Inbetween—Neither Inside nor Outside: The Radical Simplicity of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy

Abstract

In this paper we attempt to set out some crucial ways in which we see the practice of solution-focused brief therapy (SFBT) as differing from other forms of therapy, both in what solution-focused brief therapists do and what they do not normally do at all. These differences are more radical than is commonly supposed. Chief amongst the differences are the ways in which solution-focused therapists act in therapy as if humans are neither driven from the inside by some kind of mentalistic (or even molecular) framework, nor from the outside by systems or social forces. Rather, our futures emerge through dialogue in unpredictable ways which do not reflect a mechanistic account. We propose that these distinctive features may have arisen because of the ways in which Steve de Shazer, a key developer of SFBT, was introduced to therapy. The increasing evidence-base for the effectiveness of SFBT calls into question the taken-for-granted foundational ideas of many therapeutic and scientific traditions.