U is for Utilization

Steve de Shazer refers to ‘utilization’ very little in his books, indeed the only (indexed) reference is to be found in his third book Clues: Investigating Solutions in Brief Therapy (1988), whilst Insoo Kim Berg also references utilization just once and that is to be found in Working with the Problem Drinker (1992).

de Shazer writes ‘From the beginning, my work has been based on the principles I abstracted from Erickson's many papers. As I see it, my work and the work of my colleagues of BFTC continues to use Erickson's work as a point of departure. . . . When Erickson talked about “utilization” he meant many things. Sometimes he defined it as “utilizing” the problematic behaviours, thoughts, and feelings as part of a therapeutic solution. … My definition is related and yet different, at least in point of emphasis. From my perspective, “utilization” involves “utilizing” whatever the client does that is somehow “right”, “useful”, “effective”, “good”, or “fun” for the purpose of developing a solution’ (1988, pp 139 – 140)

Berg and Miller offer a slightly different, and yet complementary, definition ‘the term utilization was first used by Milton H. Erickson (Erickson, 1959; Erickson and Rossi, 1979) to describe his method of “exploring a patient’s individuality to ascertain what life learnings, experiences, and mental skills are available to deal with the problem . . .  [and] then utiliz[ing] these unique personal internal responses to achieve therapeutic goals (Erickson and Rossi, 1979, p 1)” (pp 5 – 6). The authors then add ‘the principle of utilization implies that the treatment professional should accept and work within the client’s frame of reference’ (Berg and Miller, 1992, p 7).

If we begin to think about how these ideas of utilization are reflected in Solution Focused Practice, we can start with de Shazer’s assertion in Clues ‘The client has everything needed to solve the problem. The only difficulty is that clients do not know that they know how to solve their problems’ (de Shazer, 1988, p 91). The ‘evidence’ for de Shazer’s assertion is to be found in the inevitability of exceptions, there will, yes will always, be times when the problem should have happened and did not, when all the conditions are in place for the problem to happen and yet, for some reason it doesn’t. And indeed it is also inevitable that ‘instances’ (Ratner et al., 2012), small elements of the ‘best-hopes-present-transformed-life’ will also be present when we meet our clients for the first time, in however large or small or tiny form. However it is also likely that either the exceptions and instances will not have been noticed or if they have been noticed the client will not have attributed any significance to them, they are viewed as ‘flukes’, as strange aberrations. And so in ‘utilizing’ these inevitabilities the Solution Focused worker will ask clients questions which bring these ‘episodes’ to the client’s attention and then ask questions, strategy and identity questions (Ratner et al., 2012), which invite the attribution of significance ‘I did something and it made a difference’.

The principle of ‘utilization’ also turns up in three other related ways in our current practice.
(1)  Solution Focused practitioners choose to assume that our clients have, even before our first session, all the resources necessary to achieve their ‘best hopes’ and then focus on noticing the presence of those capacities. We also assume that however ‘good’ a piece of work we do may (or may not) be that we cannot make people change, that they will either use our work together or they will not and that if they do they will be ‘utilizing’ their resources so to do.

(2)  We assume that the most sustainable changes are those that the client makes for him/her/themselves since the changes that the client makes, rather than change based on the worker’s expertise, are more likely to ‘fit’ the client. Indeed, in addition, change seems more sustainable when the client owns it, ‘we did it ourselves’, and thus ‘utilizing’ the client’s own ‘best ways’ seems pragmatically preferable.

(3)  As Berg and Miller highlight Solution Focused practitioners work within the ‘client’s frame of reference’. For many of us this would refer to basing our work on the client’s own ‘best hopes’ (George et al., 1999) and having no view on a focus for the work other than that supplied by the client. The client’s ‘best hopes’ answer is the starting point for the Solution Focused conversation. Indeed as Harry Korman states ‘If we don’t know what the client wants, we can have no questions to ask’ and since the Solution Focused approach has no theory of problem we will inevitably work within the client’s frame.

In summary therefore we see de Shazer and the Milwaukee team picking up Erickson’s concept and over a period of time transforming it, and yet in its transformed shape the concept remains foundational in our practice.

Berg, Insoo Kim and Miller, Scott (1992) Working with the Problem Drinker: a solution focused approach. New York: Norton.
de Shazer, Steve (1988) Clues: Investigating Solutions in Brief Therapy. New York: Norton.
George, E., Iveson, C. and Ratner, H. (1990; Revised and expanded Edition 1999) Problem to Solution: Brief Therapy with Individuals and Families. London: BT Press   
Ratner, H., George, E., Iveson, C.  (2012) Solution Focused Brief Therapy: 100 Key Ideas and Techniques.  London: Routledge   

Evan George
London
13 April 2025