Radical Acceptance: the “Best Hopes” Question
Chris Iveson explores the way that Solution Focused practitioners choose to trust our clients.
Courses
On-Line Programme
Foundation Courses - Certificate Course - Advanced Certificate Course
Welcome to BRIEF’s on-line course programme.
We have re-tuned our Certificate Programmes to fit the on-line format while making sure to maintain the high standards that have characterised our training for over thirty years. Our courses will still be world class, will still shape your practice forever and will still change lives.
In designing these courses, we have experimented with different forms of delivery and in the process have discovered that on-line training has its own special advantages. We will miss the face-to-face contact, the informal conversations and the spontaneity of our previous courses but will gain something new and surprising. The on-line format creates an intensity and a sharper focus but also gives more time for reflection and absorption of ideas. We seem to hear ourselves and each other with more clarity and this has engendered a new burst of creativity in our thinking, teaching and practice.
It has been BRIEF’s promise to keep Solution Focused Practice as a dynamic and ever-changing process and we are looking forward to what we might discover over the next year in the development of this still amazing, fascinating and close to miraculous way of working. And we very much hope that you will join us and become a part of this continuing evolution.
The BRIEF Certificate in Solution Focused Practice
Solution Focused Practice refers to a conversational process for generating positive change. It can be used as therapy, coaching, team building, in fact, in any situation where improvement is being sought. The BRIEF Certificate course will focus primarily on therapy and coaching but will be flexible enough to stretch to other arenas in order to meet course members individual needs.
Solution Focused Practice can be summarised as four questions each of which is the starting point for a series of supplementary questions which, put together, make a Solution Focused conversation.
- What are your best hopes from our talking?
This part of the conversation is intended to clarify the client’s desired outcome and until this is agreed no further questions are possible.
- Imagine that you wake up tomorrow and all your hopes from our talking have been realised what will be different in your life?
This part of the conversation seeks to draw out as detailed a description as possible of the client’s life if the desired outcome is achieved.
- Let’s have a 0 – 10 scale where 10 = your desired outcome has been achieved and 0 = the opposite where would you say you are now?
This question begins that part of the conversation aimed at discovering what the client is already doing or has done in the past that might prove helpful in achieving the hoped-for future.
- What’s better?
This is the question we ask at the beginning of second and subsequent sessions. It seeks to discover and build on anything the client has done which might be seen as part of the desired future.
Each of these questions has an infinite number of variations which together make a new language for therapists and coaches. In that sense the Certificate Course will be like a language course with Level 1 laying out the basic structure, Level 2 as conversational practice and Level three as conversation fluent enough to be a Solution Focused therapist, counsellor or coach.
SF Practice Foundation Level 1
This two day (twelve hour) course will introduce you to Solution Focused Practice, it’s techniques, underlying assumptions and philosophy. You will have the opportunity to learn both by listening, watching, practicing and discussing.
Level 1 Dates
10 — 11 September 2024 14 — 15 January 2025 9 — 10 April 2025
SF Practice Foundation Level 2
The two day (twelve hour) course will focus mainly on practice with a series of developing exercises through which you will become familiar with the conversational process.
Level 2 Dates
08 — 09 October 2024 11 — 12 February 2025 14 — 15 May 2025
SF Practice Foundation Level 3
This last two-day (twelve hour) course will provide a chance to watch and do whole sessions of therapy or coaching. Once again, the emphasis will be on practice. Participants will also be expected by this time to have been trying out Solution Focused conversations in their work
Level 3 Dates
13 — 14 November 2024 25 — 26t March 17 — 18t June 2025
SF Practice: Foundation Plus: Level 4
In order to submit the assignment for the BRIEF Certificate in Solution Focused Practice applicants are also required to attend a SF Practice: Foundation Plus: Level 4 workshop in addition to 6 days of training with BRIEF, normally Levels 1 — 3. The two-day Foundation Plus: Level 4 workshops take place more or less once each academic term.
Foundation Plus: Level 4
11 — 12 December 2024 15 — 16 July 2025
Advanced Certificate Course
For those wanting to develop their practice even further BRIEF offers the BRIEF Advanced Certificate in Solution Focused Practice Course.
This course is delivered over 24 weeks in 3-hour online modules.
The design of this course is radical and fits with the BRIEF belief in constantly asking the question 'what is the least that people need?'.
The course is specifically designed to meet the criteria for accreditation developed by UKASFP.
The Advanced Certificate builds on the experience gained by running the BRIEF Diploma over 13 years, a course which came to be recognised by the Solution Focused international community to be second to none.
Many who completed the diploma have gone on to become Solution Focused trainers and consultants in their own right.
Over the years the diploma attracted participants from the whole of the UK, from Switzerland, from Ireland, from Germany, from Lebanon, from Denmark and from Cyprus, whilst the first Advanced Certificate had our first participant from Italy and since then we have welcomed participants from Tanzania, USA, Canada, Denmark, Ireland and Hungary.
To find out more about the Advanced Certificate Course and how to apply please email Chris Iveson
SF Practice: Foundation Level 1
SF Practice: Foundation Level 2
SF Practice: Foundation Level 3
SF Practice: Foundation Plus: Level 4
Blog
Featured Video
What is SF - a 2020 version of the approach
July 9, 2020