Brief Solution Focused Therapy

Brief Solution Focused Therapy

Why you cannot afford to miss this seminar:

- Learn how complex multiple problems don't need lengthy complex solutions - Effect change in behaviour, thoughts and feelings 1-4 contacts...even with very "stuck" clients - Evidence based - Video demonstrations of techniques - 24 photocopiable worksheets of techniques to use with your clients immediately you get back to work - Techniques to prevent client dependency - Identify your most challenging clients' undiscovered personal strengths and resources - Discover how to be optimistic and motivated with your most difficult clients - Learn how to be brief when you were trained to be deep and spot complex causes and needs - Invaluable in a range of health care and social services environments across the age span

Who should attend:

All helping professionals who want to develop new ways of working effectively with clients within time constraints. Counsellors, Psychotherapists, Psychologists,G.P.s, Nurses, Health Visitors,Midwives, Community Practitioners Occupational Therapists, Speech & Language Therapists, Dietitians, Social Workers,Care Staff, Outreach Workers,Housing Support Staff, Homelessness Workers, Probation Officers, Substance Misuse Workers, Youth Workers.

What you will take away from the seminar:

- An understanding of the principles and techniques contained within Brief Solution Focused Therapy (SFT) - A toolbox of simple but effective strategies and tips for working more successfully with your clients, no matter how difficult or stuck they are - An approach for dealing with increasing work pressures more productively - Discover how "brief" doesn't have to mean "superficial" or "second rate", but can mean "better and more effective" - New insights into your clients and into solutions to their problems. Understand what "client centred" really means - Increased confidence for working with your most complex and difficult clients

Course Outline:

• 09.30 Registration refreshments
• 10.00 Introduction to Brief Solution Focused Therapy (BSFT)

Evidence base and applicability to different client and staff groups. Understanding the trap of the CLEPPER approach in traditional models of helping. Key underlying principles of BSFT and its implications for practice. How brief is brief? Single five minute meetings through to longer term work. Why more work occurs away from the practitioner than whilst clients are with them. Video illustration of use of BSFT with a client on how longstanding problems can be addressed.

• 11.15 Refreshments
• 11.45 Softening Things Up

Laying the groundwork for change. Rapport building (with a difference!). How to focus on presenting problems constructively without getting drawn into the clients own negativity. Changing your and your clients attitudes to problems through language change. Creating "psychological distance" between the client and their problems whilst increasing a sense of "personal agency" and responsibility. Helping the client let go of unhelpful attitudes towards their problems. "Doing the problem". How to create a sense of hope and "possibility" and "goal direction" for stuck clients.

• 13.00 Lunch (by own arrangements)
• 14.00 Moving out of stuck behaviour and repetitive negative cycles.

Four effective techniques to help clients re-evaluate and change old negative patterns. The role of "experimental behaviour" and how to use it with clients. Negotiating obstacles to change. Techniques for "going against the flow". New techniques for addressing negative thinking.

• 14.20 Focusing on solutions (1)

Three exercises to help clients discover their own internal resources for problem resolution. "Why aren't things worse", "Doing the solution optimally", "Competency transfer". Video illustration of techniques with a client.

• 15.00 Refreshments
• 15.30 Focusing on solutions (2)

Drawing on the client's external resources with an exercise using real and "distance" role models. The idea of "faking" new responses. Paradoxical interventions and their use with clients. A simple "breaking pattern" exercise to use with clients. Making the spontaneous deliberate.

• 16.20 Plenary and final questions
• 16.30 Finish