Brief Therapy - A Solution-Focused Therapy

Lon Marshall directs Cornerstone Brief Therapy, a professional counseling center in Iowa. He refers to his staff as “Therapist Christians” who utilize solution-focused counseling known as Brief Therapy.

Brief Therapy techniques originated in the 1950’s and the term Brief Therapy was first used by psychiatrist Milton H. Erickson. In the 80’s, husband and wife team Steve de Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg created steps for solution-focused brief therapy (SFBT) and a new paradigm to successfully bring quicker and more effective help and healing to individuals and couples was shaped.

Marshall was a junior at Mid America Nazarene University in Olathe, KS when he felt led to work in an area that would help people. He had worked with kids and families at a summer camp for several years, and came from a solid, healthy upbringing. His gifts and experiences pointed toward a degree and ultimately work in a helping field.

With a degree in Religion and a minor in Psychology, he entered a counseling program at the University of Missouri - Kansas City. After graduating, he took a job as an associate pastor and found that counseling teens and families was his strength. His journey continued as he began gathering clinical hours as an intern working for Christian counseling centers and various private practices.

Lon and his wife Julie were just starting a family and were, as he describes it, “dirt poor.” Lon had to scrap together $500 to attend a week-long conference at the Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto, CA. The subject was brief therapy and the week of lectures would forever change his life.

The lecturers were not psychologists. They had varying backgrounds in fields such as anthropology and sociology. They had come together to study how change in people takes place. The researchers had met with clients, limiting the number of sessions to ten and basically telling the clients, “If we can’t help you in ten sessions then you need to go see someone else who can.”

The findings were dramatic for this research in Brief Therapy. The average number of sessions were six. The mode – ONE, determined by the clients response and expressed need to continue. But this wasn’t an attempt to simply have shorter sessions. This was an attempt to use more efficient counseling techniques to assist clients (who explore their preferred future and bring an expertise to solve the problem) with life-long change and for the counselor to join with the clients to focus on the present/future seeking solutions instead of dwelling on the past problem.

Marshall calls this week of exposure to these techniques a “conversion” experience, a changing of paradigm, fresh new ideas and strategies. “All the things I had learned and been taught I watched fall away. I had found this completely new way to do things. I was so young so I was able to get rid of everything and dive into this method,” Marshall said.

He began following anything the researchers wrote or spoke about.

He started practicing the theory in his counseling sessions as an intern. “People were changing in front of my eyes.” But not everyone agreed with his new approach which did not follow traditional psychological theory. He had to search out a mentor who was also practicing Brief Therapy and he ended up at Cornerstone therapy in Fremont, CA.

Marshall describes the counselor’s basic approach in using Brief Therapy, a solution and narrative based therapy as: 1) Accepting the client’s definition of the trouble or problem they are having; 2) Learning the language of the client, joining their culture, trying to speak their language, and; 3) Utilizing the resources and strengths of the client as an expert in their own life.

It is an approach where the therapist tries to cooperate with and understand the language of the client, which attributes to the shorter amount of sessions needed. Marshall expresses that these sessions don’t have to be painful (even though addressing some painful issues) or take a long time.

“Lasting change can happen quickly,” Marshall says.

Marshall’s wife, Julie, helped him to define part of his approach. She once addressed one of their daughter’s by saying, “Give me a request, instead of a description of the problem.” This was solution/narrative based therapy. Marshall understands the past plays a role in dealing with hurts and pains and healing in the clients lives, the conversation should be about solutions for change now; solutions which are looking forward, not trying to necessarily interpret the past. Marshall wants clients to describe their preferred future and what will be happening as they begin the healing process.

As with his predecessors, Marshall’s average sessions (4-5) are low and the mode is ONE. Understanding this, Marshall comes to each session with the thought process that this could be the only time I see these clients. This requires Marshall to ask himself, for each session, “How can I most effectively help these people?”

Every counseling practice is unique. For Marshall, he is committed to three foundational values for his practice, where solution-focused therapy and theology intersect:

1. Client centered (Be Incarnational) I am seeking to embody Christ as I meet with people; how he listened, worked with and loved people. He entered into people’s world. He joined them in their culture, background and messy situations. He was able to see life through their eyes.

2. Future Focused (Use an eschatological approach) The future is pulling us forward. The past shapes us but doesn’t determine us. The goal is understanding what is pulling the client foward. The end then becomes the present instead of the past becoming the present. The past isn’t totally disregarded becuase valuable things can be used from the past. As a therapist, I must know how to effectively use the past in the therapy process.

3. Competency/Strength based (Prevenient) I seek to utilize all of the client's resources; all the strengths they bring to a session. The therapist must understand the epistemology. I must use all this to influence someone for their betterment. I attempt to not look at their liability or disfunction.

While Marshall was overcome by this paradigm and unabashedly proclaims its success and significance , he is not sure what the future might hold for new or different ways to counsel individuals or couples. But he will continue to be curious about types of effective therapy and the needs of his clients. Marshall noted research which revealed first year interns were often more effective in counseling sessions than some long time therapists. He attributes this to the intern’s sense of humility and openness to be curious, understanding they don’t know it all.

Marshall believes that a key to the success of brief therapy, or any therapy is that the therapist live in a posture of “not knowing.”

“[As a therapist] I don’t think I know everything. I need to stay humble. I can’t assume I know everything a client is going through. I need to listen to something the client and I can both get excited about and agree on.”

Marshall refers to a real paradox in brief therapy that clients are encouraged to slow down and not go to fast. Brief therapy looks forward so the life-long change can begin quickly while the client is encouraged to go slow in the process so old habits or routines are not reverted to. Brief, relational, cooperative sessions are the key, not extended, lengthy sessions or therapy where the client deals with issues in such a way that keeps them locked into a cycle of continually needing help and never getting to the heart of what it means to help themselves and change their behavior.

This leads to a practical question about the business practice of Brief Therapy. What about the money? If a therapist is looking to get a client out the door as soon as possible and never see them again, how does the therapist keep a business financed?

For Marshall, it is about practicing the best and right therapy, one he foundationally believes in, as well as working a little, well, a lot harder. While psychologists or counselors might have a few clients locked in for a year or two or five, Marshall may see as many as 1,500 different individuals or couples in a year. While financial success is not guaranteed, up to this point his families needs have been provided for over the last nineteen years of committing to help people with a solution/narrative based therapy.

Marshall attempts to engage in the clients story and work with them in therapeutic conversation, sometimes listening, sometimes negotiating, sometimes sharing, but always helping real people look forward to determine how they want to, and can change in this journey of life in a brief, yet effective time frame.

Steve de Shazar and Insoo Kim Berg