Solution-Focused Brief Therapy: Building On What Works

Exceptions, preferred futures, and scaling — solution talk as a change technology

How does solution-focused brief therapy help people change without focusing on problems?

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.

SFBT developed at the Brief Family Therapy Center in Milwaukee in the 1980s through the work of Steve de Shazer, Insoo Kim Berg, and colleagues. Its founding insight — often summarized as "if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it; if it’s working, do more of it; if it’s not working, do something different" — inverts most therapeutic traditions. Rather than excavating the history of a problem, SFBT asks clients what they want instead, when they already have a version of it, and what’s one small step toward more of it. The practices below are the core SFBT techniques, each with the lever that makes it work.