Solution-Focused practice principles seem to get confused by the concept taking a “not-knowing” posture when facing their clients. The not-knowing posture (Anderson and Goolishian, 1992) means that as practitioners we work from the assumption that each case is different. Therefore we do not know exactly what the situation of the client is and what he should think or do. This is why in order to arrive at a more satisfying outcome, solution-focused practitioners ask lots of what seem like strange questions that activate their minds. We did not realize for a long time that the “not-knowing posture” was creating some confusion among the newly learning therapists, coaches, co...

© 2005, Arnoud Huibers and Coert Visser The solution-focused approach has brought forward a simple technique which can help to make meetings about organizational change stimulating and effective. Organizational change Organizations, departments, and people in organizations work are practically permanently going through large and small changes. Those changes can encompass structural aspects like a change in the business process, merging departments, implementing systems, or changes in the management structure. They can also be about cultural changes like improving customer satisfaction, improving co-operation, raising productivity, and so forth. Talking about progress In large-scale change projects, it is very important to keep communicating about the goals of and the progress in the change process. Our observation is that meetings about organizational change often focus on two topics: 1) what goes wrong? and 2) What will we do about that? When people focus attention on these two questi...

© 2005, Coert Visser Change processes can sometimes stagnate and old problems can turn up again. Often this leads to disappointwiment and pessimism. But in many cases the change process can be revitalized by very simple means. The five tips mentioned in this article have time and again proven their usefulness. A department was trying to implement a culture change in which more discipline and sticking better to agreements were important goals. The change process had started and had at first led to promising results. After about one and a half year, it became obvious that the change process was no longer proceeding well. Several old problems reappeared and there were no clear signs of progress. With long lasting change processes in organizations managers sometimes worry about the possibility that at a certain moment stagnation or a set-back might happen. After a promising start the change process can lose its momentum. The energy disappears, the progress in the direction of the goal seem...