Solution-focused and narrative approaches

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The essential idea

Solution-focused work attends to the person's preferred future, resources, and occasions when the problem is less influential. Exception questions identify what is already different; scaling questions can clarify the person's own sense of progress and a possible next step. Scaling numbers do not become standardized test scores.

Narrative approaches examine how stories about identity and problems are shaped by experience and social context. Externalizing language separates the person from a problem rather than treating the problem as their essential identity. Unique outcomes and alternative stories can make previously overlooked actions or values more visible.

For example, a fictional student saying “I am a failure” might be invited in solution-focused work to describe a recent day that went a little better. A narrative conversation might explore how the failure story gained influence and times the person acted outside it. These inquiries should remain responsive to the person's language.

Neither approach means ignoring serious risk, material hardship, or painful experience. Asking about strengths does not remove responsibility for assessment. Compare the theory, the purpose of the question, the client's preferences, and what your formulation still does not explain.

BUILD THE REASONING · 01

What an exception is for

Solution-focused brief therapy (SFBT) develops a detailed preferred future and explores exceptions and resources that can support small, observable movement toward it. The question “When was the morning a little easier?” searches for useful differences that can be amplified. A scale helps define the client’s own signs of progress; it is not a diagnostic instrument.

Narrative work examines problem-saturated identity accounts and the social discourses supporting them. A unique outcome is an event the dominant story fails to explain. The therapist explores its meaning, history, relationships, and values to thicken a preferred story. “You attended once” can become evidence of a repeatable routine in SFBT or an opening into an identity of persistence in narrative work.

BUILD THE REASONING · 02

A question must lead somewhere

In SFBT, define the desired difference in concrete interactions, identify exceptions, ask how they happened, and invite a small next step. If no exception is available, coping questions can reveal how the client has endured; avoid inventing success.

In narrative work, agree a useful problem name, map its effects, ask the person’s evaluation and reasons, then develop neglected actions into a richer alternative account. Externalizing does not erase responsibility for harm. The client remains accountable for choices while the problem is not equated with total identity.

BUILD THE REASONING · 03

Do not confuse strength with denial

Housing scarcity, discrimination, violence, or illness cannot be solved by a more hopeful story alone. Practical support and assessment can proceed alongside these conversations. A preferred future must be the client’s and feasible enough to guide action; narrative identity work must not substitute the therapist’s flattering label.

Authorized manuals and developer accounts explain practice; evidence claims require examining the studies and outcomes they cite. These approaches have related postmodern influences but are distinct, and a single comparison lesson is followed by separate model units.

FROM CONCEPT TO DECISION

Jo: “I never finish anything”

1. 1

   SFBT use of the event

   The quiet space and agreed time may be repeatable conditions.

   “What was different that afternoon, and which part could be available again?”

2. 2

   Narrative use of the event

   The dismissal protects a totalizing failure story; explore why finishing mattered.

   “What did making time for that lab say about something you care about, even with everything else happening?”

3. 3

   Integrate the context

   Jo values education and caregiving, and needs dependable childcare. Neither account should turn a resource gap into an attitude defect.

   “What support would let that commitment have more room this week?”

MAKE THE REASONING YOURS

Work through a new situation

READ WITH A PURPOSE

Best references

These readings deepen the specific models, evidence, and decisions in this lesson.

1. 01
   SFBTA: Treatment manual, third edition (2025)

   Access the current authorized manual and identify goals, exceptions, scaling, and the supporting research bibliography.

2. 02
   Carey & Russell: Externalising—commonly asked questions

   Study externalizing as a contextual stance and a route toward preferred identity stories, not merely changing pronouns.

3. 03
   Dulwich Centre: About narrative approaches

   Connect identity, power, collective work, and the person’s relationship to a problem.

4. 04
   Michael White: Externalising conversations transcript

   Read the originator’s separate teaching discussion; link for study without reproducing its training material.