Trusting the client and the client’s expertise in their own life is a core principle of Solution Focused Brief Therapy (and Coaching). The trust we are referring to in this context is not the product of an assessment, instinct or emotion but an act of will. It is a pragmatic decision to work from this premise.
This trust begins with the assumption that every client has a ‘good reason’ for being present and that ‘good reason’ is the key to their motivation and to their desired outcome from the exchange.
Put another way: all clients are motivated to achieve their hoped-for outcome.
However, at first contact with therapist or coach not all clients will have articulated or even thought through their motivation and hopes other than in negative terms – hoping for the absence of something rather than the presence of something else. Other client will not even have got that far and see themselves at the mercy of others, as being ‘sent’. Negative hopes can usually be converted quite straightforwardly into positive outcomes (e.g. from chronic pain to getting on with life; from conflict to harmony etc). In the case of mandatory clients there is always the threat of retribution for failure to attend: losing children, incarceration, withheld resources etc. Paradoxically, these often described as ‘impossible’ clients, can turn out to be the most motivated: keeping your children or your freedom or your job are very high priorities for most of us.
When we ask a client “What are your best hopes from our talking together?” not only are all these assumptions are contained within the question but we are also handing over to the client control of the conversation; in other words we are placing an absolute trust in their wish to work with us towards a better future. The control and trust is absolute because a Solution Focused conversation has nowhere to go without an outcome to reach for. It is in the hands of the client to collaborate by answering the question or withdraw, and having presented themselves why would they withdraw at the first question, especially one as benign as this. Many clients might respond with a “Don’t know” but having responded, taken their turn in the conversational process, we have permission to ask again.
So begins a conversational process in which every question the therapist/coach asks carries a tacit or explicit acknowledgement and validation of the client’s preceding answer as well as the assumption that the client has a good reason for being there and a hope for something different in the future. Arriving together at that hoped-for outcome is the first task of the Solution Focused Brief Therapist/Coach and with this radical trust, the therapist/coach’s questions will inevitably lead to the articulation of the client's best hopes.
Chris Iveson
London
26th May 2024
