Therapists in East York, ON

The treatment works by helping a client notice which behaviours and thoughts have positive results on their lives and building a plan around how to maximise these strengths. Practitioners of solution-focused brief therapy (SFBT) believe that individuals already have the experience, wisdom, and resilience to create change in their lives, but may need a guide to help them realise which changes to make and how to make them.

Yes. Solution-focused brief therapy has been extensively studied, and researchers find strong evidence that it’s an effective treatment for many behavioural and psychological concerns. This may be due to the uplifting nature and practicality of the treatment, which allows patients to employ strategies to reach their goals that are incremental and achievable.

Solution-focused brief therapy, as the name implies, is brief. The timeline may vary from person to person, given the challenges they face and their situation in life, but treatment is typically complete within four to eight sessions. This therapy type is a pragmatic one: it’s concerned more with “how” problems can be addressed and improved than getting to the root of “why” they exist in the first place.

Solution-focused brief therapy is related to cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT)in that both are pragmatic approaches that deal less with gaining a full understanding of the cause of a mental health problem and more with creating plans for how to cope with these problems and improve an individual’s day-to-day life. They are distinct, however, in that SFBT emphasises building on strengths and resources, while CBT focuses on changing negative thoughts and behaviours.