Hope and Possibility

Abstract

Abstract Despite cogent and practical criticism, no critique of the cultural and moral implications of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy has appeared in the professional literature. Following Don S. Browning's seminal 1987 work Religious Thought and the Modern Psychologies: A Critical Conversation in the Theology of Culture, this paper will (a) identify and describe the ethics of obligation and the deep metaphors of SFBT, (b) evaluate the adequacy of those ethics and metaphors from a Christian perspective, and (c) suggest that SFBT, as a psychotherapy that is somewhat self-conscious about its metaphors and ethics, may be a step toward a new psychology grounded in a critical social theory, as Browning called for in his book.