Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) is one of the world’s most widely used therapeutic treatments (De Shazer, 2007, Hsu, 2011). Unlike traditional forms of therapy that take time to analyze problems, pathology, and past life events, SFBT concentrates on finding solutions in the present and exploring one’s hope for the future in order to find a quick and pragmatic resolution of one’s problems. This method takes the approach that you know what you need to do to improve your own life and, with the appropriate coaching and questioning, are capable of finding the best solutions.
SFBT was developed by Insoo Kim Berg, Steve de Shazer, and their colleagues in the late 1970s. Disillusioned by the results of traditional psychoanalysis, Berg and de Shazer wanted to create a new type of therapy that dealt less with the “why” behind challenges patients face, and more with the “how” of treating them. Originally begun out of Berg’s living room, the group went on to found the Milwaukee Brief Family Therapy Center in the early 1980s.
