Solution Focused Brief: 10 Evidence-Based Coaching Practices
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Solution Focused Brief, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Practices that may help
- 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. - Narrow the scope: a smaller problem space is a richer one
Restrict the problem to a specific user, use case, or scenario — the narrower the brief, the richer the possible solutions within it.
Deliberate Constraints, Made Practical - 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 - The Formula First-Session Task and Between-Session Noticing
Assign between-session observation tasks that direct attention toward what’s already working.
Solution-Focused Brief Therapy: Building On What Works - Preferred Future: Describing Life When the Problem Is Solved
Ask the person to describe in concrete, behavioral detail what life looks like when things are better.
Solution-Focused Brief Therapy: Building On What Works - Define — frame the right problem
Synthesize your research into a single, sharp problem statement before solving.
Design Thinking, Step by Step - The Miracle Question: Designing Your Life Without the Problem
The miracle question — "Suppose a miracle happened and the problem was solved while you slept — how would you know? What would be different?" — is a solution-focused technique that bypasses problem-analysis and invites clients to describe, in concrete behavioral detail, what they actually want. It is a clinical tool within SFBT, which has moderate RCT support; the question itself has not been isolated in controlled trials but is widely used and clinically well-supported. - Model synergy: ask "what would a solution have to look like to address both?"
Use the agreed criteria as a design brief and generate solutions that meet all of them.
The Third Alternative, Made Practical - Coping Questions
When things seem terrible, ask how the person is managing at all — acknowledging and excavating their resilience.
Solution-Focused Brief Therapy: Building On What Works - Complimenting Strengths Throughout the Session
Deliberately name real strengths, efforts, and resources the person displays — not as praise but as information.
Solution-Focused Brief Therapy: Building On What Works
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- My brief is so broad — "make it better," "help everyone" — that the possibilities feel infinite and I keep landing on bland, generic answers, because the problem is too big and vague for any specific, alive solution to come into focus.
- It feels like this is just how I am
- All day my attention goes straight to what went wrong
- I know everything I want to get away from, but if you asked me what "better" actually looks like
- The problem I’m chasing is still this big blurry "make it better" cloud, and every time I try to start I spin out because I’ve never pinned down the one sharp thing I’m actually trying to solve for whom.
Related concerns
- Brief Solution Focused
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.
- Solution Focused Brief Therapy
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.
- Solution Focused Brief Treatment
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.
- Exception Question Solution Focused Therapy
Identify times when the problem was absent or less severe — these are evidence that solutions already exist.
Exception Finding: When Is the Problem Already Less Severe?
- Solution Focused Brief Therapy Building On What Works During A Big Change
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.
- Solution Focused Brief Therapy Building On What Works In A New Job
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.
Describe your situation in your own words to search the complete practice library.