Coaching practices for Problem Solving Therapy on a Budget

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Problem Solving Therapy on a Budget, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• I’ve got a few options on the table but I keep drifting toward whichever one scares me least instead of whichever would actually fix things
• I’ve got maybe two ideas for what to do about this and both feel hopeless, so I shoot every other thought down before I even finish it
• I finally tried something and it only half-worked, and my whole brain went "see, nothing I do ever works"
• It feels like this is just how I am
• My kid and I agree on a fix and it sounds great in the moment, but a few days later it’s fallen apart again

Practices that may help

1. Evaluate solutions against costs, benefits, and fit
   Rate each solution on likelihood of success, personal costs, and fit with your values.
   Problem-Solving Therapy, Made Practical
2. Problem-Solving Therapy, Made Practical
   Problem-Solving Therapy (PST), developed by Nezu and D’Zurilla, treats depression and anxiety by building structured, step-by-step problem-solving skills — targeting the learned helplessness and avoidance that occur when people face stressful life problems without an effective coping framework. Multiple randomised trials support PST for depression, especially when linked to real-life problem load.
3. Solution-Focused Brief Therapy: Building On What Works
   Solution-focused brief therapy (SFBT), developed by Steve de Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg, directs attention to what already works — client strengths, past successes, and desired futures — rather than to analyzing problems. Meta-analyses report small-to-moderate positive effects across a range of presenting issues, with particular strength in behavioral problems and depression in adult populations.
4. Generate solutions without premature evaluation
   List as many potential solutions as possible before judging any of them.
   Problem-Solving Therapy, Made Practical
5. Evaluate the outcome and adjust
   After implementing, honestly assess what worked, what didn’t, and what to do next.
   Problem-Solving Therapy, Made Practical
6. Exception Finding: When Is the Problem Already Less Severe?
   Identify times when the problem was absent or less severe — these are evidence that solutions already exist.
   Solution-Focused Brief Therapy: Building On What Works
7. Evaluate solutions for durability: realistic, mutually satisfying, safe
   A collaborative solution that fails one of three tests — realistic, mutually satisfying, safe — will not hold.
   Collaborative Problem Solving (Ross Greene)
8. Hold Plan B conversations proactively, not reactively
   Solve the problem before the next explosion, when everyone is calm.
   Collaborative Problem Solving (Ross Greene)
9. Collaborative Problem Solving (Ross Greene)
   Ross Greene’s Collaborative Problem Solving model holds that kids with explosive behavior lack the cognitive skills to handle frustration and inflexibility — not the motivation. The approach replaces punitive consequences with structured adult–child conversations that build lagging skills over time. Randomized trials in clinical settings show significant reductions in explosive behavior, though most real-world evidence is clinical and observational.
10. Generate a solution analysis for the most accessible intervention point
    For your chosen intervention point, brainstorm and commit to one specific alternative.
    Behavioral Chain Analysis: The DBT Method for Understanding Problem Behaviors

Describe your situation in your own words to search the complete practice library.