No Theory Solution Focused Practices Is a Way of Life: A Further Step to an Ecology of Mind

Abstract

This paper sets out to explore some of Wittgenstein’s writings as they pertain to Solution Focused Practices (SFP). One of the conclusions of this paper is that SFP is a philosophy, Wittgenstein’s philosophy as a way of life for practitioners, and there is no need for any theory if you understand this. I shall begin by providing a summary of Wittgenstein’s philosophy, then move on to look at Freud’s influence on Wittgenstein. Each was dissolving problems. We then see the importance of describing family-therapy-as-a-system (rather than just the family-as-a-system); or how to think within a system we are part of, and the wider implications of that. This is an ancient problem. We can no longer stand apart from a system we are part of, and apply an Archimedean lever to it, as our traditional technologies have tried to do, but adopt a new “game” from within. Understanding SFP as a language game, or as a form of life, enables this to emerge. As an aside we see that this leads us into the new science of enactivism. There we find the profound ethics for the practitioner that go with that position. De Shazer was following what is known as the ’later Wittgenstein’ when he claimed that “solution focused brief therapy has no theory” (Korman et al., 2020, p. 2). However, sometimes in learning a new skill “training wheels” are useful, but they must be discarded (not internalised) as the skill is mastered (Dreyfus & Dreyfus, 1986). An ethics first philosophy follows if this is done.