ARTICLES

Testing the Association between Solution-Focused Coaching and Client Perceived Coaching Outcomes

2011-12-16T07:11:00.001-08:00

Visser, C.F. (2011). Testing the Association between Solution-Focused Coaching and Client Perceived Coaching Outcomes. InterAction 3 (2), 9-27

This paper describes a survey study into the association between SF behaviours of coaches and clients perceived coaching outcomes. A web-based survey was administered with 200 clients of coaches. The survey consisted of a list of 28 coach behaviours, 14 of which were SF behaviours and 14 of which were behaviours SF coaches would avoid. Clients were also asked to describe on several dimensions how effective the coaching had been. SF coach behaviours were strongly positively associated with positive coachingoutcomes. Non-SF coach behaviours were moderately negatively associated with positive coaching behaviours. A multiple regression analysis was done, which gave insight into which specific coach behaviours were predictive of coaching success. The paper closes with some reflections on the implications of this study and with suggestions for followup research.

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Developing a Growth Mindset - How individuals and organizations benefit from it

2011-10-18T04:27:00.001-07:00

Does success or failure depend on whether you do or don’t happen to have some or other fixed talent? Is it true that you either have talent or you haven’t? How are these questions relevant for organizations? This article is about the importance of the growth mindset, the belief in the mutability of human capabilities by effort and experience. A lot of evidence shows that the belief in the changeability of capabilities is an important condition for that change. This belief turns out to be realistic. Anything that people do can be seen as developable skills. What does this insight imply for how we manage and educate people? How can in we, in our organizations, develop a growth mindset culture?

Differences between the fixed mindset and the growth mindset
Carol Dweck, psychologist at University, has been doing research for over several decades into the consequences of what people believe about the mutability of their capabilities (Dweck, 2006). She distinguishes roughly between two types of beliefs about human capabilities and traits. The first is what she calls a fixed mindset. People with a fixed mindset see their capabilities, for example their intelligence, as unchangeable. They assume that how capable your, for example how intelligent or how musical, is largely determined by a natural talent which cannot or hardly be developed. The second belief is called a growth mindset. People with a growth mindset view their capabilities as a potential which can be developed.

Which belief people have turns out to have important consequences. Research shows that people with a fixed mindset with respect to a certain capability develop a focus on proving that they have this capability rather than on the process of learning. They disregard the process of learning which, of course, impedes their growth and functioning. People with a growth mindset, on the other hand, develop a tendency to put effort into learning and into developing strategies that improve learning and long-term performance. The table below summarizes the main differences between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset which research has revealed.

Teaching a growth mindset
That having a growth mindset has important benefits may raise a few questions. Are people with a fixed mindset predisposed to think that way or can a growth mindset be taught? If a growth mindset can indeed be taught, is it hard to do so? How do you do it? Several researchers have developed growth mindset workshops and studied their effects. These studies show that even brief growth mindset workshops establish enduring changes in attendants’ mindsets (Aronson, Fried and Good, 2002; Heslin, Wanderwalle and Latham, 2006). These brief mindset workshops may be structured as follows:

Information about the growth mindset: by means of presentation, an article, and a video an explanation is given about how people are capable of learning. The video shows how new connections are formed in the brain during learning.
Let participants explain the importance: the participants are asked to mention at least 3 reasons why it is important for people to recognize that they can develop their capabilities.
Identify and analyze own growth experience: the participants are asked to describe how they have managed to become better in something which they used to be not so good at.
Explain to someone else: the participants are asked to explain to a hypothetical other person how s/he can develop his/her capabilities.
Learning from someone else’s growth: the participants are asked to think of an example, and to analyze this example, of a situation in which someone else had learned something which they did not think this person would be able to learn.

Aronson et al. (2002) did a workshop with students and noticed how this led to an important change in how these students viewed school. Before the workshop, many students saw school as a place where you, as a student have to perform, and where the teacher judge you. After the workshop they saw school more as a place where you learn, with the help of the teachers, things that make you smarter. Also, they said that, while they were learning, they imagine how new connections in their brain were forming.

Managers with a growth mindset
It goes without saying that these findings on the growth mindset are very important for education. Teaching a growth mindset both to teachers and students can lead to the better utilization of the potential of students. The knowledge on the growth mindset, however, is much broader applicable in all kinds of organizations and contexts. Heslin et al. (2006) trained managers in the growth mindset and found that the trained managers became more effective in their work in several ways. Because the managers started to believe more in the developability of their own capabilities they became more open for feedback and criticism of their employees. Also, they became more effective in solving difficult problems by putting in more effort and by searching for more effective approaches. They also became more effective in coaching and managing their employees. By believing more in the growth potential of their employees they started to pay more attention to their employees’ growth and they recognized their growth earlier. This helped them to give them positive feedback which is motivating. Also, they started to see the usefulness of coaching and guiding employees more and they started to pay more attention to and put more time into those activities.

Research shows that the way in which we get feedback influences how we think about the mutability of our capabilities. Feedback often contains hidden messages that can either motivate or demotivate us. Positive feedback is often motivating for people and negative feedback can threaten people’s sense of competence and the relationship you have with them. Positive feedback supports people’s sense of competence and works motivating, and supports relationships and performance.

However, research by Dweck (2002) shows that the way in positive feedback is given is also important. She compared two forms of compliments: trait compliments and process compliments. With trait compliments the person is complimented with a trait, an internal, more or less, fixed quality. With process compliments the person is complimented with what he or she has done that worked. The table below shows disadvantages of trait compliments and advantages of process compliments.

Building a growth mindset culture
An important question is how we can build a growth mindset culture. Although there is no empirical evidence yet about how this can be done effectively the theoretical framework of the theory of planned behavior (TPB) offers a useful clue (Ajzen, 1991). Reeve and Assor (2011) present an adjusted version of this framework and apply it to establishing an autonomy supportive organization. This adjusted framework can also be used for building a growth mindset culture. Figure 1 shows how this may be done.

The figure shows how the theory of planned behavior assumes that effectively executing certain desired behavior happens when individuals are autonomously motivated for the desired behavior. There are three requirements for this autonomous intention. First, it is required that individuals feel they have influence over the behavior, that they can perform and control the behavior. Second, they need to have a positive attitude with respect to the behavior. Third, it is necessary that the growth mindset is the dominant norm in the organization. The desired behavior needs to be expected and support and, if necessary, enforced.

These three conditions can be achieved by realizing the four sources shown on the left in the figure. The first source is making the required knowledge and skills available. A specific example of how this may be accomplished is to make a growth mindset workshop a standard part of each management training. The second source refers to making scientific evidence and personal experiences available. This may be done by training a few specialists in the organization who can support managers and by sharing knowledge about and experiences with the growth mindset though a newsletter or through an intranet. The third source is to explicitly communicate the importance of the growth mindset throughout the organization by top management and by middle management. In addition to this, several management instruments can be used to support the growth mindset. The fourth source refers to linking consequences to whether or not the growth mindset is implemented for example by promoting managers who exemplify the growth mindset.

If organizations can build a culture in which the growth mindset represents the normal way of thinking this is likely to have many benefits, both for individuals and for the organization as a whole. A fixed mindset culture encourages internal competition, defensiveness and an emphasis on judging people, whereas a growth mindset culture encourages cooperation, openness and an emphasis on learning. The choice seems easy.

References

Ajzen, I. (1991). The theory of planned behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. 50, 179–211.
Aronson, J., Fried, C.B., and Good, C. (2002). Reducing stereotype threat and boosting academic achievement of African-American students: The role of conceptions of intelligence. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
Dweck, C. (2002). Messages that motivate: How praise molds students’ beliefs, motivation, and performance (in surprising ways). In Aronson, J. (Ed.), Improving academic achievement: Impact of psychological factors on education (pp. 37-60). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Dweck, C. (2006). Mindset, the new psychology of success. Random House
Heslin, P., Wanderwalle, D.and Latham, G. (2006). Engagement in employee coaching: The role of managers' implicit person theory. Personnel psychology.
Reeve, J. and Assor, A. (2011). Do social institutions necessarily suppress individuals’ needs for autonomy? The possibility of schools as autonomy-promoting contexts across the globe. In: Chirkov, V.I., Ryan, R.M. and Sheldon, K.M. (Eds.), Human Autonomy in Cross-Cultural Context. Perspectives on the psychology of agency, freedom, and well-being. Springer.
Visser, C.F. (2010). Self-Determination Theory Meets SolutionFocused Change: Autonomy, competence and relatedness support in action, InterAction - The Journal of Solution Focus in Organisations, Volume 2, Number 1, May 2010 , pp. 7-26(20)

21 Solution-Focused Techniques

2011-07-03T12:58:00.000-07:00

© 2011, Coert Visser

Several informal surveys have given an impression of the relative popularity of different solution-focused techniques. The following 21 techniques seem to belong to the most well-known and popular solution-focused techniques: scaling questions, the past success question, the preferred future question, the platform question, the exception seeking question, reframing, indirect compliments, the miracle question, summarizing in the words of the client, the what-is-better question, normalizing, the usefulness question, the observation question, the perspective change question, the coping question, the continuation question, the prediction suggestion, leapfrogging, and mutualizing. Below is a description of these techniques.

1. The scaling question: The technique of scaling questions originated more or less coincidentally when a client, in a second session with Steve de Shazer, answered to his question how he was doing: “I’ve almost reached 10 already!” de Shazer began to play with the idea of using numbers to describe one’s situation. This started the development of the scaling question used in solution-focused therapy. Today, scaling questions have developed into the most well known and most frequently used solution-focused techniques. Scaling questions are relatively easy to use and extremely versatile. Nowadays, many therapists, coaches and managers use them. Even many people who know little about the solution-focused approach know the scaling question.

2. The past success question: The past success question is the question when things have already been better and what made that possible. By asking this question the client may remember when he has already been able to cope with a problem or to solve it. Remembering one or more past successes is likely to increase the confidence and hopefulness of the client and usually helps the clients find ideas to take a step forward. Some examples of past success questions are: “When have things already been a bit better?”, “Have you ever been able to solve such a problem before?”, and “Have ever experienced a situation which is a bit like the situation you want to achieve?”

3. The preferred future question: This is one of the most essential types of solution-focused questions. It is the question with which the coach invites the client to describe how he or she would like the situation to become. The coach or therapist encourages the client patiently and curiously to vividly describe the preferred future, (or the 'desired situation'). The preferred future gets described in terms of concrete, positive results. A few ways in which the question can be posed are: “What does your preferred future look like?”, “How do you want your situation to become?”, “What would you like instead of the problem?”, and “How will you notice things will have become better?” When asking the preferred future question it helps to encourage clients so that they can build an image of their preferred future step by step. Usually a good sign is when clients begin to describe in positive terms what they themselves will do differently in that situation. When this happens their motivation and willingness to try out steps forward usually increases.

4. The platform question: The platform question helps to see the client what is already there. Examples are: “What have you already achieved?”, “What is already there?”, and “What has helped to bring you to your current position?”. By focusing on what has already been achieved, people usually get a different, more positive perspective both on their current situation (“It is not all bad!”) and on their future. Once they start looking at the glass as half full instead of half empty, they become more hopeful that they will be able to achieve their change goals.

5. The exception-seeking question: In solution-focused change, an assumption is that the intensity of problems fluctuates constantly. There will always have been situations in which the problem was less intense and when things were better. These situations are identified and analyzed because they will often help to find ideas to solve the problem. An example of how exception-seeking questions may be asked is: “Are there times when the problem does not happen? When was this? What was different? How did you make that happen?”

6. Reframing: With reframing the professional gives a positive twist to the words or actions of the client. He or she sees the positive meaning or intention in or behind the words of the client and highlights that. Insoo Kim Berg once explained the concept of reframing nicely: "Reframing is simply an alternate, usually a positive interpretation of troublesome behavior that gives a positive meaning to the client's interaction with those in her environment. It suggests a new and different way of behaving, freeing the client to alter behavior and making it possible to bring about changes while "saving face". As a result, the client sees her situation differently, and may even find solutions in ways that she did not expect."

7. Indirect compliments: Complimenting indirectly means inviting the other person through a question to describe what was good about what he or she has done and what has worked well. An example of an indirect compliment is: “Wow, how did you manage to finish that task so quickly?"). You might also call such kinds of questions ‘affirming questions’. It is also possible to include the perspective of other people in indirect compliments. An example may be: “What do your colleagues appreciate in how you work?” An advantage of complimenting through questions is that you activate the other person. Also, there is less chance that he or she will feel embarrassed or will turn down the compliment ("It was nothing special"). Instead, you challenge the other person and make him or her reflect (“Actually, how did I do that.... let's see.....?”).

8. The miracle question: Another solution-focused classic is the miracle question. The miracle question is a sequence of questions which invite the client to vividly describe a day after which the problem has miraculously disappeared. It goes like this: "Suppose our meeting is over, you go home, do whatever you planned to do for the rest of the day. And then, sometime in the evening, you get tired and go to sleep. And in the middle of the night, when you are fast asleep, a miracle happens and all the problems that brought you here today are solved just like that. But since the miracle happened over night nobody is telling you that the miracle happened. When you wake up the next morning, how are you going to start discovering that the miracle happened? ... What else are you going to notice? What else?" The miracle question in fact is a special case of the desired situation question. It often leads to hope, energy and ideas for steps forward.

9. Summarizing in the client’s words: Solution-focused professionals frequently summarize what clients have said while sticking to their choice of words (this is called language matching). Advantages are that the client will feel taken seriously. Also, it helps them and gives them some time to think about what more they should tell. After a summary, it is often not even necessary for the coach to ask a question because clients already know how they would like to proceed. Peter De Jong and Insoo Kim Berg give six important functions of solution-focused summaries: 1) The summary reassures the client that the SF practitioner was listening carefully, 2) The summary reassures the SF practitioner that he has heard the client accurately, 3) By using the client's words in the summary the SF practitioner shows respect for the client's frame of reference, 4) The summary (if done descriptively and in a spirit of openness) has the effect of inviting the client to say more (correct, revise or add), 5) The summary has the effect of putting the client in control of how to describe their experiences, and 6) The summary assists the SF practitioner in formulating the next question based on what the client has just revealed.

10. The what-is-better question: This is also one of the most frequently used solution-focused techniques. The what-is-better-question is mainly asked in follow-up coaching or therapy sessions (second and later sessions) with clients. The advantage of this type of' question is that it helps the client to focus on which progress has been made in the past period and on what has worked well. This usually has a motivating effect, often leads to more awareness of what works and to useful ideas about further steps forward.
Some people who first hear about what-is-better-question are first a bit reluctant about using this slightly strange question. They think it's a bit awkward (”Isn't it more normal to just ask how things are going?") and they fear their client may think the question is strange, too. Well... to be honest, the question is a bit strange indeed. But the thing about is .... it works amazingly well. The value of the answers to the 'What's better?' question is enhanced when you, as a coach, ask probing questions. You keep asking until the situation is described so concretely that is easy to see what happened, what was good about it and how the person has managed to accomplish it. Much more important, however, than that the coach understands this is that the client see this concretely. The questions of the coach are a tool to accomplishing this. The interesting thing with the 'What's better?' question is that you repeat it often ("What else is better?"). Usually you don't just ask it 1, 2, or 3 times, but rather 6, 7, or 8 times. The surprising thing often is that client indeed manage to mention as many examples as that (encouragement by the coach is important of course). Also, coaches are often surprised to find out that sometimes the most interesting examples of what's better are not the first or the second ones that are mentioned. Sometimes, already 6 examples have been mentioned and then, suddenly, the client mentions a very important improvement, also to his or her own surprise (”Gee, I forgot that has happened but it is actually really important."). On a video tape I once saw a client who mentioned something like 35 things that were better. While the conversation proceeded his smile got bigger and bigger.
You may wonder: "But what do you do when the answer is 'Nothing is better!' or 'I have no idea'?" Coaches who want to ask the 'What's better?' question are sometimes worried that their client will answer like that or that they may even say: "What is better? Nothing's better. Everything has gotten worse!” Or that they may be irritated about the 'strangeness' of the question. In answer to this, I like to say two things. One is that although these things may indeed happen, in the majority of the cases they tend not to happen. Most clients do need a few seconds and some encouragement but then, they actually started mentioning improvements.

11. Normalizing: One of the nice things about the solution-focused approach is that it has many subtle and effective techniques. One of them is normalizing. Normalizing is used to depathologize people’s concerns and present them instead as normal life difficulties. It helps people to calm down about their problem. It helps them realize they're not abnormal for having this problem. Other people in their situation might respond the same. This is important, because if they felt angry and they'd also feel their anger was pathological, they'd have two problems, their anger and the fact that they behaved pathological. That their behavior would be pathological would be a surplus problem to the original problem (the thing they were angry about). Normalizing helps to prevent this surplus problem from happening. By saying something like: "Of course, you're angry, I understand. It's normal to be angry right now." You can help people to relax and to move on relatively quickly beyond their anger.

12. The usefulness question: A question which is used a lot in solution-focused coaching is the so-called usefulness question (sometimes referred to as the useful-question). The purpose of this question (of course) is to make conversations as useful as possible for those involved. Solution-focused coaches use usefulness questions at the beginning of conversations, during conversations and at the end of conversations. At the beginning, of conversations questions like these can be used: “How can we make this conversation as useful as possible?”, “What do you want to come out of this conversation?”, and “How would you notice afterwards that this conversation has been worth your time?” During the conversation, questions like these can be used: “So far, has this conversation been useful to you?”, (if yes) “What was useful?”, “How was it useful?”, (if no) “What are your ideas about how we can make the conversation more useful?”, and “How can we make the remaining time as useful as possible?” At the end of the conversation, questions like these can be used: “Has this conversation been useful to you?”, and “How is what we talked about useful to you?”
By asking usefulness questions, it becomes easier for people to focus on what they want to come out of the sessions. By asking the question, they will remember their goals and linking the conversation to these goals. The question has an activating effect. By asking the question people will usually become actively involved in the conversation right away. The interesting thing is that the usefulness question can be applied just as well in one-on-one conversations as in group sessions.

13. Observation suggestions: When clients find it hard to identify examples of earlier successes or exceptions to the problem, observation suggestions can be applied. Here is an example of this intervention may be done: “Could you, between now and our next conversation, pay attention to situations in which things are a bit better? … When you notice that things are better, could pay close attention to what is different in that situation and to what you do different yourself? And could you make a note of what is different and what you do that helps so that we can talk about it, next time we meet?”. The observation task often has a surprisingly strong effect. The question makes them notice more consciously what goes right in their lives. Usually, this helps them become more optimistic and gain more confidence.

14. The perspective change question: A powerful and simple way to help people visualize how their situation will be different once their situation will have become better is the perspective change question. Essentially, this question is: ”How will other people notice things are better?” There are many different ways to phrase the question. Here are some examples: “How would our customers notice that we would have become more customer focused?”, “How will other colleagues notice that the conflict will be solved?”, “How would your manager notice this coaching is no longer necessary?”, and “How would our competitor notice that our company has become more competitive?” The perspective change question helps client to develop a broader view on themselves and their situation and to look more objectively so that they can build clearer goals.
Often, this type of question is also referred to as the relationship question. This name is especially relevant when the perspective of a significant other is used. When clients are asked to imagine how, for example, their partner would notice the difference the question usually strengthens the relationship with that person. By answering the question clients find it easier to view things from the perspective of the other person which helps to appreciate this perspective more. Also, clients come to appreciate the relationship with this person more.
Perspective change questions help clients to view themselves from a third-person perspective. There is some research indicates that doing this has a motivational impact.. When we picture ourselves acting in the third-person, performing the type of behavior we would like to perform, we see ourselves as an observer would. It helps to view ourselves as the kind of person who performs such behavior which increases the likelihood of engaging in that behavior.

15. The coping question: solution-focused professionals use a specific kind of question that works well when people are going through hard times and can barely find the energy to do something about their problems. This type of questions is called ‘the coping question.’. When normal strategies to solve problems don't seem to work anymore you can try this question. An example of a situation in which you can use the coping question is when your client says he or she is now at a zero on the scale (see the scaling question). The basic form of the question is: “How do manage to keep going?” But there are many other ways of phrasing the question. Here are some examples of coping questions:

What keeps you going under such difficult circumstances?
How do you manage to deal with such difficult situations each day?
What helps you to keep going even though things are really hard?
How can you explain to yourself how you have been able to do so well while the circumstances are so hard?
It is admirable how you have been able to keep on going under such difficult circumstances.... how did you do that?
How did you manage to cope before you gave up?

The coping question helps people in difficult situations to find new energy to keep on dealing with their problems. By using the coping question clients are helped to become aware that they in fact are managing, at least to some extent... This helps them to see that they are still able to do some things well and that their energy has not faded completely. By exploring how they do cope they can become more aware of what it is exactly that keeps them going. What is still so worthwhile for them to get out of bed each morning and to face the day? By becoming more aware of this you will see, nine times out of ten, that the motivation and hope of this person will strengthen almost immediately.

16. The continuation question: A solution-focused technique which often works well, both with individual and with organizational change is the continuation question. The question tries to identify that which does not have to change. Here some examples of how it may be phrased: “What happens in your situation that you want to continue to have happen?”, and “What doesn't have to change because it is already going well enough?” By asking this question you make clear that the client (or employee) does not have to change more than necessary and you acknowledge that there are things that are going well. Inviting clients to focus on what does not have to change has the following advantages: 1) they feel taken seriously and appreciated because the coach or therapist implies and acknowledges that there are things that are already going well, 2) after clients have made a list of things that do not have to change they usually find it easier to proceed to focus their attention to things that do need to change, 3) while they focus on what is already going well enough, clients usually get some ideas about what they might do to make progress.

17. The yes-set: The concept ‘yes-set’ refers to a technique with which the professional conducts the conversation in such a way that the client is tempted to say ‘yes’. One way of doing this by summarizing what the clients has said in the words of the client. Another way is to which the client can very easily say ‘yes’. A few examples of such questions are: ”Is it alright if I ask you a question?”, “Would you like your situation to become a bit better?” An effect of the yes-set is that clients become more suggestible and admissible. This helps them to focus more on the questions that are asked and to become imaginative in answering them. Some solution-focused professionals use the yes-set in a reversed way, too. When they notice in themselves a tendency to object to or reject something a client says they restore an openness to what client says by saying ‘yes’, or by thinking ‘yes’.

18. The prediction suggestion: A lesser known intervention in the solution-focused approach is the so-called prediction suggestion. In essence with the prediction task, the coach asks the client: "Each night, before going to bed, predict whether or not you will succeed in ............. (whatever it is the client wants to accomplish) the next day." Prediction suggestions are based on the idea that what you expect to happen is more likely to happen once the process leading up to it is in motion. While making clients set in motion the processes involved in having a better day. No matter what guess the predictor puts down, the idea that clients might have a good day is bound to cross their mind. Of course, having a good day is what they really want due to which a self-fulfilling prophecy might develop and this might prompt "better day behavior" the next day.

19. The overcoming the urge question: In the solution-focused approach it is seen as normal that people who try to change their behavior will sometimes feel the urge to fall back to old, less desired behaviors. Most people who to quit smoking will at some point feel the temptation to light another cigaret. Giving in to this urge can threaten the change process because it can negatively affect clients’ motivation to go on. A good skill to develop in change processes is the skill to overcome the urge to fall back into old behaviors. The way solution-focused practitioners may help their clients to discover and develop this skill is to suggest the following to them: "Pay attention to what you do when you overcome the temptation or urge to fall back". This type of observation task, the so-called ‘overcoming the urge question’, presupposes that clients will indeed be able to overcome their urge, at least in some situations. When they find out how they resist and overcome the temptation they can become more aware of this skill and further develop it.

20. The optimism question: The optimism question helps clients to identify reasons for optimism. Here are some ways of asking this question: "What makes you optimistic?”, “What indications do you have that you will be able to achieve ...?”, and “What small signs do see that indicate you will succeed in ....?”. Even in very difficult circumstances both clients and coaches or therapists are often surprised by the fact that still some reasons for optimism can be identified. When this happens, clients’ hopes are lifted. The optimism question makes use of the phenomenon that, often, what you focus on becomes more important. This is also the case with this question. It makes change easier by strengthening optimism.

21. Mutualizing: The solution-focused approach is often used in situations in which two partners have disagreements (conflict resolution, mediation, marital therapy, etc). One skill is particularly helpful in these kinds of situations in which people may differ in perceptions, interests and goals: mutualizing. Phil Ziegler explains the process of mutualizing as reframing issues or goals in a way that all parties can agree to. He gives an example of a mediation case: "If one parent says: 'I want the child living with me full time because that's what's best for my daughter. And the other says: ''I want our daughter living with me half time and half time with you because that would be best for her.' Then I would say, 'It's pretty clear to me that both of you want to develop a plan that will be best for your daughter--you disagree at this point about what plan would be best but you share the common goal of making the best plan for her. Can we all agree about that?'" Instead of emphasizing the different positions and goals the solution-focused practitioner mutualizes the preferred future.

Improving science

2011-07-01T04:57:00.001-07:00

Science can be defined as the systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the world. Science is one of humanity's greatest inventions which has the potential of improving our lives and our societies. The core of the scientific process consists of scientists making observations, reading scientific literature, formulating questions, testing ideas through systematic studies, and sharing their findings. The system of science contains principles and sets of rules which help make science self-correcting and cumulative. Scientists are required to share not only their findings through publication but also provide detailed descriptions of their studies so that replication of their studies by other scientists becomes possible. A process of peer review functions as a filter to guarantee that only research that meets scientific standards is published in journals. Replication studies make it possible to test findings using the same methods but with different subjects and experimenters.

By building on robust findings and revising or discarding findings that fail to be replicated scientific theories are built over time. Here is a simplified description of the subsequent stages of knowledge development in science. In early stages, scientists observe associations between phenomena. Then, they are able to make predictions. Next, they gain insight in underlying causal mechanisms. Finally, they are able to control phenomena and to use scientific knowledge.

An example of science at its best is the theory of evolution. Roughly 150 years ago, Charles Darwin, after many years of careful observation and thought, produced a theory that still drives the contempory scientific agenda. Darwin's breakthrough insight was that in organisms whose environment changed nonrandomly and whose reproductive success in that environment depended on inherited traits, evolution became inevitable. Today, the theory of evolution has developed into an extremely well-tested macro theory consisting of a diverse set of micro theories which together yield invaluable technologies.

There is a difference between this idealized description of the scientific enterprise on the one hand and scientific practice on the other. While science as an idea is wonderful there are many aspects of scientific practice which require improvement. When we think about refining and improving the scientific process we usually focus on improving the core of the scientific process. For example, we may discuss whether or not the large scale use of significance testing in social science is justified or not. While important, this is not the only area in which improvement may be achieved. The effectiveness and efficiency of the scientific process is also importantly determined by several other factors, somewhat more in the periphery, which are easily overlooked. The scientific process can be seen as a chain of events. Strengthening the weakest links in this chain may yield the greatest improvements. The figure below is a simplified depiction of this 'chain'.

Here are some ideas about how each of these links in this chain affects the overall effectiveness and efficiency of scientific progress and some (sometimes implicit) suggestions for improvement:

Research funding: in order to be able to do research scientists (usually) have to write grants to find financial resources. Decisions about grants for research are not only often made on scientific grounds alone. Three factors threaten scientific impartiality in grant allocation: 1) commercialization of science: an example is how most medical research is now funded by industry; 2) political agendas: political convictions may have an important influence on whether certain scientific research is funded or not (for instance stem cell research); 3) vested interests of conventional scientists: decisions about grants are usually made by well-known scientists who may be wedded to conventional ideas and approaches and may have an interest in these conventional ideas and practices.
Original research: the quality of the methods and techniques used remains an essential determinant of scientific progress. Ongoing discussions about the proper design of studies and about the correct use of (statistical) analyses remain important.
Peer review: in order to be published papers have to pass the process of peer review. While this is intended to provide a guarantee of scientific quality there is certainly room for improvement in peer review practice. Many instances of peer review failure have been identified which may have to do with limited or no access of the reviewers to the data and/or the details of the method or with bias by vested interest of the anonymous reviewers. Open peer review has been suggested as a way to improve the transparency and accuracy of the peer review process.
Replication studies: replication studies play an essential role in the self-correcting nature of science. But in practice scientists are not eager to do replication studies, in particular when they think the results of the study were wrong. Also, journal editors typically prefer to publish groundbreaking new research and are often very reluctant to publish replication studies. Some even have an explicit policy of not publishing replication studies (source). Recently, Daryl Bem reported some very surprising results on so-called precognition. Here is an article about how replication studies were rejected by journals and about some solutions suggested by psychologist Richard Wiseman.
Follow up studies: follow up studies play an important role in the cumulative, progressive character of science. By building on previous research, theories may be tested and refined and, gradually, theories may be developed which are massively supported by evidence. This paper discusses, among other things the critical and perhaps underestimated role that anomalies play in building better theory.
Further dissemination of scientific knowledge: Scientific knowledge may be spread through popularized science books, magazines, websites like Google scholar, Wikipedia and Youtube, television programs, and education. An interesting and useful development is also how some universities have started to create chairs for the public understanding of science (for instance Oxford). There are now also peer reviewed scholar sites (scholarpedia.org). And there are more and more researchers uploading pdf files on their websites. Some universities are very generous in sharing their knowledge, too. Despite all these initiatives, there remains a substantial gap between scientific developments and the public's knowledge and understanding of it. Some worry that the gap growths. Even basic scientific knowlegde is unknown to large proportions of the population of many countries. Some people argue for a free open access to all publicly funded scientific knowledge for everyone.
Science education: education is a specific way of disseminating scientific knowledge and to teach students about scientific methods and making students scientifically literate. Scientific illiteracy of politicians, parents and school managers may pose serious threats to this process. For example, politicians may argue that equal attention should be paid in class to creationism and evolution theory ("teach both sides"), which, wrongly, suggests that there is, among scientists, a controversy about the evidence for evolution (actually, the evidence is overwhelming). Politicians may even go so far as to make libel laws which may practically prevent scientists to criticize claims made by sellers of alternative medicine or other approaches which are unsupported by scientific evidence.
Application of scientific knowledge: the availability and application of scientific knowledge would be facilitated by improving the practices described above. Scientific progress would happen faster and would benefit more people.

The scientific enterprise is extremely important and we should continue to improve scientific practice.

Overdiagnosed: too much diagnosis is turning more and more of us into patients

2011-07-01T04:56:00.001-07:00

The rationale for the increasing emphasis on diagnosis

In Overdiagnosed, H. Gilbert Welch (photo), with Lisa M. Schwartz, and Steven Woloshin, explains how the medical profession has an increasing tendency to make diagnosis which is not good for us. The rationale for more diagnosis seems good. When we diagnose more we are able to detect abnormalities, like cancer, high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, etc., earlier so that we can treat them earlier and prevent serious health problems. An example of this greater emphasis on diagnosis is the prevalence of disease awareness campaigns which encourage people to undergo medical screenings. Another example of increased tendency to diagnose is when doctors have patients tested for things about which they have no complaints.

When are abnormalities dangerous?
Although more diagnosis may sound good, according to the author it is actually, on balance, not when it leads to overdiagnosis. Overdiagnosis is the detection of abnormalities which are harmless. Overdiagnosis is likely to happen when diagnosis is done when there are no symptoms. What is important to know is that many asymptomatic people have abnormalities of some kind which are no threat for their health and which will never become a threat to their health. Some of these unharmful abnormalities may fall into innocent sounding categories like slight overweight, or pain in the knee, but some unharmful abnormalities involve terribly dangerous sounding words like stroke, cancer, high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, etc. While all these dangerous sounding words may involve abnormalities which indeed can kill you, in many cases abnormalities like these won't kill you or even harm you. For instance a study found that 10 percent of healthy participants had had strokes (silent strokes) without them being aware of it. Another example is that a large percentage of adults have some evidence of thyroid cancer. For most of them this will never become dangerous because cancers are often static or progress extremely slowly. Some abnormalities are dangerous, many abnormalities aren't. How does the medical profession decide when abnormalities should be considered pathological?

How lowering cutoffs creates new patients
Medical professionals consider an abnormality pathological when the value they find in a diagnosis is above a certain cutoff score. This cutoff score is not something which is purely scientifically established. The distinction between abnormal and normal can be rather arbitrary. The author explains that cutoffs are defined by panels of physicians and they involve not only scientific judgments but also personal values and opinions and financial interests. Cutoffs are also not fixed. They frequently change over time. The direction of this change has been to set cutoffs lower and lower. Due to this, the threshold to make a diagnosis has fallen and the number of individuals who are labeled sick has increased, often dramatically. The picture below (source) illustrates this with the -arbitrary- example of cholesterol level cutoffs.

As the picture shows, lowering the cutoff only slightly, creates a great number of new 'patients'.

What forces drive the lowering of cutoffs?
The author mentions at least three forces driving the lowering of cutoffs. First, there is the true belief by many that early detection is a good thing because it can prevent worse. Second, new technology enables medical professionals to screen more easily, cheaper and more refined. Third, finding more abnormalities and defining these abnormalities more and more as pathological enlarges the medical market which leads to financial benefits. The author explains that this third force is a dangerous one. He says the commercialization of medicine is a corrupting force. It may have been fine if medical care would have been a free market but it is nowhere close to being a free market. Sellers in the medical care market create demand for their wares by being in the position to decide whether or not you need to consume their products. Turning more people into patients is (like) expanding the market, something of which the whole medical-industrial complex financially benefits. Medical research is also negatively affected by commercialization. In order to do research researchers have to apply for grant money. Decisions about grants for research are not only often made by the commercial companies like the pharmaceutical industry (most medical research is now funded by industry) but also by other researchers who are wedded to conventional ideas and approaches. Sympathetic sounding disease awareness campaigns also increasingly involve paid advertising.

What is the problem with more diagnosis and lower diagnosis thresholds?
More diagnosis and lower thresholds lead to more treatments. A cycle of seeing more, finding more, and doing more emerges. People with small abnormalities will be treated more than was the case before. There are two problems with this. First, people with milder abnormalities stand to benefit less from treatment than those with severe abnormalities. A few may be helped but many will be overdiagnosed and some of them will be harmed and no one knows who. The following picture (source) shows the relationship between treatment benefit and level of abnormality.

Second, being diagnosed and being treated has some serious disadvantages. There are potential psychological (for example viewing oneself as a patient), practical (for example not being admitted to insurance), financial (for example spending more on healthcare) and medical harms (for example side effects, sometimes very serious, even life threatening) of being diagnosed and treated. When patients have seriously threatening abnormalities there is often little that can be done about these harms. In those cases treatment is necessary and its benefits outweigh the negative effects of being diagnosed and treated. But for patient with mild abnormalities chances are that negative effects of being diagnosed and treated outweigh its medical benefits.

If it ain't broken ...
This book is not a criticism against conventional health care. It does not advocate alternative healthcare. It is also not against diagnosis and treatment. On the contrary, the author is all for conventional healthcare and urges people with symptoms to talk to their doctor. It is diagnosis and treatment in the absense of symptoms the author warns against. Often, it is wise to remember: if it ain't broken, don't fix it.

Interview with Wally Gingerich

2010-09-28T07:39:00.000-07:00

By Coert Visser

Wallace Gingerich is Professor Emeritus of Social Work at the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio. As a core member of the Brief Family Therapy Center in Milwaukee (BFTC), Wisconsin, in the 1980s, he has been an important contributor to the development of the solution-focused approach. In this interview, he looks back on how and why he joined BFCT and on how the solution-focused approach emerged in the next few years after he joined. Also, he talks about the BRIEFER project and about a soon to be published review of the research on the effectiveness of the solution-focused approach. Finally, he reflects on the ways the solution-focused approach may further develop.

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Whistling Vivaldi And Other Clues to How Stereotypes Affect Us (Book Review)

2010-05-14T06:12:00.000-07:00

BOOK REVIEW: Steele, C.M. (2010). Whistling Vivaldi: And Other Clues to How Stereotypes Affect Us (Issues of Our Time). New York, W.W. Norton & Company.

By Coert Visser

This review was first published on Positive Psychology News Daily

This book by social psychologist and Columbia University provost, Claude Steele, is a splendid example of how psychologists can make valuable contributions to society. In the book, Steele writes about the work he and his colleagues have done on a phenomenon called stereotype threat, the tendency to expect, perceive, and be influenced by negative stereotypes about one’s social category, such as one’s age, sex, sexual orientation, ethnicity, profession, nationality, political affiliation, mental health status, and so on.

Experiments demonstrating the impact of stereotype threat

When trying to understand certain performance gaps between groups, Steele and his colleagues did not focus on internal psychological factors.. Instead, they tried to understand the possible causal role of identity contingencies, the things you have to deal with in a situation because you have a given social identity. Over the years they carried out a series of creative experiments* in which there was a control condition in which a task was given under normal life conditions. In the experimental condition, the identity contingency was either cleverly removed or it was deliberately induced. Here are three examples of experiments to clarify how they worked.

Experiment 1: Steele and Aronson (1995)

In this experiment the researchers had African American and white college students take a very challenging standardized test. In the control condition, the test was presented as these tests are always presented – as a measure of intellectual ability. This condition contained the stereotype that African Americans would be less intelligent. In the experimental condition the test was presented in a non-evaluative way. The test takers were told that the researchers were not interested in measuring their ability with the test but that they just wanted to use the test to examine the psychology of verbal problem solving. In the control condition, the African American test takers, on average, scored much lower than the white test takers. For the white test takers there was no difference in their scores between the control condition and the experimental condition. For the African American test takers there was a big difference between the control condition and the experimental condition. They solved about twice as many problems on the test in the experimental condition. Moreover, there was no difference between the performance of the black test takers and the white test takers.

Experiment 2: Aronson, Lustina, Good, Keough, Steele & Brown (1999)

In this experiment, the researchers asked highly competent white males to take a difficult math test. In the control condition the test was taken normally. In the experimental condition, the researchers told the test takers that one of their reasons for doing the research was to understand why Asians seemed to perform better on these tests. Thus, they artificially created a stereotype threat. In the experimental condition, the test takers solved significantly fewer of the problems on the test and felt less confident about their performance.

Experiment 3: Shih, Pittinsky & Ambady (1999)

In this experiment, a difficult math test was given to Asian women under three conditions. In condition one, they were subtly reminded of their Asian identity, in condition 2 they were subtly reminded of their female identity. In the control condition they were not reminded of their identity. The women reminded of their Asianness performed better than the control group, whereas those reminded of their female identity performed worse than the control group.

How does stereotype threat harm performance?

Today, research on stereotype threat effects is done throughout the world by many researchers. Much insight has been gained into what it is and how it works. Briefly, you know your group identity and you know how society views it. You are aware that you are doing a task for which that view is relevant. You know, at some level, that you are in a predicament: your performance could confirm a bad view of your group and of yourself as a member of that group. You may not consciously feel anxious but your blood pressure rises and you begin to sweat. Your thinking changes. Your mind starts to race: you become vigilant to all things relevant to the threat and to what your chances of avoiding it are. The book title comes from an observed behavior: an African American whistling Vivaldi to make clear that certain stereotypes attached to the group don’t apply. You get some self-doubts and start to worry about how warranted the stereotype may be. You start to constantly monitor how well you are doing. You try hard to suppress threatening thoughts about not doing well or about the negative consequences of possibly failing. While you are having all of these thoughts you are distracted from the task at hand and your concentration and working memory suffer.

Does it always happen? No. There is only one prerequisite for stereotype threat to happen: the person in question must care about the performance in question. The fear of confirming the negative stereotype then becomes upsetting enough to interfere with performance. It is now known that stereotype has the strongest negative impact when people are highly motivated and performing at the frontier of their skills.

Solutions: bridging performance gaps through small interventions

Can something be done about it? Yes. The promising news is that there are some rather small interventions which can help a lot. Experiments have shown that subtly removing or preventing stereotype threats can completely or largely eliminate performance gaps between stereotyped groups and non-stereotyped groups.

Examples of helpful interventions are:

Make it clear in the way you give critical feedback that you use high standards and let the person know that you expect him or her to be able to eventually succeed.
Improve the number of people from the social category in the setting so that a critical mass is reached.
Make it clear that you value diversity.
Foster inter-group conversations and frame these as a learning experience.
Allow the stereotyped individuals to use self-affirmations.
Help the stereotyped individuals to develop a narrative about the setting that explains their frustrations while projecting positive engagement and success in the setting.

Conclusion

The tone of the book is informal, friendly, and personal, and the content is profound. The topic is highly relevant both to the development of social psychology and to the development of our educational systems and societies at large. Of course it also can inspire positive psychology research: how have certain individuals managed to overcome stereotype threat, how do certain organizations manage to bridge performance gaps, how do societies manage to do the same?

References

Steele, C.M. (2010). Whistling Vivaldi: And Other Clues to How Stereotypes Affect Us (Issues of Our Time). New York, W.W. Norton & Company.
Steele, C.M. & Aronson, J. (1995). Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of African Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69, 797-811

* I am especially in awe of the work Steele has done in collaboration with Joshua Aronson, who is now an eminent professor at New York University.

Self-Determination Theory Meets Solution-Focused Change: Autonomy, Competence and Relatedness Support in Action

2010-04-01T23:17:00.000-07:00

By Coert Visser

This article looks at the Solution-Focused approach (SF) through a Self-Determination Theory (SDT) lens. SDT is an influential macro theory of human motivation which has been applied to many life domains, including sports, education, psychotherapy and work. The theory focuses mainly on the benefits of self-determined behaviour and the conditions that promote it. Its relevance for helping professionals such as psychotherapists and counsellors has been recognized by previous authors. A counselling approach which has been associated with SDT is motivational interviewing (MI). This approach has some important similarities to SF but there are also some key differences. This article focuses on the relevance of SDT for SF and vice versa. Although the literature on SF makes only a few mentions of SDT, SF fits well with its main propositions and findings. The strategies, principles and interventions of SF have the effect of supporting the perception of autonomy, competence and relatedness of clients which, according to SDT, are keys to enhance self-determination. It is argued that the SDT framework and body of research are relevant for SF. They help to understand better how SF works and may be used to further refine and develop the approach. In the same way, SDT theorists and practitioners may benefit from learning about the specific and often subtle ways in which SF supports clients’ autonomy.

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How Equality is Driving Thriving

2010-02-28T11:32:00.000-08:00

The Relationship between Equality and Thriving

Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, two English epidemiologists, have written The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger, a provocative book on how high levels of inequality in societies in harmful for everyone within them. Their research shows that while economic policies in developed countries stress the importance of economic growth, economic growth is mainly an important determinant of the degree to which societies thrive. After a certain point the contribution of further economic growth begins to create only diminishing marginal returns: the relationship between economic growth and certain objectively measurable outcomes, like life expectancy, level off (see figure 1).

Source: Wilkinson & Pickett, The Spirit Level (2009)

In developed countries, national income per person and economic growth are not the most important predictors of societal thriving but the level of equality. Wilkinson and Pickett’s research shows that many health-related and social problems are associated with the level of inequality of society. Here is how they did their research. They gathered data from 23 of the richest countries in the world from the World Bank and gathered internationally comparable data on the following health and social problems: level of trust, mental illness (including drug and alcohol addiction), life expectancy and infant mortality, obesity, children’s educational performance, teenage births, homicides, imprisonment rates, and social mobility. Here is an example of a graph, showing how an index of these measures is related to income inequality.

Source: Wilkinson & Pickett, The Spirit Level (2009)

To test and cross-validate their findings, the researchers tested these findings in a new data sample which consisted of the 50 American states. This research confirmed their findings across nations which adds to the credibility of the claims. Below is a graph showing how the index of health and social problems is related to income inequality in US States.

Source: Wilkinson & Pickett, The Spirit Level (2009)

The book contains many more graphs showing specific relationships between income inequality and separate measures of societal functioning (see these slides).

Why is this relevant for positive psychology?

Positive psychologists have done much research into how money is associated with happiness and some of their findings, at first glance, seem to be at odds with Wilkinson and Pickett’s findings. Berg and Veenhoven (2010), for instance, found little relationship between income inequality and average happiness in nations. It seems paradoxical that income equality would be related to many objectively measurable problems but hardly at all with happiness. How can one be equally happy when objectively things are worse? What is going on here?

This question takes us back to the original formulation of positive psychology’s mission. Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (2000) wrote: “We believe that a psychology of positive human functioning will arise that achieves a scientific understanding and effective interventions to build thriving in individuals, families, and communities.” This wonderful definition allows for research to identify any type of determinant of thriving to be found, like personal, motivational, habitual, or situational.

In practice, however, positive psychology is usually more narrowly operationalized. For instance, on the Wikipedia page of February 15, 2010, it is defined as follows: “Positive psychology is a recent branch of psychology that studies the strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive”. This definition mentions only strengths and virtues as candidates for causal factors of thriving and it makes no mention at all of contextual, situational or structural factors affecting thriving.

A broader perspective on thriving and its determinants

As psychologists, we have known for a long time how important situational factors are in influencing our perceptions, beliefs, behaviors, feelings, and performance. Wilkinson and Pickett’s research is another example of this and it fits splendidly within the original definition of positive psychology in the sense that it contributes to the scientific understanding of how communities and its members thrive.

Also, it is an illustration of the limitations of using subjective criterion measures in research. Apparently, we can report well-being while objectively things are not going too well, both on an individual level and on a society level. We should not equate thriving or flourishing with subjective well-being. On this Barbara Fredrickson, author of Positivity, writes: “Flourishing goes beyond happiness, or satisfaction with life. True, people who flourish are happy. But that's not the half of it. Beyond feeling good, they're also doing good -adding value to the world. People who flourish are highly engaged with their families, work, and communities. They're driven by a sense of purpose: they know why they get up in the morning.’

For positive psychology to thrive, it needs to move beyond a somewhat narrow focus on happiness and strengths and take into account a broader perspective on thriving and its determinants.

References

Berg, M. & Veenhoven, R. (2010). Income inequality and happiness in 119 nations. In search for an optimum that does not appear to exist. In: BentGreve (Ed.) ‘Social Policy and Happiness in Europe’, Edgar Elgar (in press)
Fredrickson, B. L. (2009). Positivity. Groundbreaking Research Reveals How to Embrace the Hidden Strength of Positive Emotions, Overcome Negativity, and Thrive. New York: Crown Publishers.
Pickett, K. (2010). Why Inequality is bad for your health. http://bigthink.com/ideas/18463
Seligman, M.E.P., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2000). Positive Psychology. An Introduction. American Psychologist. Vol 55. No. 1. 5 14
Wilkinson, R. & Pickett, K. (2009). The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger. New York, Bloomsbury Press.

Supporting Clients’ Solution Building Process by Subtly Eliciting Positive Behaviour Descriptions and Expectations of Beneficial Change

2009-12-16T14:50:00.001-08:00

Visser, C.F. & Schlundt Bodien, G. (2009). Supporting Clients’ Solution Building Process by Subtly Eliciting Positive Behaviour Descriptions and Expectations of Beneficial Change. InterAction I (2), 9-25

SF co-developer Steve de Shazer wrote, in his classic publications Keys to Solution in Brief Therapy (1985) and Clues: Investigating Solutions in Brief Therapy (1988), that SF practitioners should help their clients create an expectation of beneficial change by getting a description of what they would do differently once the problem was solved. Also, he claimed subtle and implicit interventions by the SF practitioner would work best. At the time, de Shazer did not support these claims with empirical evidence. This article provides evidence for each of the assertions made by de Shazer. Only part of the evidence presented here was already available at the time of de Shazer’s writing. Evidence is discussed from diverse lines of research like Rosenthal’s Pygmalion studies, Dweck’s research on self-theories, Fredrickson’s broaden-and-build theory, research on Winograd’s prospective memory, Jeannerod’s research on the perception-action link, Wilson’s research on brief attributional interventions, research on Brehm’s reactance theory, and Bargh’s research on priming. The article closes with some reflections on what these research findings imply for SF theory and practice.

Full article: Supporting Clients’ Solution Building Process by Subtly Eliciting Positive Behaviour Descriptions and Expectations of Beneficial Change

Interview with Keith Stanovich

2009-11-23T10:45:00.000-08:00

By Coert Visser

Dr. Keith Stanovich, Professor of Human Development and Applied Psychology of the University of Toronto, is a leading expert on the psychology of reading and on rationality. His latest book, What Intelligence Tests Miss: The Psychology of Rational Thought, shows that IQ tests are very incomplete measures of cognitive functioning. These tests fail to assess rational thinking styles and skills which are nevertheless crucial to real-world behavior. In this interview with Keith Stanovich he explains the difference between IQ and rationality and why rationality is so important. Also he shares his views on how rationality can be enhanced.

In your book, you say that IQ tests are incomplete measures of cognitive functioning. Could you explain that?

I start out my book by noting the irony that in 2002, cognitive scientist Daniel Kahneman of Princeton University won the Nobel Prize in Economics for work on how humans make choices and assess probabilities—in short, for work on human rationality. Being rational means adopting appropriate goals, taking the appropriate action given one’s goals and beliefs, and holding beliefs that are commensurate with available evidence—it means achieving one’s life goals using the best means possible. To violate the thinking rules examined by Kahneman and Tversky thus has the practical consequence that we are less satisfied with our lives than we might be. Research conducted in my own laboratory has indicated that there are systematic individual differences in the judgment and decision making skills studied by Kahneman and Tversky.

It is a profound historical irony of the behavioral sciences that the Nobel Prize was awarded for studies of cognitive characteristics that are entirely missing from the most well-known mental assessment device in the behavioral sciences—the intelligence test, and its many proxies, such as the SAT. It is ironic because most laypeople are prone to think that IQ tests are tests of, to put it colloquially, good thinking. Scientists and laypeople alike would tend to agree that “good thinking” encompasses good judgment and decision making—the type of thinking that helps us achieve our goals. In fact, the type of “good thinking” that Kahneman and Tversky studied was deemed so important that research on it was awarded the Nobel Prize. Yet assessments of such good thinking—rational thinking—are nowhere to be found on IQ tests. Intelligence tests measure important things, but not these—they do not assess the extent of rational thought. This might not be such an omission if it were the case that intelligence was a strong predictor of rational thinking. However, my research group has found just the opposite—that it is a mild predictor at best and that some rational thinking skills are totally dissociated from intelligence.

You write about three types of thinking processes, the autonomous, the algorithmic and the reflective mind. Could you briefly explain these and explain how they are related to intelligence and rationality?

In 1996, philosopher Daniel Dennett wrote a book about how aspects of the human mind were like the minds of other animals and how other aspects were not. He titled the book Kinds of Minds to suggest that within the brain of humans are control systems of very different types—different kinds of minds. In the spirit of Dennett’s book, I termed the part of the mind that carries out Type 1 processing the autonomous mind. The difference between the algorithmic mind and the reflective mind is captured in another well established distinction in the measurement of individual differences—the distinction between cognitive ability and thinking dispositions. The algorithmic mind is indexed by measures of computational power like fluid g in psychometric theory. The reflective mind is indexed by individual differences in thinking disposition measures.

The term mindware was coined by psychologist David Perkins to refer to the rules, knowledge, procedures, and strategies that a person can retrieve from memory in order to aid decision making and problem solving. Perkins uses the term to stress the analogy to software in the brain/computer analogy. Each of the levels in the tripartite model of mind has to access knowledge to carry out its operations. The reflective mind not only accesses general knowledge structures but, importantly, accesses the person’s opinions, beliefs, and reflectively acquired goal structure. The algorithmic mind accesses micro-strategies for cognitive operations and production system rules for sequencing behaviors and thoughts. Finally, the autonomous mind accesses not only evolutionarily-compiled encapsulated knowledge bases, but also retrieves information that has become tightly compiled and available to the autonomous mind due to overlearning and practice.

Rationality requires three different classes of mental characteristic. First, algorithmic-level cognitive capacity is needed in order that autonomous-system override and simulation activities can be sustained. Second, the reflective mind must be characterized by the tendency to initiate the override of suboptimal responses generated by the autonomous mind and to initiate simulation activities that will result in a better response. Finally, the mindware that allows the computation of rational responses needs to be available and accessible during simulation activities. Intelligence tests assess only the first of these three characteristics that determine rational thought and action. As measures of rational thinking, they are radically incomplete.

That society, educators, psychologists, and personnel managers put so much emphasis on intelligence seems strange and unjustified given that intelligence tests cover only one of these three important mental processes. Could you say something about how individuals, organizations and, perhaps, society as a whole, might benefit from focusing more on raising rational thinking skills?

The lavish attention devoted to intelligence, raising it, praising it, worrying when it is low, etc., seems wasteful in light of the fact that we choose to virtually ignore another set of mental skills with just as much social consequence—rational thinking mindware and procedures. Popular books tell parents how to raise more intelligent children, educational psychology textbooks discuss the raising of students’ intelligence, and we feel reassured when hearing that a particular disability does not impair intelligence. There is no corresponding concern on the part of parents that their children grow into rational beings, no corresponding concern on the part of schools that their students reason judiciously, and no corresponding recognition that intelligence is useless to a child unable to adapt to the world.

I simply do not think that society has weighed the consequences of its failure to focus on irrationality as a real social problem. These skills and dispositions profoundly affect the world in which we live. Because of inadequately developed rational thinking abilities—because of the processing biases and mindware problems discussed in my book—physicians choose less effective medical treatments; people fail to accurately assess risks in their environment; information is misused in legal proceedings; millions of dollars are spent on unneeded projects by government and private industry; parents fail to vaccinate their children; unnecessary surgery is performed; animals are hunted to extinction; billions of dollars are wasted on quack medical remedies; and costly financial misjudgments are made. Distorted processes of belief formation are also implicated in various forms of ethnocentric, racist, sexist, and homophobic hatred.

It is thus clear that widespread societal effects result from inadequately developed rational thinking dispositions and knowledge. In the modern world, the impact of localized irrational thoughts and decisions can be propagated and magnified through globalized information technologies, thus affecting large numbers of people. That is, you may be affected by the irrational thinking of others even if you do not take irrational actions yourself. This is why, for example, the spread of pseudoscientific beliefs is everyone’s concern. For example, police departments hire psychics to help with investigations even though research has shown that their use is not efficacious. Jurors have been caught making their decisions based on astrology. Major banks and several Fortune 500 companies employ graphologists for personnel decisions even though voluminous evidence indicates that graphology is useless for this purpose.

Unfortunately, these examples are not rare. We are all affected in numerous ways when such contaminated mindware permeates society—even if we avoid this contaminated mindware ourselves. Pseudosciences such as astrology are now large industries, involving newspaper columns, radio shows, book publishing, the Internet, magazine articles, and other means of dissemination. The House of Representatives Select Committee on Aging has estimated that the amount wasted on medical quackery nationally reaches into the billions. Physicians are increasingly concerned about the spread of medical quackery on the Internet and its real health costs.

It seems that sometimes high rationality can irritate some people. For instance, you can sometimes here people saying things like: "don't be so rational!" Do you think there can be such a thing as being too rational?

Under a proper definition of rationality, one consistent with modern cognitive science, no. It certainly is possible for a person to be “too logical” but being logical is not synonymous with being rational. Psychologists study rationality because it is one of the most important human values. It is important for a person’s happiness and well-being that they think and act rationally. The high status accorded rationality in my writings may seem at odds with other characterizations that deem rationality either trivial -little more than the ability to solve textbook-type logic problems- or in fact antithetical to human fulfillment -as an impairment to an enjoyable emotional life, for instance. These ideas about rationality derive from a restricted and mistaken view of rational thought—one not in accord with the study of rationality in modern cognitive science.

Dictionary definitions of rationality tend to be rather lame and unspecific (“the state or quality of being in accord with reason”), and some critics who wish to downplay the importance of rationality have promulgated a caricature of rationality that involves restricting its definition to the ability to do the syllogistic reasoning problems that are encountered in Philosophy 101. The meaning of rationality in modern cognitive science is, in contrast, much more robust and important. Cognitive scientists recognize two types of rationality: instrumental and epistemic. The simplest definition of instrumental rationality, the one that emphasizes most that it is grounded in the practical world, is: Behaving in the world so that you get exactly what you most want, given the resources (physical and mental) available to you. The other aspect of rationality studied by cognitive scientists is epistemic rationality. This aspect of rationality concerns how well beliefs map onto the actual structure of the world. The two types of rationality are related. In order to take actions that fulfill our goals, we need to base those actions on beliefs that are properly calibrated to the world.

Although many people feel (mistakenly or not) that they could do without the ability to solve textbook logic problems (which is why the caricatured view of rationality works to undercut its status), virtually no person wishes to eschew epistemic rationality and instrumental rationality, properly defined. Virtually all people want their beliefs to be in some correspondence with reality, and they also want to act to maximize the achievement of their goals. Psychologist Ken Manktelow, in his book Psychology of Reasoning, has emphasized the practicality of both types of rationality by noting that they concern two critical things: What is true and what to do. Epistemic rationality is about what is true and instrumental rationality is about what to do.

Nothing could be more practical or useful for a person’s life than the thinking processes that help them find out what is true and what is best to do. This stands in marked contrast to some restricted views of what rationality is (for example, the rationality=logic view that I mentioned above). Being rational (in the sense studied by cognitive scientists) is NOT just being logical. Instead, logic (and all other cognitive tools) must prove its worth. It must show that it helps us get at what is true or helps us to figure out what it is best to do. My philosophy echoes that of Jonathan Baron, in his book Thinking and Deciding (4th Edition), when he argues that “the best kind of thinking, which we shall call rational thinking, is whatever kind of thinking best helps people achieve their goals. If it should turn out that following the rules of formal logic leads to eternal happiness, then it is rational thinking to follow the laws of logic, assuming that we all want eternal happiness. If it should turn out, on the other hand, that carefully violating the laws of logic at every turn leads to eternal happiness, then it is these violations that we shall call rational” (p. 61).

A similar admonition applies when we think about the relation between emotion and rationality. In folk psychology, emotion is seen as antithetical to rationality. The absence of emotion is seen as purifying thinking into purely rational form. This idea is not consistent with definition of rationality that I (and most other cognitive scientists) adopt. Instrumental rationality is behavior consistent with maximizing goal satisfaction, not a particular psychological process. It is perfectly possible for the emotions to facilitate instrumental rationality as well as to impede it. In fact, conceptions of emotions in cognitive science stress the adaptive regulatory powers of the emotions. Emotions often get us “in the right ballpark” of the correct response. If more accuracy than that is required, then a more precise type of analytic cognition will be required. Of course, we can rely too much on the emotions. We can base responses on a “ballpark” solution in situations that really require a more precise type of analytic thought. More often than not, however, processes of emotional regulation facilitate rational thought and action.

Writer Malcolm Gladwell, in his bestselling book Blink, adopts the folk psychological view of the relation between emotion and rationality that is at odds with the way those concepts are discussed in cognitive science. Gladwell discusses the famous cases of cognitive neuroscientist Antonio Damasio where damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex caused nonfunctional behavior without impairing intelligence. Gladwell argues that “people with damage to their ventromedial area are perfectly rational. They can be highly intelligent and functional, but they lack judgment” (2005, p. 59). But this is not the right way to describe these cases. In my view, someone who lacks judgment cannot be rational.

In the book, you explain the lack of rationality is associated with three things: 1) an overreliance on the autonomous mind, relying on unconscious heuristics where deliberate thinking would have been asked for, 2) a mindware gap, lack of rational tools, procedures, knowledge, strategies, and 3) being infected with contaminated mindware, which refers to beliefs, rules, strategies, etc that are not grounded in evidence but which are potentially harmful and yet hard to get rid of, like a computer virus. Now, I can imagine that bridging the mindware gap can be accomplished largely by education. The other two seem a bit harder to me. Could you share some ideas about what might help to prevent an overreliance on the autonomous mind and about how to fight contaminated mindware?

You are correct that irrationality caused by mindware gaps is most easily remediable, as it is entirely due to missing strategies and declarative knowledge that can be taught (your category #2 above). But keep in mind that often category #1 (overriding the tendencies of the autonomous mind) is closely linked because override is most often done with learned mindware, and sometimes override fails because of inadequately instantiated mindware. In such a case, inadequately learned mindware should really be considered the source of the problem (the line between the two is continuous—As the rule is less and less well instantiated, at some point it is so poorly compiled that it is not a candidate to override the Type 1 response and thus the processing error becomes a mindware gap).

Other categories of cognitive failure are harder to classify in terms of whether they are more dispositional (category #1) or knowledge-like (category #2). For example, disjunctive reasoning is the tendency to consider all possible states of the world when deciding among options or when choosing a problem solution in a reasoning task. It is a rational thinking strategy with a high degree of generality. People make many suboptimal decisions because of the failure to flesh out all the possible options in a situation, yet the disjunctive mental tendency is not computationally expensive. This is consistent with the finding that there are not strong intelligence-related limitations on the ability to think disjunctively and with evidence indicating that disjunctive reasoning is a rational thinking strategy that can be taught.

The tendency to consider alternative hypotheses is, like disjunctive reasoning, strategic mindware of great generality. Also, it can be implemented in very simple ways. Many studies have attempted to teach the technical issue of thinking of P(D/~H) [the probability of the observed data given the alternative hypothesis] or thinking of the alternative hypothesis by instructing people in a simple habit. People are given extensive practice at saying to themselves the phrase “think of the opposite” in relevant situations. This strategic mindware does not stress computational capacity and thus is probably easily learnable by many individuals. Several studies have shown that practice at the simple strategy of triggering the thought “think of the opposite” can help to prevent a host of the thinking errors studied in the heuristics and biases literature, including but not limited to: anchoring biases, overconfidence effects, hindsight bias, confirmation bias, and self serving biases.

Various aspects of probabilistic thinking represent mindware of great generality and potency. However, as any person who has ever taught a statistics course can attest (your present author included), some of these insights are counterintuitive and unnatural for people—particularly in their application. There is nevertheless still some evidence that they are indeed teachable—albeit with somewhat more effort and difficulty than strategies such as disjunctive reasoning or considering alternative hypotheses. Aspects of scientific thinking necessary to infer a causal relationship are also definitely teachable. Other strategies of great generality may be easier to learn—particularly by those of lower intelligence. For example, psychologist Peter Gollwitzer has discussed an action strategy of extremely wide generality—the use of implementation intentions. An implementation intention is formed when the individual marks the cue-action sequence with the conscious, verbal declaration: “when X occurs, I will do Y”. Finally, research has shown that an even more minimalist cognitive strategy of forming mental goals (whether or not they have implementation intentions) can be efficacious. For example, people perform better in a task when they are told to form a mental goal (“set a specific, challenging goal for yourself”) for their performance as opposed to being given the generic motivational instructions (“do your best”).

We are often making choices that reduce our happiness because we find it hard to predict what will make us happy. For example, people often underestimate how quickly they will adapt to both fortunate and unfortunate events. Our imaginations fail at projecting the future. Psychologist Dan Gilbert cites evidence indicating that a remediating strategy in such situations might be to use a surrogate—someone who is presently undergoing the event whose happiness (or unhappiness) you are trying to simulate. For example, if you are wondering how you will react to “empty nest” syndrome, ask someone who has just had their last child leave for college rather than trying to imagine yourself in that situation. If you want to know how you will feel if your team is knocked out in the first round of the tournament, ask someone whose team has just been knocked out rather than trying to imagine it yourself. People tend not to want to use this mechanism because they think that their own uniqueness makes their guesses from introspection more accurate than the actual experiences of the people undergoing the event. People are simply skeptical about whether other people’s experiences apply to them. This is a form of egocentrism akin to the myside processing. Gilbert captures the irony of people’s reluctance to adopt the surrogate strategy by telling his readers: “If you are like most people, then like most people, you don’t know you’re like most people” (p. 229, 2006)

Much of the strategic mindware discussed so far represents learnable strategies in the domain of instrumental rationality (achieving one’s goals). Epistemic rationality (having beliefs well calibrated to the world) is often disrupted by contaminated mindware. However, even here, there are teachable macro-strategies that can reduce the probability of acquiring mindware harmful that is to its host. For example, the principle of falsifiability provides a wonderful inoculation against many kinds of nonfunctional beliefs. It is a tool of immense generality. It is taught in low-level methodology and philosophy of science courses, but could be taught much more broadly than this.

Many pseudoscientific beliefs represent the presence of contaminated mindware. The critical thinking skills that help individuals to recognize pseudoscientific belief systems can be taught in high-school courses. Finally, I think that the language of memetic science itself is therapeutic—a learnable mental tool that can help us become more conscious of the possibility that we are hosting contaminated mindware. One way that the meme concept will aid in cognitive self-improvement is that by emphasizing the epidemiology of belief it will indirectly suggest to many (for whom it will be a new insight) the contingency of belief. By providing a common term for all cultural units, memetic science provides a neutral context for evaluating whether any belief serves our interests as humans. The very concept of the meme will suggest to more and more people that they need to engage in mindware examination.

I recently heard someone say: "I'm just a simple man doing a simple job. What's the harm in me being not so rational?" This made me wonder, is there anything known about what characteristics of a task, role or context determine the criticality of rationality? How can we know when rationality is critical and when it is a bit less important or even completely unimportant?

Your question relates to an issue I have written about in my book The Robot’s Rebellion. The simple man with the simple job might be protected from his irrationality by living in a rational cultural, in which he is, in effect, a cultural freeloader. Cultural diffusion that allows knowledge to be shared short-circuits the need for separate individual discovery. In fact, most of us are cultural freeloaders--adding nothing to the collective knowledge or rationality of humanity. Instead, we benefit every day from the knowledge and rational strategies invented by others.

The development of probability theory, concepts of empiricism, mathematics, scientific inference, and logic throughout the centuries have provided humans with conceptual tools to aid in the formation and revision of belief and in their reasoning about action. A college sophomore with introductory statistics under his or her belt could, if time-transported to the Europe of a couple of centuries ago, become rich "beyond the dreams of avarice" by frequenting the gaming tables or by becoming involved in insurance or lotteries. The cultural evolution of rational standards is apt to occur markedly faster than human evolution. In part this cultural evolution creates the conditions whereby instrumental rationality separates from genetic optimization. As we add to the tools of rational thought, we add to the software that the analytic system can run to achieve long-leash goals that optimize actions for the individual. Learning a tool of rational thinking can quickly change behavior and reasoning in useful ways--as when a university student reads the editorial page with new reflectiveness after having just learned the rules of logic. Evolutionary change is glacial by comparison.

Thus, in an astonishingly short time by evolutionary standards, humans can learn and disseminate--through education and other forms of cultural transmission--modes of thinking that can trump genetically optimized modules in our brains that have been driving our behavior for eons. Because new discoveries by innovators can be conveyed linguistically, the general populace needs only the capability to understand the new cognitive tools--not to independently discover the new tools themselves.

Cultural increases in rationality itself might likewise be sustained through analogous mechanisms of cumulative ratcheting. That is, cultural institutions might well arise that take advantage of the tools of rational thought, and these cultural institutions might enforce rules whereby people accrue the benefits of the tools of rationality without actually internalizing the rational tools. In short, people just learn to imitate others in certain situations or “follow the rules” of rationality in order to accrue some societal benefits, while not actually becoming more rational themselves.

Cultural institutions themselves may achieve rationality at an organizational level without this entailing that the individual people within the organization are themselves actually running the tools of rational thought on their serial mental simulators.

Could you tell me about some of the questions that currently fascinate you? What are some of the research questions you would like to explore in the near future?

I am constantly asked about the possibility of a standardized rational thinking test. I respond that there is no conceptual or empirical impediment to such an endeavor—just the will, money, and time. I have begun, in ongoing writings, to sketch out a framework for the assessment of rational thought.

***

Further reading

What Intelligence Tests Miss: The Psychology of Rational Thought

Stanovich, K. E. (2009, Nov/Dec). The thinking that IQ tests miss. Scientific American Mind, 20(6), 34-39. Stanovich_IQ-Tests-Miss_SAM09.pdf

Stanovich, K. E. (2009). Distinguishing the reflective, algorithmic, and autonomous minds: Is it time for a tri-process theory? In J. Evans & K. Frankish (Eds.), In two minds: Dual processes and beyond (pp. 55-88). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stanovich_Two_Minds.pdf

Stanovich, K. E. (2009). Rationality versus intelligence. Project Syndicate. link

Stanovich, K. E, & West. R. F. (2008). On the relative independence of thinking biases and cognitive ability.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94, 672-695. JPSP08.pdf

The Thinktank That Created The Solution-Focused Approach - Interview with Eve Lipchik

2009-11-21T03:32:00.001-08:00

By Coert Visser

Eve Lipchik was one of the original core members of the Brief Family Therapy Center in Milwaukee, which created solution-focused therapy in the beginning of the l980's. She worked at the BFTC until l988, when she cofounded ICF Consultants. She is the author of the book Beyond Techniques in Solution-Focused Therapy: Working with Emotions and the Therapeutic Relationship and numerous chapters and articles. In this interview she looks back on the time the solution-focused approach was developed and she shares her memories of the process of developing the approach and of the people involved. She tells about the essential shift the team made from gathering information about the problem to focusing on constructing solutions with clients. Also, she reflects on recent developments and she explains the importance of describing the approach as encompassing both philosophy and techniques. Finally, she tells about some of her current interests and activities.

Coert: Could you tell me about some of your memories of the early times of the Brief Family Therapy Center? How did you get involved with that and how did you experience that starting period?

Eve: In l978, I decided to sign on to a two year, 40 hour a week training in Marriage and Family Therapy at Family Service of Milwaukee. That is where I met Insoo Berg, who was my supervisor. As a result, I learned about some experimental work she, Steve de Shazer, and some other people at Family Service were doing after hours. They were experimenting with ideas they had learned at the Mental Research Institute (MRI) in Palo Alto, and from the literature of Jay Haley, the Milan Group, and other therapists on the cutting edge at the time. Before the Brief Family Therapy Center (BFTC) was founded in l979, some therapists from Family Service would meet at Insoo and Steve's house after work, video-taping therapy sessions of friends of friends who volunteered as clients. They would then analyze and discuss these sessions until late at night. I soon became part of that group and eventually joined BFTC in l980, after finishing my training. Interestingly, only people who were not the sole breadwinner of their family had the freedom to join, because we started out without a client base and knew it would take a year or two to build up enough business to provide salaries for everyone.

The BFTC group always saw cases as a team, with on therapist conducting the interview and the others behind a one-way mirror. The lack of business in the early days was a huge bonus. We would spend our whole day at the office and had the luxury of discussing a case for hours, because often there wasn't another one for a long time, if at all. It seems like yesterday that we would gather excitedly after a client family left, while Steve positioned himself at a blackboard to make notes about what we were saying. The purpose, after all, was to notice and understand why we did what we did, and what worked, so that we could do more of it.

That certainly was an exciting time, and I am most grateful to have had the opportunity to experience it. I could never have imagined that a collaborative process could feel so individually creative! Everyone's ideas were of equal value, even those of visitors who might drop by to sit behind the one-way mirror. When a message for clients was finally developed, or a new idea about what had just happened in a session was born, one could feel satisfaction as an individual, as well as a member of a group.

Coert: That sounds like an exciting and fulfilling work environment. A lot has been said and written about the important contributions of Steve de Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg to the development of the solution-focused approach. But I think many people relatively new to the field, are less aware of how much the development of the solution-focused approach has been a collective effort and of how different individual members with their own specific interests and qualities have all contributed importantly. Could you tell a bit more about some of those people and how they contributed?

Eve: When I think back upon the collaborative process we were all engaged in, it is really hard to separate out individual contributions. We did, however, have very different personalities and backgrounds. The five people who were the original core group at BFTC in l980, were Jim Derks, Elam Nunnally, Marilyn LaCourt, Insoo Berg, Steve de Shazer and I.

Jim Derks was a Master Degreed Social worker who had been trained in behavioral therapy. He, like Insoo, also studied at the Chicago Family Institute, which had a psychodynamic bent, but also introduced its students to the new developments in Family Therapy. Jim had a most unusual way of thinking. First, he tended to explain his ideas by using a lot of metaphor, which added another dimension to the discussion. Secondly, his thinking was “outside the nine dots.” One could say his contribution to discussions was like a pattern interruption. We would be going over and over a point and he would come left field with a totally different perspective, or a metaphor, that would allow for a new direction of thinking.

Elam Nunnally was a Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee at the School of Social Work. His PhD was in Family Studies, so he contributed a lot about stages of family development, family relationships, and, in particular, family communication. His thoughtful, quiet manner often grounded the group when imaginations would run wild.

Marilyn LaCourt had a Masters Degree in Communications and a background in education. She had not had any therapy experience before training at the Family Therapy Training Institute at Family Service. That was an advantage for the group because she was not prone to get involved in speculations like some of us did, but evaluated situations at face value. In this respect she and Steve were of one mind and could understand each other before some of us understood them. Her thinking contributed a lot to the minimalist aspect of Solution-Focused Therapy.

I had a Bachelor's Degree in English Literature and spent some time after college working in television production. After I married and had my children, I worked in a research project at the University of Rochester, N.Y. There I did play therapy and studied for a Masters Degree in Human Services before moving to Milwaukee and getting a Masters Degree in Social Work.

One of our first students at BFTC was Alex Molnar, a Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Education. He was adding a Masters Degree in Social Work to his PhD in Education, and came to us for his Practicum. He was instrumental in analyzing our therapeutic process and in helping to construct decision trees to illustrate it.

Later, Wallace Gingerich, also a Professor Social Work at the University of Milwaukee-Wisconsin, spent time at BFTC. His expertise in research and interest in computers contributed greatly toward articulating the process of solution construction in academic terms.

Michele Weiner-Davis, who was a trainee at BFTC originally, later joined the research team and is credited with having introduced the notion of pre-session change to the Solution-Focused approach.

Last, but far from least, we all learned from, and with, our many visitors. BFTC had not been established very long before we began to attract the attention of therapists interested in innovative ideas through a home publication called the “Underground Railroad.” We all contributed articles to it about what we did at BFTC. Soon we had a parade of visitors like Lyman Wynn, Brad Keeney, Bill O'Hanlon, Carl Tomm, Michael White, Yvonne Dolan, Brian Cade, John Weakland, and many others. They sat behind the mirror with us and shared their thoughts and ideas during lengthy discussions and even longer dinners at Insoo and Steve's house, or mine. Steve cooked great Chinese food and made his own beer. I liked to cook, too, so we shared feeding and putting up our guests at our respective homes.

Coert: Thank you. I'd like to hear a bit more about your own role if that is okay. One of the people who got involved with BFTC, in l984, was Gale Miller. In a recent interview, he said: “I cannot stress enough how important Eve Lipchik was – she was willing to go the extra mile to make sure I understood what she was doing.” Could you tell a bit about your own role and specific style, interests and views?

Eve: Well, for one, the group called me “the psychodynamic one” when we first got together. That changed very quickly though, as we worked together and increasingly began to look for the same things and think along similar lines. However, I do think that I continued to be the one in the group most inclined to bring emotions into the case discussions, particularly at times when we seemed uncertain or stuck.

As I mentioned before, we started out without any client base. It was, therefore, decided that one of us had to go out into the community and find referral sources. I was unanimously elected to do this job even though I had never sold anything before in my life. I think I succeeded in this role only because my genuine enthusiasm for our group, and our work, must have come across to people , and they figured it may be worthwhile to give us a try.

As for Gale Miller's nice comment about me – by the time he came to BFTC I was aware that our core group had become so close, and the communication so idiosyncratic, that it must be difficult for an outsider to understand what is going on. So I tried to help him bridge that gap.

I also developed an interest in spouse abuse in l981, while consulting with a womens' shelter. What I observed there made me question the dominant theory that women should always leave the men who abuse them. I noticed that the level of abuse occurred on a continuum, and that the majority of situations did not fit the stereotypical domestic violence case in which the man could be categorized as severely character disordered and power hungry. The majority of situations ranged from mutual pushing and name-calling to physical fighting, which many woman said they started. In other words, many of these cases looked a lot like the relationship problem cases we treated at BFTC. I began to wonder whether a client centered, future oriented approach like the Solution-Focused one might not help improve these relationships and save families, as long as we knew how to assess the safety of the women. Once again, I went out into the community. This time I talked with District Attorneys and Probation and Parole officers about my ideas. To my surprise they all agreed with me that couple treatment, rather than separation, is the better way to go in many of the situations. They began to refer cases to us and we were very successful in assessing and treating them. I then began to publish this work and to present our ideas nationally and internationally. One thing that really surprised me in the course of these presentations was the violent language often used against me when therapists, who treat violence, disagreed with my ideas.

In terms of my role in the development of Solution-Focused Therapy, I think that my specific contribution was in terms of the interviewing process. From the very beginning of my association with the group I questioned the belief that change occurred primarily as the result of the intervention message at the end of the session. The general understanding was that the interviewing therapist's job was to “gather information for the team behind the mirror so it can compose the intervention message!” This really confused me. I could not understand how to connect with clients in front of the mirror while I had my head behind the mirror with the team. I kept insisting that the interview is an intervention, as well, and began to explore this idea on my own. This difference of opinion became a mute point when we shifted from gathering information about the problem (Brief Family Therapy) to focusing on constructing solutions with clients (Solution-Focused Therapy). Solution construction undeniably occurred during the interview and the message at the end of the session served mainly to reinforce what had been constructed so far.

Coert: That's very interesting. I consider that insight and shift in focus essential because it made the approach more client-centric and effective. Now, could you tell a bit about your last few years at BFTC and the time and the reasons you founded your own practice, ICF Consultants?

Eve: During the last few years I spent at BFTC, our goal of developing a model, and teaching it nationally and internationally had been achieved. The close collaboration that produced such creative energy was no longer necessary. The core group had shrunk down to Steve, Insoo and me, with Elam Nunnally part time, and the research team meeting separately. Jim Derks and Marilyn LaCourt had left. My practice was very busy and I began to run the training program because Insoo and Steve started traveling more and more. The development of the approach had been incredibly exciting, but we also had expended a lot of time and energy on it. I began to feel that I want to cut back and spend more time with my family. It was very difficult for me to leave, particularly because Insoo and Steve asked me to stay and offered me various options. However, in l988, I decided to look for an office to rent somewhere where I could have a small private practice. Coincidentally, Marilyn Bonjean, who had a small private practice at BFTC, and had become a friend, decided to leave her full time job because of a change in management. When I mentioned that I was looking for office space she shared that she had decided to try building a full time private practice rather than looking for another job. She asked whether I would like to share office space. That seemed like a fine idea, and that is how ICF Consultants was born.

My intention to cut back my work schedule did not exactly work out as planned. My practice began to flourish rapidly and I received many invitations to talk about Solution-Focused Therapy, especially in the area of spouse abuse. It was very gratifying to be affirmed on my own, not only as part of an established group.

Coert: I can certainly imagine that. And just like you and the other core members have evolved, so did the approach, I guess. I am curious about your thoughts and feelings on how the solution-focused approach has evolved in, say, the last decade. Do you see any interesting new trends, insights or innovations? And what are your thoughts about the fact that SF is so well-known and broadly applied nowadays, also in many fields outside therapy?

Eve: Originally, the Solution-Focused approach was considered to be process oriented and therefore, applicable to any type of case. I believe that is still true. However, as time went on, people began to apply it to specific problems, as I did with spouse abuse. Over the past ten years I have noticed increasingly varied applications of the approach, such as for group work, for children, for addictions, for child welfare, etc. My impression is that at this time people's thinking has evolved in two directions: either, that Solution-Focused Therapy is foremost a philosophy that guides thinking about how to help people achieve their goals, or, that it is a model that has specific techniques that, when applied correctly, achieves that goal. The majority of books I have seen seem to fall into the second category. However, I am pleased that the Treatment Manual that the Research Committee of the Solution Focused Brief Therapy Association issued in 2008 clearly described the approach as encompassing both philosophy and techniques.

As for your comment that the Solution-Focused approach has been well accepted and propagated, my sense is that that may be more the case in Europe and other parts of the world than in the United States. The term "strength based" is used generically in many applications that obviously originated from Solution-Focused thinking but I do not see BFTC or Solution-Focused Therapy credited too often. I was recently asked to endorse a book written by a psychiatrist about his manner of Life coaching, which he said is rooted in Solution-Focused Therapy. He devoted two sentences to it, and I had to ask him to revise those two sentences because they did not describe the approach correctly. Also, if you look at the programs of therapy conferences lately, there are very few presentations listed about Solution-Focused Therapy and its applications, and Narrative Therapy, too, for that matter. Motivation interviewing, which is so similar to Solution-Focused interviewing, is currently gaining more and more attention, as is Mindfulness, and, of course, Neuroscience and its application to therapy. I think therapies tend to go "out of style" more in the US than they do in Europe and other countries. But it is quite possible that I am missing a lot of information about the legacy of BFTC in the US and elsewhere. I sincerely hope so!

Coert: Could you tell me about your current interests, activities and plans?

Eve: One of my current interests is Neuroscience. I was trained and certified in EDMR about twelve years ago and that opened up my mind to very different thinking than I was used to. I didn't seek this training, it was offered to me free of charge, and I thought it might be fun to experience. To my surprise, I was fascinated by it and wanted to know more and more about how the brain works. My subsequent studies of Neuroscience made me want to examine whether, and how, it can fit with Solution-Focused thinking. [See article in the reference list-CV]. I believe a valid connection is possible in some respects, particularly with regard to the regulation of emotions, a core concept in neuroscientific work. Another example would be in the area of the plasticity of the brain. Neuroscientific findings suggest repetition creates new neuronal pathways, e.g. new thoughts and behaviors. Therefore, Solution-Focused therapists could suggest to clients that they repeat exceptional behaviors or thoughts, or “miraculous” behaviors or thoughts that are already happening, on a daily basis, perhaps even several times a day.

Aside from my clinical practice, I supervise Masters Degree practitioners, as well as people who are working toward AAMFT Approved Supervisor certification. For the past decade, I have also worked for an organization that has a number of community based programs for emotionally disturbed children, such as treatment foster care, school based programs, a day treatment program and a residential program. My mission there is to give all the therapists a good grounding in Solution-Focused thinking and then to act as a consultant. The cases we work on are systemically so complex, and the therapists are often so green, that I have found that it is most effective to instill the Solution-Focused philosophy first, using basic assumptions, and then to start demonstrating the value of the techniques. The assumptions help them develop the relationship with clients that is such an essential underpinning for the success of Solution-Focused Therapy, as all therapy, for that matter.

My future? I would like to keep doing what I am doing as long as I can keep doing it.
Thank you for choosing to interview me.

References:

List of publications by Eve Lipchik
ICF Consultants
Lipchik, E., Becker, M., Brasher, B. Derks, J., & Volkmann, J. (2005). Neuroscience: A New Direction for Solution-Focused Thinkers? Journal of Systemic Therapies (8) 49-70.

Also read:

A Brief History of The Solution-Focused Approach

A closer look at rationality

2009-10-29T06:21:00.000-07:00

Keith Stanovich has written an interesting book titled What Intelligence Tests Miss. The book is about the fact that IQ tests are incomplete measures of cognitive functioning. There is, as studies have show, in fact only a low to medium correlation between rational thinking skills and IQ test performance. And because rational thinking skills and IQ are largely independent it is not surprising that intelligent people can easily behave irrationally and hold false and unsupported beliefs. Several things are really interesting about this book. One is the authors insight that we do not need to stretch to non-cognitive domains (to notions as emotional intelligence or social intelligence) to see the lacunae in IQ tests. Another is the very specific and research based analysis of the topic matter.

The tripartite framework of cognitive functioning
The author presents an elegant and rather comprehensive model of cognitive functioning in which three types of major thinking processes and their interrelations are described: the autonomous mind, the algorithmic mind and the reflective mind.

The autonomous mind refers to rapidly executed, non-consciousness requiring mental processes which are often quick and dirty. The algorithmic mind refers to conscious efficient information processing and is linked to what is usually referred to as fluid intelligence. The reflective mind is linked to rational thinking dispositions and deals with questions such as which goals to choose and why, and what action to take given those goals. As the figure shows, conscious thinking can override unconscious thinking, which is a good thing given the quick and dirtiness of the autonomous mind. The algorithmic mind is required for executing this override and thus very important. But the reflective mind is the process which initiates such an override. People with high IQ may be quite capable of overriding false beliefs and erroneous judgments but it takes the rationality of the reflective mind to initiate such an override.

Intelligent but irrational
Although many laymen and psychologists seem to think IQ tests do measure rationality, they actually don’t. In fact, intelligence, as measure by IQ tests correlates only low to moderately with rational thinking skills. According to Stanovich, this explains why it is not strange to see intelligent people behave irrationally and hold false and unsupported beliefs. Some real world examples are: intelligent people who fall prey to Ponzi scheme swindlers like Bernie Madoff, a highly educated person who denies the evidence for evolution, a United States president who consults an astrologist, and so forth. Below, I will try to summarize how Stanovich explains rationality and lack of rationality.

What is rationality?
Cognitive scientists distinguish two basic forms: 1) INSTRUMENTAL RATIONALITY, behaving in such a way that you achieve what you want, and 2) EPISTEMIC RATIONALITY, taking care that your beliefs correspond with the actual structure of the world. Irrational thinking and behaving is associated with three things.

The first is an overreliance on the autonomous mind which subconsciously and automatically uses all kinds of heuristic to come to conclusions and solve problems. The autonomous mind is fast and very valuable but also very imprecise. It is prone to all kinds of biases. Thinking deliberately instead of letting the autonomous mind make judgments cost much more time and energy which is why it is temping no resist.

The second thing which is associated with irrationality is what is called a mindware gap. The term ‘mindware ‘ refers to the rules, knowledge, procedures, and strategies that a person has available for making judgments, decisions and solving problems. Lack of such knowledge, etc hinders rationality.

The third thing which is associated with irrationality is something called contaminated mindware, beliefs, rules, strategies, etc that are not grounded in evidence and that are not good for the one who holds them (the host) but which can still spread easily throughout a population. There are several reasons why they can spread easily: 1) they are often packaged in an appealing narrative which promises some kind of benefit to the host, 2) they sometimes ride on the back of other popular mindware which may be more valid by copying superficial characteristics from that mindware, 3) they contain self-replication instructions (‘send this mail on to 10 different people’), 4) they may have evaluation-disabling properties (for instance by claiming that evidence is not relevant or possible, by making belief which is unsupported by evidence into a virtue, by encouraging adherents to attack non-believers, etc). You might think that intelligence would guarantee a good protection against contaminated mindware but this turns out to be wrong. By making narratives complex, highly intelligent people can even become extra attracted to them. Further, studies have demonstrated that intelligent people may be more capable of creating ‘islands of false beliefs’ or ’webs of falsity’ by using their considerable computational power to rationalize their beliefs and to ward off the arguments of skeptics.

Some deliberations on the desirability of rationality
Here are some thoughts and questions about what the view presented in the posts might imply. Let me start by saying that I find the basic ideas presented in Keith Stanovich's book convincing, namely that: 1) Intelligence as measured by IQ tests and rationality are largely independent, which explains why intelligent people may behave and think irrationally, 2) IQ tests don't measure rationality and contrast between the strong focus on IQ testing and the very limited attention to measuring and teaching rational thinking is a bad thing, 3) rational thinking could be taught more and this would lead to social benefits. Here are some additional thoughts and questions on the desirability of raising rationality.

Perfect rationality is out of the question. That this is so can be understood from an evolutionary perspective. As Stanovich explains in his book, evolution does not lead to perfect rationality because natural selection does not specifically favor maximizing truth or utility. Instead it favors genetic fitness in a local environment. This means developing rationality is a matter of optimization instead maximization. Spending extreme resources on building rationality does not guarantee evolutionary advantage because those resources might also have been spent on other useful things. As Richard Dawkins says in his latest book: "Perfection in one department must be bought in the form of a sacrifice in another department".

That maximal rationality is undesirable and impossible also follows from Stanovich's tripartite model of the brain which consists of the autonomous mind, the algorithmic mind and the reflective mind (further explanation here). It is true that the autonomous mind works with rough heuristics which work in a quick and dirty way and which may frequently miss the mark. An override by the deliberate part of the brain (which consists of the algorithmic brain plus the reflective brain) can help to correct the inaccurateness of the autonomous mind and make judgments and decisions more rational. But because deliberate thinking demand so much attention it would be impossible to let deliberate thinking make all judgments and decisions. So much of everything we do and think has been 'delegated' to the autonomous mind that this would be unthinkable. Some division of labor between the autonomous mind and the deliberate mind is efficient. The question is how to divide it most effectively. How often and when should the deliberate mind override the autonomous mind? How can we recognize situations which ask for such overrides? When must we demand rationality from ourselves and from others?

Another perspective on the question of how much rationality follows from looking at its advantages and disadvantages. It seems logical that increasing ones rationality is usually beneficial, both for the individual and for society. After all, increasing instrumental rationality means that one becomes better and goal directed thinking and acting. And increasing epistemic rationality means that ones maps of the world become more realistic; in other words ones beliefs about reality correspond more closely to the actual structure of reality. But there may be som disadvantages, too. I am not talking about the stereotype of Mr. Spock, the assumption that there is a trade off between rationality and social or emotional competence. I would predict that rationality and social or emotional competence are largely independent (in the same that rationality and intelligence are largely independent). In am talking about the possibility that increasing your rationality may be aversive to others and might lead to some extra social barriers, like social rejection. History shows many examples of people who are now considered to be ahead of their time in terms of rationality who were punished by their contemporaries. People challenging widely held beliefs (never mind if they are true or not) can be considered as a threat to power positions, to the stability of institutions, or can be viewed as disloyal, crazy or arrogant. There are many examples of people who have been ridiculed, isolated, imprisoned, banned, imprisoned, convicted to death and murdered because of their ideas which later turn out to be true. The paradox seems to be: it requires rationality to appreciate it.

How to fight contaminated mindware
This leads me to the question of how to fight contaminated mindware. Contaminated mindware refers to a belief system which is not true and potentially harmful to the person who holds it and others but which can still spread quickly through a population due to some of its characteristics. The question is whether a head on attack of popular contaminated mindware will leads to its demise or runs the risk of making it even more popular. A head on attack might lead to further publicity for the contaminated mindware, thus exposing more people to its attractiveness. And it may lead to more attacks on its opponents (because contaminated mindware often contains an instruction to attack opponents, non-believers). Or might a different approach work better? For instance an approach of teaching people to recognize contaminated mindware more easily and protect themselves better against it?

Missing link in Dawkins' work effectively removed - Review of Richard Dawkins´ The Greatest Show On Earth- The Evidence For Evolution

2009-10-03T07:19:00.000-07:00

Richard Dawkins' book The Greatest Show on Earth is currently high on bestseller lists in many countries. The book removes what was the missing link in Dawkins' oeuvre because in all his others books he started from the assumption that evolution was true. In this one he presents evidence. Let's walk through the book in some big steps. In Chapter 1, Dawkins introduces the word THEORUM as a replacement of the word 'theory' which in everyday use often just means hypothesis. The word 'theorum' (inspired by the word 'theorem' from mathematics) would do justice to the fact that evolution is massively supported by evidence and therefore by no means just a hypothesis. Chapter 2 describes how we can sculpt gene pools through artificial selection (for instance dog breeding), a practice which has been known to men, of course long, before Darwin to the scene.
Chapter 3 explains differences between artificial, sexual, and natural selection. Chapter 4 shows we know for SURE how old the earth is. It presents two of the three methods (tree rings and radioactive clocks). Chapter 5 shows examples of evolution we can see before our very eyes (for instance with bacteria and with guppies). It is also a powerful explanation of how the existence of evolution has been experimentally demonstrated through experiments. And experiments are of course an indispensible part of doing science because of their power to show causal relations. Chapter 6 and 7 are is about fossil evidence for evolution and it debunks some common misunderstandings, like the one that intermediate fossils are still missing which would prove that evolution would not be true. The chapter shows that not only intermediate fossils aren't missing, even if they would be missing that would not disprove evaluation at all. In fact, even without any fossil evidence, the evidence for evolution would be watertight. So fossil evidence serves to underline all the other evidence. Also, the fact that no fossil has ever been found in the 'wrong' time period (which would work to disprove evolution) further strengthens the case. Chapter 8 explains how embryology is a matter of self-assembly-processes all the way which goes against the idea that humans grow according to some kind of blueprint. Chapter 9 is about 'islands' or the powerful biogeographic evidence for evolution. Chapter 10 deals with tree of cousinship and molecular evidence (and molecular clocks). Chapter 11 shows how bodies aren't designed but gradually evolved and seem like imperfect patchworks. Chapter 12 is about evolutionary arms races and their apparent futility which is another reason why creationism is so very unlikely and illogical. Chapter 13 is one big reflection on the last poetic paragraph of Darwin's On the Origin of Species.

Reading the book, I came across many little details I did not know and also some more fundamental insights and facts that I was not fully aware of. While reading the book I thought how paradoxical it seems how people expressing some very uninformed and outdated opinions and views can actually play a very useful role. Perhaps were it not for them doing this and for the influence they surprisingly have, people like Dawkins would not take the trouble to keep on explaining scientific findings in such accessible ways. I am convinced that almost any part of this book can be rather easily understood by the majority of people and I am happy to see how many people are interested enough to actually buy it.

On Amazon: Missing link in Dawkins' work effectively removed

Can we get smarter? Yes we can!

2009-05-15T22:36:00.000-07:00

Review of Nisbett, R. (2009). Intelligence and How to Get It: Why Schools and Cultures Count. New York and London W.W. Norton, 282 pages, $17.79 hardcover

by Coert Visser

Did you read the book The Bell Curve (Hernnstein and Murray, 1994)? Did it make you feel uneasy because you did not (want to) agree with its conclusions but did not exactly know how to refute them? Among the conclusions were (loosely formulated): 1) that intelligence is highly important in many areas of life, 2) that differences in intelligence are largely responsible for societal stratification, 3) that differences in intelligence are largely heritable, and 4) that intelligence gaps between (racial) groups are hard to close (if that is possible at all).

If you feel uneasy about these conclusions read this book by psychologist Dick Nisbett (2009). You will probably like this book because it will provide answers to your questions. Not in a vague way but in a very specific, well reasoned and research based way. Here are some conclusions from the book:

There is no fixed value for the heritability of intelligence. If the environment is very favorable to the growth of development of intelligence, the heritability of intelligence is fairly high, maybe up to 70%. If however the environment is highly variable, differing greatly between individual families, then the environment is going to play the major role in differences in intelligences between individuals (as is the case with the poor).
Aside from the degree to which heritability is important for one group or another in the population, heritability places no limits whatsoever on modifiability,for anybody.
Intelligence is developable and schools can make children smarter, for instance by using computer-assisted teaching and certain types of cooperative learning. Genes play no role at all in race differences in IQ, environmental differences do.
Believing that intelligence is under your control is a great start for developing intelligence.
Certain habits and values in cultures can be highly beneficial for learning and developing intelligence.
Parents can do a lot to increase the intelligence and academic achievement of children (both biological and didactic factors matter).

Intelligence and How to Get It contains many very interesting citations of studies. Here are just a few examples. One example is the work by researchers like Urie Bronfenbrenner, Mike Stoolmiller and Eric Turkheimer, whose combined studies show how the famous twin studies systematically overestimate estimates of heritability. Another interesting example is the description of the famous Flynn-effect which shows how IQ-scores can increase rapidly over generations Also the book mentions the work by Carol Dweck, on fixed and growth mindsets. A fixed mindset is a way of viewing intelligence (and other personal characteristics) as unchangeable; either you’ve got it or you don’t. A growth mindset is one in which personal characteristics are viewed as modifiable. Dweck’s work shows that a fixed mindset leads to disregarding learning while a growth mindset leads to the tendency to put effort into learning and performing and into developing strategies that enhance learning and long term accomplishments. The book contains many more interesting findings, for instance about effective educational interventions, including evidence for which strategies work well in raising kids to be intelligent, strategies for bridging performance gaps between different ethnic groups, and more.

I think the content of this book will resonate well with many SF practitioners and researchers. This is why. In the SF approach a dynamic rather than a static view of personal characteristics is held. Às Thorana Nelson and Frank Thomas (2007), authors of Handbook of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy, remind us: “Change is constant and inevitable; just as one cannot not communicate, one cannot not change.” (p. 10) This optimism about change is applicable both to one’s personal circumstances as to one’s behavior and characteristics. This is why a growth mindset fits better with an SF approach than a fixed mindset.

Until now, a dominant view in psychology had been that characteristics like intelligence and personality traits were largely unmodifiable. But the shift that now seems to be happening is that psychologists are discovering more and more that they have been too pessimistic and deterministic. People are far more capable of development than psychology has long thought. A case in point is the human brain. Scientists had long thought that the adult brain was incapable of significant structural change. Now, it has been proven that the brain is far more flexible than that and it is beyond dispute that the brain constantly changes itself as a consequence of experience. This phenomenon is called neuroplasticity. It is even possible for the brain to relocate brain activity associated with a certain function from one area to another, for instance in the case of brain damage. What is also now proven and was long thought to be impossible is neurogenesis, the generation of new cells in the adult brain. Researcher Tracy Shors (2009) and her colleagues have shown that thousands of new cells are created every day.

Beside the shift to a more optimistic view, there also seems to be a shift in psychology’s attention from a purely individualistic to a more systems oriented view of human functioning. Traditional ‘hereditarians’ downplayed the role of the environment, of efforts of schools, parents and society. The view presented in this book acknowledges the importance of such environmental factors. This is an example of how psychology may shift from a rather individualistic to a more interactional and situational perspective.

The research based perspective offered in this book allows for an optimistic stance about educational and societal issues. It justifies an attitude of not giving up in trying to improve efforts to design better learning environments, educational designs and teaching approaches. In several ways the book justifies the optimistic, interactional and contextual view on human functioning that SF practice uses.

This book is great. Let's hope it will inspire many parents, educators, policymakers and scientists. It has the potential.

References

Hernnstein, R.J. and Murray, C. (1994). The Bell Curve: Intelligence and class structure in American life. New York: Free Press.
Nelson, T. & Thomas, F. (Eds), (2007). Handbook of solution-focused brief therapy: Clinical Applications. New York: The Haworth Press.
Shors, T.L. (2009). Saving new brain cells. Scientific American, March 2009. http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=saving-new-brain-cells

Coert Visser is a solution-focused trainer, coach, blogger and author. He can be reached at coert.visser@planet.nl

Review of Positivity by Barbara Fredrickson

2009-05-08T10:38:00.000-07:00

Review of Positivity: Groundbreaking Research Reveals How to Embrace the Hidden Strength of Positive Emotions, Overcome Negativity, and Thrive by Barbara Fredrickson

Barbara Fredrickson, Professor of Psychology at the University of North Carolina, and a pioneer of positive psychology, specializes in research on positive emotions and human flourishing. She is best-known for her so-called broaden-and build theory of positive emotions. This book describes in an accessible and captivating way what the research by her and her colleagues has taught her about what positivity is and what is does.

In her explanation of what positivity is, she mentions ten forms of positivity: joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration, awe, and love. As to what positivity does, maybe it is best to start with six facts she mentions about positivity: 1) positivity feels good, 2) positivity changes how your mind works, 3) positivity transforms your future, 4) positivity puts the brakes on negativity, 5) positivity obeys a tipping point, 6) you can increase your positivity. A briefer way of describing what positivity amounts to is that it opens your mind and helps you get on a positive trajectory, an upward spiral. In other words: it makes you flourish. Flourishing is more than being happy. In Barbara Fredrickson's words: "Flourishing goes beyond happiness, or satisfaction with life. True, people who flourish are happy. But that's not the half of it. Beyond feeling good, they're also doing good -adding value to the world. People who flourish are highly engaged with their families, work, and communities."

But that is not the whole story. The effects of positivity are not simple and linear. Rather, they are subtle and non-linear. Human flourishing works like a nonlinear dynamic system. In nonlinear systems, there are one or more tipping points at which the properties of the system can suddenly change dramatically. An example of such a non-linear system with a tipping point is how ice melts at zero degrees Celsius. Consultant and researcher Marcial Losada has helped Barbara Fredrickson uncover a tipping point in the positivity ratio. The positivity ratio is the ratio of people's experiences of positive to negative emotions. Fredrickson's and Losada's research show that there is a tipping point above which flourishing starts and below which it doesn't. This positivity ratio tipping point is 3-1. When there are three times or more as many positive experiences than negative ones, flourishing will start with all of its beneficial consequences. There also turns out to be a second tipping point, by the way, of 11-1, which is the upper bound of flourishing. Above this upper bound it seems that there is too much positivity. In other words, there will always remain a useful role for some negativity. Fredrickson has found that most people have more positive than negative experiences but are below the 3-1 tipping point. Fortunately, there are many known ways to raise your positivity (many of them are described in the book) so that flourishing is attainable for anyone.

I can hardly say how impressed I am with this book. This book presents the best that positive psychology has to offer. The writing is very clear and pleasant. At the same time, everything that is being written is linked to scientific findings (which are mentioned explicitly). My suggestion is: do yourself a favor and buy yourself this book.

Also read: Flourishing

Solution-Focused Scaling Questions

2009-02-18T06:31:00.000-08:00

Steve De Shazer, an American therapist and co-developer of the solution-focused approach, once, in the nineteen-seventies, talked with a client who came for his second session. He asked the client what was better now. The client had spontaneously replied: “I’ve almost reached 10 already!” De Shazer began to play with the idea of using numbers to describe one’s situation. This started the development of the scaling question used in solution-focused therapy (Malinen, 2001). Today, scaling questions have developed into the most well known and most frequently used solution-focused techniques. Scaling questions are relatively easy to use and extremely versatile. Nowadays, many therapists, coaches and managers use them. Even many people who know little about the solution-focused approach know the scaling question.

1. Basic steps when using the scaling question
Asking the scaling question is usually done by following a few basic steps. These basic steps consist of a series of questions which are posed in a curious and encouraging way. Below, these basic steps are explained.

The following picture (Visser, 2009) visualizes all of these steps:

2. Different types of scales
There are many ways of using scaling questions. Below are the most frequent uses of the scaling question.

1. The success scale: this is the most well-known application of the scale. On this scale 10 is the desired situation and 0 is the situation in which nothing has been accomplished yet. The success to which this scale refers can be about anything that you may find relevant such as communicating more effectively, dealing more effective with problems, producing more efficiently, working more client oriented, etcetera.

2. The motivation scale: this scale is used to discuss and strengthen the motivation the client's motivation. On this scale, the 10 may be something like: “I am prepared to do a lot to achieve the goal", and 0 may be: “I am not willing to do anything for it". It may seem a bit paradoxical but by going through the basis steps of the scaling question clients often get more grip on their own motivation. They learn to regulate their own motivation and become capable of motivating themselves. When their motivation would be low they could do things that had helped them in the past to become more motivated.

3. The confidence scale: this scale is used to discuss and strengthen the client's confidence of being able to reach the desired situation. A 10 may be: “I have much confidence of being able to accomplish this” and a 0 may be: “I have no confidence whatsoever.” Just like with the motivation scale the client learns to regulate his own confidence. This can have a strong stimulating effect. When a client has little confidence that he will be able to accomplish something it makes no sense for him to take action. Once his confidence grows the threshold is lowered to take action.

4. The independence scale: an important principle in solution-focused work is that we want to keep clients from becoming dependent on coaches. The independence scale can help to establish that. This scale is used to discuss and strengthen the clients self sufficiency. A 10 may be: “I know how I can proceed with this and I don't need help anymore” and a 0 may be: “I don't know how to proceed with this and I need help." The independence scale is often used in situation in which the client has some kind of decision problem. The advantage of this scale is that it helps to keep coachings and therapies from taking longer than strictly necessary. While the problem may not be completely solved this does not have to mean that the professional help has to continue. Often, the client is able to continue independently.

3. Using scales in groups
Scaling questions are not only useful in one-on-one conversation but also in groups. Below are two examples of the use of scales in groups.

1. Group scaling question: Below is a fragment from a team session between a solution-focused team coach (TC) and a team. The coach is asked to coach the team members (TM) a few times in order to help improve team cooperation. He uses the scaling question.

TC: I would like to ask you whether your team, as far as you're concerned, is already exactly like you want it to be?
All: (Laughter) No!
TC: (Smiling) No problem! It would be the very first time for me to be in a team where everything was exactly like everyone wanted. Okay, I would like to explore where the team already is. Imagine a scale from 0 to 10 with 10 being the situation in which things will have become like you would like them and 0 being the situation in which nothing is going like you want it to go yet. Would you write down on the little post it notes where you think the team is now on that scale?

The team members write down their score on the scale and pass them on to the team coach. The team coach asks them to take a few minutes and talk with the person sitting next to them about a recent situation in the team that went well. In the meantime the team coach calculates the average score. After a few minutes the team coach starts talking again.

TC: Thanks for your scores. I have calculated that the current score of the team is a 6. So things are not quite like you want them to be but you seem to be well on your way to that situation. How did you manage to reach that 6?
TM 1: …. It is not that we don't work for it, you know? I mean you only have to look at they way we are all sitting here and seriously participating in this process.
TC: Indeed, I notice that. What else has helped to reach that 6?
TM 2: We have all reached a point at which we want to leave the problems of the past behind us and to start looking forward, you know?
TC: that sound good, what else?
TM 3: When it really comes down to it we take care of doing a good job as a team.

The team coach goes on asking for more examples for about ten minutes and then asks a different kind of question.

TC: The team is now at a 6 .. Imagine that the next time we meet the team will be at a 7. What would be different in the team then?
TM 2: We would listen better to one another. When someone says something in the team meeting he can really explain what he wants to say and he is taken seriously.
TC: Fine, and what else?
TM 4: We would be on time for the meeting. All of us would be on time.
TC: I can imagine that would be good thing. What else?
TM 1: We support each other better when we see that a colleague is really busy. We help each other out better.

The conversation continues. For an hour the coach asks all kinds of things using the scale. For example, he asks for examples of situations in which the team has already been a bit higher on the scale. Near the end of the session, he invites each team member to think for them selves about what they can do to help the team move one small step forward on the scale. When the session is over the atmosphere is positive. The team members have found the session useful and pleasant.

2. Scale walking: This is an application of the scale which you can use in small and large groups. You ask the members of the group to imagine that one side of the room represents 0 on the scale and the other side 10. Then you ask them to think what their current position is and you tell them that this current position is represented by the letter N. Then, you invite them to come and stand on an imaginary line (somewhere halfway on the scale) and you tell them to imagine that this position is N, their current position. Then, you ask them to think about how they have been able to go from 0 to N. Next, you ask them to turn around and face the other side of the room, where 10 is. You ask them to think about what they see as they watch that part of the scale. Then, you invite them to come and stand on the 10 position and to visualize for themselves what will be different here and what they will do differently themselves. After that, the group members are asked to come and stand at their current position again and to think about which small step forward they could take. You ask them to physically take a step as soon as they know which step they will take.

Scale walking has some attractive features when working with a group. The exercise is often very lively and usually creates lots of energy and enthusiasm. Also, the exercise is very flexible. You can use it in many different types of situations. For instance, you can use it when members have individual goals. But you can also use it when there is a common them so that the scale represents a group goal (for instance 'improve customer satisfaction'). In this case, using the scale leads to a situation in which all members think about steps forward to achieving that goal.

4. Several tips for using scaling questions

4.1 What to do when the client is now at a 0?
When using scales, clients will usually say that their current position on the scale is somewhere between 0 and 10. But every now and then it happens that clients say they are now at a 0. In this case it is obvious that you can not ask them how they have been able to go from 0 to their current position because their current position is a 0. Well, what can you do in such a situation? 0 is. When a client says he is now at 0 he often wants you to understand how serious his situation is. The solution-focused coach shows understanding and acknowledges what the client says. Then, the coping question can be asked, for example like this: “How do you manage to go on in these tough circumstances?" The coping question often helps people to find new energy to cope with their difficult situation. Often, this also helps to create a new angle to continue the conversation. For instance, when the client says: “I manage to go on because I don't want to disappoint my children, the coach can build on that by asking: "How would you know your children would not have to be disappointed?”

4.2 The importance of effective scale anchors
When using scales it is important to define your scale anchors, in particular the 10-position, carefully. Scales usually work best when the 10-position is defined not in too idealistic terms (the ideal future) but rather in more realistic terms (the desired situation, the situation you would be satisfied with). Being idealistic in your definition of the 10-position has two disadvantages. The first is that you can be sure that an ideal situation will never be achieved. Problem free, ideal situations don't happen. There are always problems, challenges, and tensions, they belong to life. A second disadvantage of the 10 as ideal is that it will make the client scale the current situation lower. When the 10 represents an ideal situation the client may score the current situation as a 2, while he may score a 4 or a 5 when the 10 would be defined as the situation that would be good enough. A too idealistic 10 can demotivate.

Another aspect of choosing effective scale anchors is shown in the following example. Imagine a client wants to loose 50 pounds of weight and is helped by a solution-focused coach. When the coach would define the 10 position as the situation in which the client would have achieved the goal and would have lost the 50 pounds that could demotivate. The reason is that you could be quite sure that it would be impossible to get at the 10-position anytime soon. It would be wiser to use a different way of defining 10, for instance like this: the situation in which you would be satisfied about your eating behaviors. By defining the scale like this, it is possible for the client to move quickly to the 10-position on the scale which can be very motivating. The actual weight loss can of course be monitored on a different scale, the one in your bathroom.

4.3 Playing with scales
Often it is possible and necessary to be inventive and playful when using scales if only because clients often do that too. In a team building session, a coach once used the scale walking technique. The exercise went fine and the coach noticed how the energy in the group grew while they proceeded. At a certain point, the coach invited the members to think about which step forward they could take on the scale. He asked them to physically take a step when they knew what step it was. The team members thought for a moment and then, one after the other, took a step forward. One person thought longer than the others and eventually took a step backward instead of forward. The coach was surprised for a moment and wondered if the participant was joking. But then, the coach became curious and asked: “Hey, that is interesting... You're taking a step backward... Would you care to explain that?" The participant responded with a serious look on his face: “I am very perfectionist and by taking a step backward I want to symbolize that I am going to let things loose a bit more.” The coach responded: “Sounds good!”

5. Using scales with multiple goals
Sometimes people wonder about whether scaling questions aren't too simple to be used in complex real life situations. In complex real life situations there is often a situation when there multiple goals instead of only on goal (like improving commercial skills). Moreover, often these goals are interrelated in one way or the other, or they maybe be competing with each other. An example may be the case of a company in which one group advocated the use of proactive environmental practices. For instance, they objected to the abundant use of plastic covers around certain products. Another group in this company objected to this groups saying that the focus of the company should be achieving financial goals. The tension between these two groups grew to rather unpleasant proportions when members of both groups started accusing each other of all kinds of bad intentions and behaviors. A solution-focused coach was hired to solve this matter. To everyone's surprise, the parties were again on speaking terms within one session and fully cooperating with in two brief sessions. What happened?

The first thing the coach did was to listen carefully to both parties trying to understand their goals. After that, the coach suggested a framework in which the relationship between both goals was visualized (see below).

Then, he asked them what they considered the most desired position in this matrix. They immediately agreed that C was the preferred place to be. Then, the solution-focused coach drew a scale which looked like scale on the picture on the right. Next, he asked the group whether this scale represented their goals adequately, to which all of them could agree. Then he asked then to consider this scale and discuss with each other where they saw themselves now on this scale. Then he used all the familiar parts of the scaling questions. A bit to their own surprise the group members started to agree more and more and discovered that there were some very interesting opportunities to improve both environmental and financial performance at once. For instance, they indeed started to use less plastic covers which was not only desirable from an environmental standpoint but also lowered direct costs and production time. One member called these 'low hanging fruits'. What is interesting is that, in the second session, the group became more united. The financial people showed increasing enthusiasm for the environmental goal and vice versa.

Invitation
I invite you to try out the scaling question in a conversation or team meeting. Do let me know how it went.

References

Malinen, T. (2001). From Thinktank to New Therapy: The Process of Solution-Focused Theory and Practice Development. Ratkes 2, 2001 & Ratkes 3.
Visser, C.F. (2009). Doen wat werkt. Oplossingsgericht werken, coachen en managen. Van Duuren Management, 2e druk.

Improving language, improving life

2008-12-08T01:43:00.000-08:00

Effective use of language can be surprisingly powerful. Not only can effective language help to improve cooperation with other people, it also can help you develop a more productive outlook on life. The purpose of this article is to help you make your language more constructive and effective. Many of the suggestions in this article are based on recent findings in psychological research and on techniques which have been developed by solution-focused practitioners and researchers.

1. Improve your questions
Asking questions is an important characteristic of the solution-focused approach. Rather than telling clients how to think and what to do, a solution-focused therapist, coach or consultant asks questions which help the client develop goals and find solutions. Examples of useful questions are scaling questions (de Shazer, 1986), desired situation questions, exception seeking questions (Molnar & De Shazer, 1987), what’s better’ questions (de Shazer, 1986) and coping questions (Lipchik, 1988). Asking, rather than telling, potentially has the effect of activating the other person. This does not only work in the context of helping (like in therapy, coaching and consulting) but also in management and organizational development. Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google said in an interview: “We run the company by questions, not by answers” (Caplan, 2006). Marilee Adams (2004), author of Change your questions, change your life, said: "Great results begin with great questions.

2. Improve language fitIn solution-focused coaching, an important aspect in communicating with the client is to use the language of the client. Paul Watzlawick discovered that, in helping clients, working with the concepts of the client is much more powerful that using professional jargon (Watzlawick, Weakland & Fisch, 1974). When you, as a coach, replace a word of the client by a professional term, this usually works contrarily because the client may feel correct of misunderstood. Solution-focused coaches join their clients as much as possible by using their language, both in their summaries and in their questions. This skill of solution-focused coaches is called language matching. It requires the coach to listen attentively and has several advantages. A first advantage is that the coachee notices that the coach is very attentive which helps to make him feel taken seriously. A second advantage is that the coachee notices that the coach understands and accepts what he has brought forward. This gives the coachee a feeling of security and trust. A third advantage is that language matching helps the conversation to proceed fluently. This is because the coachee does not have to correct the coach and no time is lost on discussing the precise definitions of terms. Steve de Shazer, co-developer of the solution-focused approach, was very skillful in matching his language with that of his clients. Often, in his questions, he used several words taken from the last sentence of the client.

Dutch researchers Van Baaren, Holland, Steenaert and Van Knippenberg wrote the article 'Mimicry for money: Behavioral consequences of imitation' (2003). This article provides interesting empirical support for the value of language matching. Here is a summary of the article: "Two experiments investigated the idea that mimicry leads to pro-social behavior. It was hypothesized that mimicking the verbal behavior of customers would increase the size of tips. In Experiment 1, a waitress either mimicked half her customers by literally repeating their order or did not mimic her customers. It was found that she received significantly larger tips when she mimicked her customers than when she did not. In Experiment 2, in addition to a mimicry- and non-mimicry condition, a baseline condition was included in which the average tip was assessed prior to the experiment. The results indicated that, compared to the baseline, mimicry leads to larger tips. These results demonstrate that mimicry can be advantageous for the imitator because it can make people more generous."

This sheds an interesting light on the importance of using the words of the client. An important aspect of the advantage of using the clients' words is that it helps the client to like the coach much more. It improves the relationship between the two. And this, as has been shown before, is an important factor of the effectiveness of coaching and therapy.

3. Improve language wisdom
Is there any truth to the stereotype that elderly people tend to be grumpier than young people? Do people become more negative and complain more as they grow older?

James Pennebaker and his colleagues have been doing studies in which they have tried to learn about mental health by counting the use of certain categories of words by people. Research by James Pennebaker and Lori Stone (2003) showed how the use of language develops when we get older. Do we use more or less negative terms and positive terms as we get older? Pennebaker and Stone analyzed texts of people at different ages. They counted the use of positive and negative terms. In addition to this they analyzed the extent to which people used future-tense and past-tense verbs at different ages. Did they find that people talked more in negative terms and use more past-tense verbs? On the contrary! This is what they found: "With increasing age, individuals use more positive and fewer negative affect words, use fewer self references, use more future-tense and fewer past-tense verbs, and demonstrate a general pattern of increasing cognitive complexity." Reading this, you may think that this is due to the prosperity of our modern times in which older people are better taken care of than in past centuries... but no! Pennebaker and Stone also analyzed texts by authors like Shakespeare, Eliot and Yeats that they had written at different ages. They found exactly the same conclusions: the older, the more positive and future-oriented. So, the older we get, the more solution-focused our language seems to get.... Not bad!

Dutch psychologist Sitskoorn (2008) writes more about the positivity of older people. She explains that as people grow older they usually get more skillful at positive emotion regulation. This means that, as we get older, we tend to focus more on positive information and ignore negative information (with the exception of information about threats). Because older people are, on average, better at positive emotion regulation they feel offended less easily, their negative moods last briefer, they will be less inclined to yell or call people names, they remember positive things more easily and are less impressed by negative events. Not everything gets worse with aging. Some things do get more and better.

Here is a quote from a New York Times article on the research by Pennebaker and his colleagues (Wapner, 2008): "Dr. Pennebaker, a pioneer in the field of therapeutic writing, asked a group of people recovering from serious illness or other trauma to engage in a series of writing exercises. The word tallies showed that those whose health was improving tended to decrease their use of first-person pronouns through the course of the study. Health improvements were also seen among people whose use of causal words — because, cause, effect — increased. Simply ruminating about an experience without trying to understand the causes is less likely to lead to psychological growth, he explained; the subjects who used causal words “were changing the way they were thinking about things.”

So this knowledge could be used for diagnostical purposes. But could it work the other way around, too? In other words, can we improve our mental health (and that of our students, children, etc.) by deliberately decreasing some and increasing other words in our (/their) language? Good mental health seems to be associated with a limited use of first-person pronouns, and with a relatively high use of causal words (because, cause, effect).

4. Improve your NoWe are confronted with so much information and so many suggestions and demands that we simply cannot function well without being able to say No. But saying No is hard. If we do it ineffectively, other people may feel offended or rejected or they may view your No as arrogant or uncooperative. So developing the skill of saying No constructively and gracefully is very worthwhile. William Ury, author of The Power of a Positive No: How to Say No and Still Get to Yes, describes how this can be done. He presents the simple sequence of YES!-NO-YES? The first step is to root your No in an underlying yes. What is you good reason to say No now. What positive value, interest, intention is behind that No. Ury claims that if you first express your underlying yes, your No will be understood and accepted much easier. After your YES and No have been delivered, you may come up with a YES? , which is an invitation to an alternative solution.

5. Improve healing languageGreek philosopher Aeschylus once said: "Words are the physicians of a mind diseased". And this is true. Several types of language use can have downright healing effects. For instance, take the technique of normalizing. Normalizing is used to depathologize people’s concerns and present them instead as normal life difficulties. It helps people to calm down about their problem. It helps them realize they're not abnormal for having this problem. Another example of such a technique is reframing. Reframing is a technique which places what has happened or what has been said in a positive light (for instance assuming a positive intention or pointing at a positive effect). Yet another technique is mutualizing. Ziegler and Hiller (2001) give an example of mutualizing in a mediation case: "If one parent says: 'I want the child living with me full time because that's what's best for my daughter. And the other says: ''I want our daughter living with me half time and half time with you because that would be best for her.' Then I would say, 'It's pretty clear to me that both of you want to develop a plan that will be best for your daughter--you disagree at this point about what plan would be best but you share the common goal of making the best plan for her. Can we all agree about that?" Instead of emphasizing the different positions and goals the solution-focused practitioner mutualizes the preferred future.

Finally, there is the technique of Creating an expectation of positive change. Steve de Shazer (1985) claimed that change was inevitable and he more and more began to use interventions that were based on this assumption. By asking questions that implied that change was certainly going to happen, the therapist contributed to the client’s trust that the change was actually going to happen. An example of such a question is: “How will you know things will be better?’ This formulation implies that change is going to happen more than this formulation: “How would you know things would be better?” The latter formulation is more conditional, it leaves open whether the change is going to happen or not.

6. Improve your compliments
Compliments can be great tools. Complimenting can be useful. An adequate compliment provides us with the type of feedback that can help us become aware of which of our behaviors are effective. Furthermore, a compliment can make you realize that there is someone who is paying attention to you and who feels involved with what you do. This is why complimenting effectively can be useful in different contexts like parenting, education, management and co-operation. If you want to compliment, be sincere and specific and focus your compliment on something you know is important to the other person. Focus your compliment of behavior instead of on presumed fixed traits (like intelligence) of the person. Use affirmative questions so that the other person gets activated and will reflect on his or her own behavior.

More and more, it becomes clear that improving your language is an excellent way of improving the quality of your life.

References
Adams, M. (2004). Change your questions, change your life – 7 powerful tools for life and work. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, San Francisco, CA.

Baaren, R.B. van, Holland, R.W., Steenaert, B. & Knippenberg, A. van (2003). Mimicry for money: Behavioral consequences of imitation. Psychological Science 15 (1) , 71–74.

Caplan, J. (2006). Google’s Chief Looks Ahead. www.time.com.

de Shazer, 1986. An indirect approach to brief therapy. In S. de Shazer & R. Kral (Eds) Indirect Approaches in Therapy.

de Shazer, S. & Molnar, A. (1984) Four useful interventions in brief family therapy. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, v10 n3 297-304.

de Shazer, S. (1985). Keys to Solution in Brief Therapy. New York, NY: W W Norton & Company.

Lipchik, E. (1988). Purposeful sequences for beginning the solution-focused interview. In: Lipchik, E. (ed) Interviewing. Aspen, Rockville.

Pennebaker, J. & Stone, L.D. (2003). Words of Wisdom: Language Use Over the Life Span. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2003, Vol. 85, No. 2, 291–301

Sitzkoorn, M. (2008). Lang leven de hersenen. Uitgeverij Bert Bakker.

Ury, W. (2007). The Power of a Positive No. Save The Deal Save The Relationship and Still Say No. Bantam

Wapner, J. (2008). He Counts Your Words (Even Those Pronouns). New York Times, October 13.

Watzlawick, P., Weakland, J., & Fisch, R. (1974). Change: Principles of Problem Formation and Problem Resolution. New York: Norton.

Zeigler, P. & Hiller, T. (2001). Recreating Partnership: A Solution-Oriented, Collaborative Approach to Couples Therapy. W. W. Norton & Company.

How good does it get?

2008-12-01T23:19:00.000-08:00

What should we expect?

Positive thinking seems to be back in style. Positive psychology, appreciative inquiry, solution-focused change, and positive deviance are some popular positive change approaches. These approaches tend to focus on resources and virtues that enable individuals and organizations to flourish. Positive change approaches hold a great promise. Maybe they can help us to improve our lives, our organizations and hopefully even our world. But just how positive can we expect life to become?
This may be an important question. If our expectations are too low, they can make us passive and thus prevent us from improving our circumstances. In these cases our expectations have become self-fulfilling. High expectations may be self-fulfilling too, up to a point. If they are unrealistically high, they can turn into a recipe for disillusion and frustration. Expectations play an important and sometimes paradoxical role. An example is a party. Sometimes you go a party with low expectations and you are pleasantly surprised by how much fun it turns out to be. At other times your expectations are high -this is going to be so much fun! - and it turns out rather disappointing. In these cases the contrast between what we expect and what we find seems to impact our feelings and behaviors dramatically. So, what is wise to expect about life? How good can life actually get? Is a problem-free life within our reach? Can we ever approach a total peace of mind, free of worries and fears? Can we always be feeling good about ourselves and our accomplishments and live in peace with our fellow human beings? Or is it wise to lower our expectations drastically and expect life to be one damn thing after another? Or is there a middle way? When is life good enough?

Problem induction

It is important to have valid expectations life. Some authors have claimed that popular psychology has planted some wrong expectations into people's minds. Canadian psychologist Tana Dineen has written a book called Manufacturing Victims: What the Psychology Industry is Doing to People. In this book she accuses mainstream psychology of creating a generation of victims by encouraging people to dwell on their "inner stresses'. Dineen claims psychologists do this on purpose to make people need therapy and thus enlarge their market. I personally don't believe at all that the majority of psychologists deliberately would do such a wicked thing. But I think to some extent they may do such an ineffective thing while having the best intentions in mind. I do believe that often psychologists and coaches encourage people to analyze and focus on their inner stresses, insecurities and so forth. Dineen is right that this defect focus often does more harm than good. It is a case of what solution-focused practitioners often call "problem induction". You did not worry much until someone gave you the idea that your situation actually is worrisome.

How important is self-esteem?

Another psychologist, Robyn Dawes, in his book House of Cards, has a more or less related criticism. He criticizes the so-called self-esteem movement. He says that many professional psychologists have promoted a simplistic philosophy of life. This philosophy maintains that the purpose of life is to maximize one's mental health, which is dependent wholly on self-esteem. The self-esteem movement argues that in order to function well you have to feel good about yourself first. Dawes debugs this claim. He explains that planting this idea into people's minds will often do more harm than good. Here is a long quote from a very interesting article by Albert Mohler making the same point:

"Since the 1969 publication of The Psychology of Self-Esteem, in which Nathaniel Branden opined that self-esteem was the single most important facet of a person, the belief that one must do whatever he can to achieve positive self-esteem has become a movement with broad societal effects. Anything potentially damaging to kids' self-esteem was axed. Competitions were frowned upon. Soccer coaches stopped counting goals and handed out trophies to everyone. Teachers threw out their red pencils. Criticism was replaced with ubiquitous, even undeserved, praise. In 2003 the Association for Psychological Science asked Dr. Roy Baumeister, then a leading proponent of self-esteem, to review this literature. His team concluded that self-esteem was polluted with flawed science. Only 200 of those 15,000 studies met their rigorous standards. After reviewing those 200 studies, Baumeister concluded that having high self-esteem didn't improve grades or career achievement. It didn't even reduce alcohol usage. And it especially did not lower violence of any sort. (Highly aggressive, violent people happen to think very highly of them selves, debunking the theory that people are aggressive to make up for low self-esteem.) At the time, Baumeister was quoted as saying that his findings were "the biggest disappointment of my career". Now he's on Dweck's side of the argument, and his work is going in a similar direction: He will soon publish an article showing that for college students on the verge of failing in class, esteem-building praise causes their grades to sink further. Baumeister has come to believe the continued appeal of self-esteem is largely tied to parents' pride in their children's achievements: It's so strong that "when they praise their kids, it's not that far from praising themselves."

The basic idea of the self-esteem movement sounded plausible but was incorrect. Trying to improve a child's functioning by first trying to make them feel good about themselves ... does not work. But is there no relationship at all between functioning and self esteem? Yes there is, but as Martin Seligman has written, the causal relationship is more likely to be the other way around. By functioning well, people are more likely to start feeling well about themselves. So, first there is functioning well, then there is self esteem, not the other way around. It may be wiser to focus on functioning well and doing good first because this will increase the probability of you feeling you deserve to feel good about yourself. It is inescapable that you will not always feel good about yourself and your circumstances. It is inherent to life that this will be the case frequently. I think it is normal and not necessarily a sign that something is fundamentally wrong. Inner conflicts and inner stresses are normal, I think, and they will keep on happening as long as you live. This reminds of a quote by American philosopher William James illustrating the inescapability on inner stresses and even their functionality:

"Nature implants contrary impulses to act on many classes of things, and leaves it to slight alterations in the conditions of the individual case to decide which impulse shall carry the day. Thus, the greediness and suspicion, curiosity and timidity, coyness and desire, bashfulness and vanity, sociability and pugnacity, seem to shoot over into each other as quickly, and to remain in as unstable equilibrium, in the higher birds and mammals as in man..."

The inevitability and usefulness of tensionsIf William James was right, contrary impulses within people are inevitable and useful. From the outside these ‘inner stresses’ are usually hard to perceive. This may explain why people may (falsely) think that other people –unlike themselves- don’t have these inner stresses. And it may explain why we are susceptible for professionals who try to convinces us that experiencing difficulties must mean we need (their) professional help. From a distance, other people may look very calm and controlled. The reality, however, is probably that they too, more or less constantly, have to deal with pressures and tensions. The same may apply to all complex systems. Let's look at a few examples. From a distance, a famous organization may appear to function very smoothly. They serve their customers, they make a good profit and they innovate. However, if we would get a chance to look from the inside, we might see all the messy processes and inner tensions and conflicts that occur within the organization. A great pop star or movie star may appear to lead a glamorous and problem-free life. However, when their biographies come out we may find out about the struggles and problems of their lives too. The same is the case with historical figures like Caesar, Alexander the Great, Beethoven and Darwin. We tend to remember the glorious ‘summaries’; of their lives. Close inspection, however, teaches us that they were more like us than we thought. They had to deal with problems and struggles constantly, like we do. From the outside, complex systems often seem stable and steady, from the inside there is equilibrium of many contrary forces. Beautiful examples in nature are the stars in the sky. From a distance we may think of a star as a glorious solid shining body in the sky. But, from up close, a star is more like a collection of very dynamic processes than a solid body. The star is the result of the balance between two oppose forces: an outward force caused by a process of nuclear fusion by which hydrogen is steadily converted into helium and an inward gravitational force. These two opposing forces create a state of equilibrium. At some point, the outward force will decline because the star will be running out of hydrogen. This is the beginning of the end of the life cycle of the star. This is an interesting perspective: the inner stresses are the essence of the ‘life’ of the star.

Back to human beings and organizations. A realistic perspective seems to be that the problem-free life, the life of constant comfort, will never exist. We should probably not let professionals of any kind convince us that experiencing problems or doubts necessarily means we need a therapist, coach or consultant. Instead, we may be wise to embrace our stresses and dissatisfactions and consciously use them to make progress.

Fluctuation and progressLife cannot do without tension and problems and Utopian circumstances will never exist. However, this ubiquity of tensions and problems does not mean that life is doomed to be miserable and tragic. Chris Peterson, author of A Primer in Positive Psychology would say this to people who claim life is doomed to be miserable: "Even if everything sucks, some things suck more than others, an irrefutable fact given how people actually behave if not what they say. We prefer some outcomes rather than others, pursue some goals rather than others, and desire some emotional states rather than others. Whether we label these preferred circumstances "positive" or "less sucky" then becomes a matter of semantics."

What Peterson points at is that many phenomena in complex systems constantly fluctuate. Sometimes things will be worse, sometimes they will be better. The interesting thing, though, is that we can add an element of gradual progress to these fluctuations. The fluctuation of share prices is a good analogy. If you look at share price fluctuation over a relatively brief period of time, you will often perceive what seems to be a rather random fluctuation. The price goes up and down and there may seem to be no overall growth. When using a wider view by looking at a longer time period, you notice that share prices of and index on average usually steadily grow over time. This element of progress seems to be crucial for finding meaning and gratification in life.

Is happiness relevant and attainable at all?

Total peace of mind will never exist for anybody and tensions and problems are inevitable. Progress is crucial for finding a certain degree of happiness in life. Before exploring this further, there this question needs to be answered: given that problems and tensions will always be there, is happiness a real and relevant concept at all? Robert H. Frank, professor of Economics at Cornell University addresses this question in his new book Falling Behind, How Rising Inequality Harms the Middle Class. He explains that, while many economists have remained skeptical about happiness research, happiness is indeed a real and relevant concept. It exists and it is important to people. Most of the criticisms about happiness research are aimed at one of the primary lines of happiness research: surveys. In these surveys, people are asked to classify themselves into one of three categories: very happy, fairly happy, not happy. According to Frank, some arguments for taking these measures seriously are:

People differ in there responses to these questions,
People are remarkably consistent in their answers to these questions,
The answers to these questions correspond closely with responses to other types of questions assumed to be associated with happiness,
The happiness survey responses also correspond consistently with specific distinguishable brain wave patterns,
They also correspond with certain social behaviors assumed to be associated with happiness (like initiating contacts with friends, helping people, etc),
They also correspond with signs of physical and mental health.

Happiness exists. People differ in the extent to which they have it. People value it. It would be worthwhile to figure out a way to build it. What can we do individually? What can we do collectively?

The unexpected role of adaptationIf you think that buying a luxurious car or having more money will structurally increase your happiness, please reconsider. Economist Dick Easterlin has shown that this will probably not happen. His research has shown that 1) after some time people will not say that they have become happier (you get used to your possession and it no longer brings you extra satisfaction), 2) often, however, they will keep on thinking that the next desired object (a boat?) will succeed in making them happy. But it won't, because the same thing will happen: they will get used to that, too. Will a higher income lead to more happiness? Not necessarily. One reason for this, as research by Easterlin has shown, is that the positive effect of having more money is 'deflated' by the fact that peoples perceived needs have increased correspondingly. The reverse thing can happen too. People can adapt to many tragic life events too and gradually get back to their earlier level of happiness. (This adaptation is not always complete, by the way; maybe more about that later).

Robert H. Frank has also written much about adaptation and well-being. Frank explains that the main reason we buy luxury goods is to demonstrate to others that we can afford to, thereby trying to distinguish ourselves from them. In doing so, we try to achieve happiness by improving our relative status. The irony is, however, this doesn't work. The satisfaction we get from luxury spending, which Frank calls conspicuous spending, depends largely on context. The satisfaction we get from luxury spending lasts only briefly. Two examples: 1) If we buy an expensive car, this distinguishes us from our neighbor and we feel happy. If, however, next month our neighbor buys an even fancier one, our satisfaction will be largely gone. You can see how this leads to an escalation, an arms race, with no winners. 2) The satisfaction we get from luxury goods tends to decline steeply over time. We tend to get used quickly to what we have and the favorable features of the luxury good tend to fade into the background rapidly: we no longer notice the fancy features of our expensive car and our satisfaction diminishes. Bottom line: this increasing conspicuous spending does more harm than good.

Is the growth mindset applicable to happiness?Most psychologists assume that the extent to which happiness is developable is limited. They think there is a so-called set point. This is a biologically determined range within which your happiness would move. Many laypeople also seem reluctant in the achievability or developability of happiness. Brad Pitt, the movie star once remarked in response to the question whether he was happy: “I don't believe in happiness.” Now, the thinking about happiness seems to shift among experts. Ed Diener, a well-known happiness expert says: “Set-point is not destiny. In fact, happiness probably is really about work and striving. Happiness is the process, not the place. So many of us think that when we get everything just right, and obtain certain goals and circumstances, everything will be in place and we will be happy…. But once we get everything in place, we still need new goals and activities. The Princess could not just stop when she got the Prince.”

Carol Dweck's concept of the growth mindset might be useful here. Then, the question was whether intelligence is developable. Dweck shows that people who see intelligence as unchangeable develop a tendency to focus on proving that they have that characteristic instead of focusing on the process of learning. This disregard of the learning process hinders them in the development of their learning and in their performance. This means that the wrong convictions about intelligence can make smart people dumb! But there is hope: when people view intelligence as a potential that can be developed this leads to the tendency to put effort into learning and performing and into developing strategies that enhance learning and long term accomplishments. An implication is that it pays off to help children and students invest in a view of intelligence as something that can be developed.

Is the growth mindset also applicable to happiness? It seems worth a try.

Some solution-focused suggestions
The solution-focused approach might give you some hints about what you could do:

Think about how you would like your life to become
Be realistic: life will never be perfect but it can become good enough
Always focus on achieving small goals in the near future
Focus on progress
Be aware of fluctuations
Focus on what works for you

Learning to compliment effectively

2008-03-13T07:47:00.001-07:00

1. Advocates and skeptics of complimenting

Complimenting is attractive for many people. Most people prefer to and view it as more constructive to say something positive than to say something negative. After all, who does not want to be appreciated for what he does? Although everybody makes mistakes now and then, most people mean well, don't they? This way of reasoning is surely plausible which may explain why I frequently hear people saying that is good and important to compliment frequently. They claim that this is the best way to motivate people. It is correct that complimenting can be useful. An adequate compliment provides us with the type of feedback that can help us become aware of which of our behaviors are effective. Furthermore, a compliment can make you realize that there is someone who is paying attention to you and who feels involved with what you do. This is why complimenting effectively can be useful in different contexts like parenting, education, management and co-operation.

But is complimenting really always so pleasant and motivating? There are also people who are skeptical about the use and value of complimenting. Some say that they often see compliments as insincere and exaggerated as if it were some kind of trick. Others say they often get suspicious when they are complimented ("What does he want from me?"). Still others say they don't like to be complimented because it gives them the impression that the other person looks down on them (“Who does he think he is to judge me?).

What's the deal with compliments? Are the advocates right or the skeptics? My answer is that both the advocates and the skeptics are right. Complimenting can be valuable but only in certain circumstances and when done skilfully. In those cases the advantages can be achieved while negative side effects can be prevented. Below I will first explain some negative consequences which can occur when complimenting is done ineffectively. Then I will give some practical suggestions for complimenting effectively.

2. Possible disadvantageous effects of compliments

Alfie Kohn once wrote the remarkable book Punished by Rewards (Kohn, 1993). In this book, the author shows that using rewards to get something done from people is often ineffective and even harmful. One chapter of this book is dedicated completely to what Kohn calls: The praise problem. He sums up ways in which praising people can be detrimental to people's performance.

One example of damage cause by compliments can occur when you compliment someone for having accomplished a simple task. This can give this person the feeling that little is expected of him or her ("apparently this is all that is expected of me...."). As a second example Kohn explains how complimenting can lead to less persistence and concentration. He speaks of praise paralysis with which he means that telling someone how good he is can lead to stress and performance anxiety. A next example of the negative effects of praise is that it can make the praised person risk aversive. The last example Kohn mentions is that compliments of undermines the intrinsic motivation which inspires people do their best.

A special situation in which compliments can do harm is described by Geoffrey Cohen and Claude Steel (2002). These American researchers describe how teachers teaching students from minority groups sometimes overpraise these students. Teachers who fear there are viewed as prejudiced may respond by avoiding to give any critical feedback and only giving praise, even when the performance of the student is low. This response undermines student learning because they miss important critical feedback (which they could have used to their advantage) and the praise for low performance may send the message that little more is expected from that particular student. Further, overpraise may be viewed as patronizing and even insulting.

3. Process compliments work better that trait compliments

In the book Improving Academic Achievement the American researcher Carol Dweck has written a chapter titles Messages that motivate. In this chapter she explains the importance of beliefs about intelligence. Carol Dweck describes two mindsets: the fixed mindset and the growth mindset. Children who hold a fixed mindset see intelligence as a more or less fixed trait: you have a certain amount and there is not much you can do to change it. Children who hold a growth mindset see intelligence as developable. They view achievement mainly as a matter of effort. Carol Dweck has shown convincingly through many elegant experiments that which mindset you hold, has a dramatic impact on achievement. The table below summarizes the differences between the fixed and the growth mindset:

Clearly, the growth mindset is more attractive in many ways. The chapter gets even more interesting when Dweck goes on to a practical level. How can educators and parents help children develop a growth mindset? In particular, what is the role of praise? Two forms of praise are compared: process praise and trait praise. With process praise you compliment the child with his or her effort or strategy ("You must have worked hard", or: "You must have used a good strategy to solve this"). With trait praise you compliment the child for a trait, some kind of fixed internal quality ("You have done well, you must be very smart."). The table below shows the different impacts these two styles of praising children have.

4. Practical tips for complimenting effectively

The research by Carol Dweck shows that complimenting about trait can have harmful consequences. These don't occur with process compliments. Alfie Kohn (1993) provides four practical suggestions that fit well with Dweck's findings and that limit possible damaging effects of praise:

Don't praise people, only, what they do
Make praise as specific as possible
Avoid phony praise
Avoid praise that sets up competition

From the solution-focused approach some additional suggestions can be deduced:

Compliment only on things which are important to the other person. When using the solution-focused approach you don't just compliment about everything. Compliments have a specific function. They are pointers to solutions (Jackson and McKergow, 2002). Any compliments you make are focused on behaviors which seem to be related to progress in the direction of the desired situation.
Use the ABC of compliments (source: http://www.gingerich.net/). A- Accurate: The compliment has to accurately refer to what has happened and what the person has done. B – Believable: The compliment should not be an exaggeration but realistic. C – Constructive: The compliment should refer to what the person wants to achieve and be useful for making progress.
Compliment with questions. Instead of complimenting directly (for example: “Well done!") you can also compliment indirectly. This means that you invite the other through a question to describe what was good about what he or she has done and what has worked well. An example of an indirect compliment is: “Wow, how did you manage to finish that task so quickly?"). I like to call such kinds of questions affirmative questions. It is also possible to include the perspective of other people in compliments. An example may be: “What do your colleagues appreciate in how you work?” An advantage of complimenting through questions is that you activate the other person. Also, there is less chance that he or she will feel embarrassed or will turn down the compliment ("It was nothing special"). Instead you challenge the other person and make him or her reflect (“Actually, how did I do that.... let's see.....?”).

5. Summary and invitation
A brief summary of the suggestions provided here is: if you want to compliment be sincere and specific and focus your compliment on something you know is important to the other person. Focus your compliment of behavior instead of on presumed fixed traits (like intelligence) of the person. Use affirmative questions so that the other person gets activated and will reflect on his or her own behavior.

My invitation is to try these suggestions. You are welcome to share your experiences.

References

Cohen, G. L., & Steele, C. M. (2002). A barrier of mistrust: How negative stereotypes affect cross-race mentoring. In J. Aronson (Ed.), Improving academic achievement: Impact of psychological factors on education (pp. 303-328). San Diego: Academic Press.
Dweck, C. (2002). Messages that motivate: How praise molds students’ beliefs, motivation, and performance (in surprising ways). In Aronson, J. (Ed.), Improving academic achievement: Impact of psychological factors on education (pp. 37-60). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Dweck, C. (2006). Mindset, the new psychology of success. Random House.
Kohn, A. 1993. Punished by Rewards: the Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's. Praise and Other Bribe. s. New York: Houghton Mifflin
Jackson, P.& McKergow, M. (2002). The Solutions Focus, the SIMPLE way to positive change. Nicolas Brealy Publishing

A brief history of the solution-focused approach

2008-02-27T12:17:00.000-08:00

1. Precursors to the solution-focused approach

During the middle of the previous century, change was in the air. This was also the case in the profession of psychotherapy. Many psychotherapists were dissatisfied with traditional views on psychotherapy. Ever since it emerged as a discipline, the dominant view had been that psychotherapy had to focus on problems and problem causes (Walter & Peller, 2000). The therapist was seen as the expert who would expose the nature and the causes of the problem so that it could be solved. Causes were thought to be hidden away deep in the psyche of the patient and were often related to unsolved problems in the early childhood (Seligman, 1990). Furthermore, patients were generally thought to unconsciously resist treatment. What patients directly told about their problems and goals therefore, had to be taken with a pinch of salt. The most useful information was thought to be information that trickled through from the unconscious. To obtain that information, psychotherapists used techniques like dream analysis and interpretation, hypnosis, drugs, and different kinds of projective techniques.

Psychotherapy usually took a long time and did not tend to be very pragmatic and goal oriented. A funny example illustrating this is a scene from the movie Annie Hall by Woody Allen (O’Hanlon, 2000). Woody Allen plays the role of the neurotic Alvey Singer who tells his girlfriend Annie he has been in therapy for thirteen years. Yet it is clear he still has got many problems. Annie asks surprised why there is little improvement after so much therapy. Alvey responds that he intends to give it fifteen years, and if he has not gotten any results by then, he’s going to visit Lourdes.

Halfway through the previous century, several therapists were looking for ways to make therapy briefer, more goal-oriented and more pragmatic. The dominance of behaviorism played a critical role in this. Behaviorism had dissociated itself from psycho-analysis and focused on intervening in concrete observable behaviors. Albert Ellis is a well known therapist who developed a more pragmatic form of therapy, rational emotive therapy (RET). Within this form of therapy, problems were thought to be maintained by irrational beliefs of the client. By identifying and then replacing these irrational beliefs by more rational beliefs the problem could be solved. The ideas on pragmatism that William James (1842-1910) had formulated before were another source of influence to many people in that time. The pragmatists suggested to shift the emphasis from trying to explain and predict truth to identifying what works. James argued that people are creators of reality. He once said: “Truth is what works.” This way of thinking certainly played a role in the work of another pioneering therapist.

Milton Erickson

This pioneering therapist was Milton Erickson. He was an American psychiatrist who had quite a few unorthodox ideas about therapy which he used successfully. We no know that many of his ideas point forward to the principles of the solution-focused approach. Erickson did not believe in diagnostic labels and strongly believed in the power of people to solve their own problems. He was convinced that therapy often did not need to take long and believed that a small change by the client was often enough to set a process of larger change in motion. Erickson also used paradoxical techniques such as prescription of the symptoms. Characteristic of his approach was that he used whatever was there in the context of the client. Each seemingly coincidental feature or event in the life of the client could turn out to be part of the solution. An illustration of this is the case of the African violet lady (source: carol roach, M.Ed, B.A).

An old depressive lady lived alone in a big city. She had no family and friends left and seldomly left her house. A concerned neighbor approached Erickson who agreed to visit her. He saw the house was in total squalor and asked to be shown around the house. While walking through the house, he did not say a word. He did notice a dying African violet. At the end of the tour, he said: “I can tell that you love flowers". The lady agreed. Erickson suggested that she’d go out to buy African Violets and plant them in her garden. He also suggested that she would send one of here African Violets each time someone in her neighborhood died or was born without telling who had sent it. The lady agreed and the news of this mysterious lady who sends everyone her African violets spread quickly through out the city. When she died, many years later, she had become well known in the area and hundred of people came at her funeral. Newspapers mentioned ‘The African Violet lady’ had died.

In a way that was typical for how Erickson viewed life, he once said the fact that he had had polio at age 17 which totally paralyzed him had been an important advantage to him. The reason the said this was that he was convinced it had helped him to become very good at observing other people. Instead of complaining about his situation, he accepted it and turned it into an advantage. He is said to have conquered his paralysis later by teaching himself step by step to move again. By the way, besides having been paralyzed, Erickson is said to have had quite a few other limitations: he was colorblind, dyslectic, tone deaf and arrhythmic (Cade, 2007).

Gregory Bateson is another influence on the solution-focused approach. He was an English anthropologist who was married to the famous anthropologist Margaret Mead and the son of the famous geneticist William Bateson. Bateson thought and wrote about systems theory and cybernetics. One of his influences on the development of the solution-focused approach was his view that the social system in which people function is a great importance to the development and solution of problems. But Bateson’s greatest contribution to solution-focused therapy may well be that he started The Bateson Project. This was a communications research project in which researchers like John Weakland, Jay Haley and William Fry observed and analyzed video tapes famous therapists like Milton Erickson and Don Jackson. This project formed the basis of the Mental Research Institute and has enabled the work of Erickson to get a large audience and influence.

The Mental Research Institute

The Mental Research Institute has played an important role in the development of the solution-focused approach. At the Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto, California, which was founded in 1958 by Don Jackson, researchers and therapists like Jay Haley, Paul Watzlawick, John Weakland, Richard Fisch and Janet Beavin developed innovative approaches to therapy. Within the MRI Fisch, Weakland and Watzlawick founded the Brief Therapy Center in 1966 (Cade, 2007). The therapists within this center developed a briefer, more goal-oriented and pragmatic approach to therapy. They viewed the person who came for therapy not as a patient but rather as a client, a customer even. They took what the client said very seriously which meant that they focused on the problem that the client presented. Before that time, it had always primarily been the therapist who determined what the topic of the conversation was. Further, the MRI therapists believed it was not necessary to talk extensively about the childhood of the client and about any underlying problem causes. They believed that the reasons for the current problems existed in the here-and-now and that solutions could be found in the present, too. Their logic was: if the client has a problem now, he or she must do something wrong now. He or she does must unintendedly do something which maintains the problem. The goal of therapy became to find out what the client did wrong and to convince him or her to stop doing this and to replace it by some other, more effective, behavior.

2. The birth of the solution-focused approach

Insoo Kim Berg and Steve de Shazer

In the Nineteen Sixties, Insoo Kim Berg was a young American therapist from Asian origin. Like quite a few other therapists, she was dissatisfied with the traditional way of doing therapy because she felt it did not work well. Looking back on this period, in 2004, she said:

I realized: 'This doesn't work'. And that was quite something! Just must know, I had a typical Asian girl background: very obedient. I was sent to finishing high school in Korea, the type of school that teaches you to be a good housewife. And my mother’s main mission had been to have me married into a nice family. It was quite a revolution that a girl like me could do something like that...be disobedient about how to do therapy. I knew I had to be disobedient quietly. I started reading a lot and I came across a text by Jay Haley called 'The power tactics of Jesus Christ'. Can you imagine that? This was a shock! I was shaken up. That was the beginning. That you could look at things like that! Then, I read his book 'Uncommon Therapy'. And in the early seventies I started to do things differently. And I really read a lot. For instance a book by Paul Watzlawick of MRI, The Mental Research Institute, in Palo Alto in California. Jay Haley, John Weakland and Paul Watzlawick worked there (Visser, 2004).

Berg did not start working at the MRI but she did go out to study there. John Weakland became a mentor to her. Incidentally, Weakland had a same kind of mentorship with another therapist, Steve de Shazer, a creative person and therapist. He had studied at the University of Wisconsin and had learned to play the saxophone at a professional level. He admired the work of Erickson. He was also an enthusiastic amateur cook. Around that time, De Shazer experimented a lot with the so-called one-way screen, a mirror through which a team of therapists could observe a therapy conversation without being seen by the client and the therapist. The purpose of using the one-way screen was to learn by observing conversations. At the end of the therapy session, the therapist went behind the mirror for a few minutes to talk with the team. The therapist would get feedback and tips from the team and would then go back to the client to give his feedback and tips and close the conversation.

In 1977, after Weakland had introduced Berg and De Shazer to each other at a MRI conference, they started working together. They spend lots of time together behind the screen and eventually became a couple. Berg convinced de Shazer to leave California and leave with her to Milwaukee. The two of them and a few other therapists who were inspired by the MRI, like Jim Derks, Marilyn LaCourt, Eve Lipchik, Don Norum and Elam Nunnally worked there in a therapy practice called Family Service (Malinen, 2001). The majority of the therapists working at that organization were traditionally oriented, though. Berg remembered that she worked very hard and liked the challenge of accepting difficult cases other therapists would rather not take (Visser, 2004). Berg and De Shazer and their colleagues introduced the one-way in that organization to learn about effective therapy by closely observing what worked, and to educate students. The students loved it but many of the traditional therapists objected to it. They thought using the one-way screen was unethical and put pressure on Berg and De Shazer to stop using it. At a certain point, there the pressure between the two camps became so intense that they and a few of their colleagues started their own practice.

The Brief Family Therapy Center

De Shazer and Berg started their practice in 1978 and called it the Brief Family Therapy Center (BFTC). Original members of the BFTC team were Jim Derks, Marvin Weiner, Elam Nunnally, Eve Lipchik, Alex Molnar and Marilyn LaCourt. After that therapists like Wally Gingerich, Michele Weiner Davis, John Walter, Kate Kowalski, Ron Kral, Gale Miller, Scott Miller and Larry Hopwood joined (Cade, 2007). All these people have contributed in one way or another to the development of the solution-focused approach. De Shazer and Berg and their colleagues hardly had any money so they started off in their own living room. Only later were they able to hire an office. Their mission was to find out what worked in therapy.

They did not want to take a specific theory as a starting point. Instead they wanted to build knowledge about what worked in therapy inductively. They started of by identifying traditional elements of therapy and removing one element at a time from sessions. Then they observed whether the client outcome had been affected by the removal of this element. They discovered that analyzing and diagnosing problems could be removed from the therapeutic conversation without negative consequences for client outcomes. In addition to the approach of systematically removing traditional element of therapy they did several other things. One thing was that they were actively studied therapeutic "accidents" or spontaneous events in therapeutic conversations. When the therapist or the client did something that seemed to work, they discussed that and they tried it again. While trying to figure out what worked, they observed clients during actual conversations and videotaped conversations. They looked for interventions that helped clients to formulate more clearly what they wanted to achieve, that helped the client to become more confident in their possibilities and that helped to identify ideas for steps forward.

Each intervention that made clients become more aware of what they wanted to achieve, more optimistic, hopeful, energetic and full of ideas, was written down, discussed by the team and used more often. As the model developed, the client's voice became a more and more important criterion. Each time a client reported that some intervention had led to a positive change they considered that intervention useful. They equated ‘what worked’ with what the client found useful. In addition to this, they did occasional quantitative studies to find out about the effectiveness of interventions (Weiner-Davis, De Shazer & Gingerich, 1987), attempts to formalize the approach into an expert system (the BRIEFER project, Gingerich & De Shazer, 1991) and several qualitative studies. They identified many interventions that often worked well which helped them build a set of solution-focused tools. But they also did another important discovery. They learned that what worked well with one person did not necessarily with the next person. This made them realize how important it was to pay close attention to how clients responded to whatever happened during the conversation and to use this. Between 1978 and 1985 the basis was created for what is now known as the solution-focused approach.

3. The solution-focused approach in writing

In those early years, the most prolific person and the writer within the BFTC team was De Shazer. In 1982, he published his first book about the solution-focused approach: Patterns of Brief Family Therapy: An Ecosystemic Approach. At first, the therapy world did not receive De Shazer’s ideas with great enthusiasm. He had sent his article The Death of Resistance (De Shazer, 1984) to a journal for the first time in 1979. It got rejected no less than 17 times before it finally got published in 1984 (Malinen, 2001). In the article, De Shazer claims that it is a bad idea to think the client has resistance against treatment in therapy. According to him, what works better is to view therapy as a process of co-operation between therapist and client. He proposed that everything the client says or does can best be seen as an attempt to help the therapy process move forward. When the client said or did something the therapist did not understand right away, the therapist should not confront the client. Instead, the therapist should assume that the client had a good reason for saying or doing this. Approaching the client very constructively helped to build a good co-operation very quickly.

An important next publication was the article Four useful interventions in brief therapy, which he co-wrote with Alex Molnar (De Shazer and Molnar, 1984). In that article, one intervention they introduced was the First Session Formula Task. This task, which the therapist asks at the end of the first therapy session, goes like this:

Between now and next time we meet, I want you to observe, so that you can tell me next time, what happens in your life, that you want to continue to have happen”.

The invention of this intervention, which was later sometimes called the continuation question, formed an important step forward in the development of the solution-focused approach because it changed the orientation of the team drastically. Since that moment the members of the BFTC team started to focus more and more consciously on what already went well. Elam Nunnally, one of the original members, once told that the task was inspired by interventions used in paradoxical therapies (Malinen, 2001) in which clients were often discouraged to change anything.

As the title suggested, De Shazer and Molnar’s article also contained three other interventions. The second intervention mentioned in the article was: Do something different. This task, which was inspired by the work of Gregory Bateson (1979), was focused on replacing existing behavioral patterns with new ones. By trying out new behaviors the client could encounter more effective patterns of behavior which were solutions to his or her problems. The third intervention mentioned in the article was what was later called the overcoming-the-urge task:

“Pay attention to what you do when you overcome the temptation or urge to … (perform the symptom or some behavior associated with the complaint).”

This intervention turned out to work very well in helping client to fall back in old ineffective habits. Through this task, clients gradually became aware that they sometimes managed to successfully resist their temptations and how they did that. The task helped clients find ideas to overcome their urges. The fourth intervention mentioned in the article was the stability as change intervention. Whenever clients told that they were stuck in a situation and did not manage to make progress, the therapist would respond by explaining that remaining stable required many skills and that other people would perhaps have fallen back instead of remaining stable.

In his second book, Keys to Solution in Brief Therapy, De Shazer began to emphasize the importance of creating an expectation of change (De Shazer, 1985). He claimed that change was inevitable and he more and more began to use interventions that were based on this assumption. By asking questions that implied that change was certainly going to happen, the therapist contributed to the client’s trust that the change was actually going to happen. An example of such a question is: “How will you know things will be better?’ This formulation implies that change is going to happen more than this formulation: “How would you know things would be better?” The latter formulation is more conditional, it leaves open whether the change is going to happen or not. In Keys to Solution, De Shazer for the first time explicitly claims that detailed information about the complaint is not necessary for solving it (De Shazer, 1985). This book is also the first publication in which he explicitly writes that past successes form a key to solving problems (De Shazer, 1985).

In 1986, De Shazer described the later to be famous technique of the scaling question, which the BFTC had been using for years, in the book chapter An indirect approach to brief therapy (De Shazer & R. Kral, 1986). Scaling questions belong to the most flexible, simple and popular techniques in the solution-focused toolkit. With scaling questions the therapist asks the client to imagine a scale ranging from 0 to 10. The 10 position on the scale stands for the situation in which the problem has been solved and the desired state has been accomplished. The 0 position stands for the situation in which nothing has yet been achieved or in which the problem was at its worst. The therapist asks where the client is now on that scale en how he or she has managed to get from zero to their current position. When clients begin to answer this, they usually begin to become more optimistic and hopeful and they find some new ways to take further steps forward on the scale. The therapist may also ask what the highest point on the scale has been for the client and what was different then. The technique of scaling questions emerged more or less by coincidence when a client, in a second session, answered to a question by De Shazer about how things were: “I’ve almost reached 10 already!” De Shazer and his colleagues began to play with the use of scales and step by step the scaling question was developed (Malinen, 2001, De Shazer, 1999)."

Around 1986 and 1987, new terms were added to the repertoire of the Brief Family Therapy Center. For instance, the term solution-focused began to be used more often and more prominently. Also from this period the What’s better question stems (De Shazer, 1986). This question is mainly asked at the beginning of the second and later sessions with a client. The advantage of this question is that the client can focus his or her attention fully on what progress he or she has made and on what has worked. This usually has a motivating effect, leads to more awareness of what works and to new ideas for steps forward. In 1987, De Shazer mentioned the concept of exceptions for the first time in an article (Molnar & De Shazer, 1987). This concept refers to the fact that the intensity of problems always fluctuates. This means that there are always times when the problem is less severe or even absent for the client. These moments can be used to find keys to solve problems. Clients were encouraged to identify and analyze exceptions and to try to find out how they had managed to be less troubled at these moments. Then, they were encouraged to repeat what had worked well in these situations. Often, this helped in making exceptions occur more frequently and last longer and the problem slowly seemed to move to the background.

Weiner-Davis, De Shazer and Gingerich carried out empirical research to find out what worked well in therapy. One of the surprising things the discovered is that the improvement of the situation of the client had often started before the first conversation with the therapist had started. This appeared to be the case in roughly two thirds of the cases. This phenomenon was labeled Pre-session change (Weiner-Davis, De Shazer & Gingerich, 1987). Clients had started themselves to make progress without the help of the therapist. Ever since this is known solution-focused therapist use this fact by asking questions like: 1) which changes have already occurred since the moment you called me to make this appointment?, 2) Which things have helped since you called me?, 3) Which steps forward have you taken since you called me?, 4) What is better since you called me? By asking these questions, the self-confidence of the client usually strengthens and solution-talk can proceed quickly.

Probably the most well-known and popular intervention within the solution-focused approach is the miracle question (De Shazer, 1988). Even many people who have never heard of the solution-focused approach have heard about the miracle question. Miller and Berg (1995) explain how the miracle question emerged when a client said that her problem was so serious that it would take a miracle to solve it. The therapist followed the clients’ suggestion and asked: “Well … suppose that would happen… what would be different?” From later publications it becomes clear that that therapist was Insoo Kim Berg (for example Norman, McKergow, & Clarke, 1996).

In his book Clues, Investigating Solutions in Brief Therapy De Shazer wrote about the prediction task (De Shazer, 1988). With this task the therapist asks the client the following:

Each night, before going to bed, predict whether or not you will succeed in ............. (whatever it is the client wants to accomplish) the next day.

Prediction tasks are based on the idea that what you want to happen becomes more probable once the process that leads to it is set in motion. De Shazer had observed that simply predicting the desired change would increase the chance of it happening, no matter whether the prediction would positive or negative. In the same book, De Shazer described the difference between visitors, complainers and customers. Visitors were clients who did not have a clear idea about what they wanted from the therapy. This could be the case for instance with involuntary clients. Complainers were clients who found it useful to talk with the therapist but who complained a lot and behaved helplessly. They usually did not see a clear relationship between their own behavior and the problem, let alone the solution. Customers were clients who found the conversation useful, were open to questions and suggestions by the therapist and were prepared to do things to improve their situation. Customers could be give a so-called behavioral task which could not be done with complainers. They could only be given a so-called observations task (like the suggestion to pay attention to what was going right in their lives). A last well-known concept from the book Clues is reframing. With reframing apparently negative behaviors are placed in to positive light by focusing on the underlying good intentions and their possible usefulness in certain circumstances.

Eve Lipchik has also written a some publications. At least two concepts she described in these publications have become part of the arsenal of the solution-focused professional: the coping question and listening with a constructive ear (Lipchik, 1988). The coping question is the question: “How do you manage to go on?” This question is very useful when the client describes that his or her problems are severe, for instance when they say they are at a zero on the scale. Listening with a constructive ear is related to the Death of Resistance idea (De Shazer, 1984). When listening with a constructive ear you approach what the other says appreciatively and you notice good intentions and resources that would otherwise be harder to notice.

In his book Putting difference to work (1991) De Shazer, among other things, emphasized the development of well-formed goals. The idea is that specific goals are usually the starting point of change.

In 1992, Harlene Anderson and Harry Goolishian presented an article in which they assert that it is helpful for the therapy process when the therapist assumes an attitude of not-knowing. This influential article elaborates the idea that therapist can never fully understand the situation of the client and never really know what is best for the client. These kinds of ideas have been proposed by others earlier. Erickson and en Rossi (1979), for instance, mentioned the concept of not-knowing and even before that Don Norum, in 1978, has written the article The Family has the Solution (Norum, 1978). This article that is almost certain to have been influential to the development of the solution-focused approach was only published in the year 2000 (Norum, 2000).

In the beginning of the Nineteen Nineties several other authors have contributed to the development of the solution-focused approach. Two examples are Cantwell en Holmes (1994) who introduced the concept leading from one step behind and Berg (1994) who described the use of indirect compliments.

De Shazer has made a formidable contribution to the solution-focused approach with the many publications he has written. Beside this, all of the members of BFTC as well as various ‘outsiders’ like Don Norum (2000), Bill O’Hanlon, James Wilk (O’Hanlon & Wilk, 1987), Yvonne Dolan (1991), John Walter en Jane Peller (1992) and Peter De Jong (De Jong & Berg, 2001) have made important contributions. But especially the role of Berg appears to have been so important that De Shazer remarked: “Well, everything that we do over the years is trying to figure out how she and her clients did it. She is the Master. I don't know what other word to use. She is the Master.” (Norman, McKergow, & Clarke, 1996). Berg seemed to view things a little differently. She said the following about the co-operation between De Shazer and herself: “Steve´s role was clearly to be very creative, innovative kind of role, that´s his job, and I think my role was to somehow make that fit…to make it a little easier to digest for the rest of the world.” (Kiser, 1995)

Roughly after the year 2000, several individuals and groups from around the World have started to apply the solution-focused techniques outside the therapy context. In Belgium, Cauffman was one of them. In the U.K. Jackson and McKergow (2002) worked hard to make the translation to the context of organizations. Countries like Sweden, Canada, Switzerland, and Germany also had such pioneers. In The Netherlands, Gwenda Schlundt Bodien and I have attempted to make useful contributions (Visser, 2005).

The solution-focused approach is now being applied in therapy, in education, and in organizations. The approach is not only used in one-on-one conversations but also in teams and even organization-wide. Also, managers are using solution-focused techniques more and more. Also, much research is being done, both in the therapy (Gingerich & Eisengart, 2000) and in schools (Franklin, Moore & Hopson, 2008) and even in a coaching (Visser & Butter, 2008) and the approach keeps on developing and renewing itself (see for instance Young & Holdorf (2003).

In other words, the solution-focused approach is very much alive.

Also view: A brief history of the solution-focused approach (Youtube:)

Literature

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Walter, J.L. & Peller, J.E. (1992). Becoming Solution-focused in Brief therapy. Brunner/Mazel.
Walter, J.L. & Peller, J.E. (2000). Recreating Brief Therapy. New York, NY: W W Norton & Company.
Watzlawick, P., Beavin, J., & Jackson, D. D. (1967). Pragmatics of human communication. A study of interactional patterns, pathologies, and paradoxes. New York: Norton.
Weiner-Davis, M., De Shazer, S., Gingerich, W. (1987). Using pretreatment change to construct a therapeutic solution: a clinical note.
Sue Young, R., & Holdorf, G. (2003). Using solution focused brief therapy in individual referrals for bullying. Educational Psychology in Practice, 19(4), 271-282.

The Support Group Approach - Interview with Sue Young

2008-02-16T05:40:00.000-08:00

Sue Young now divides her time between behaviour support to schools and training in solution focused practice. She advocates using solution-focused thinking to encourage success at every level in schools. Her initiatives include implementing national policies across schools, helping local staff encourage positive behaviours in their students and giving support to individual children and parents. One of Sue’s particular interests is promoting an anti-bullying ethos. In the mid-ninties, she developed the support group approach for responding to incidents of bullying. Later she discovered how well her approach fitted with solution focused thinking and ever since, has been applying solution focused principles to all areas of her work. So, what is the support group approach and how does it work? Is it hard to do? How does it help? Find answers to these questions and more in this interview.

COERT: Hi Sue, could you explain, for readers who haven't heard about it yet, what the support group approach is?

SUE: Briefly, the support group approach is a solution focused strategy for resolving complaints of bullying, particularly in primary schools. I think it is a good example of a ‘solution key’ (de Shazer) because the simplicity of the intervention enables it to fit a wide range of circumstances. The child who is upset is interviewed to find out who they are finding difficult to cope with at the moment, who else is around when they find things difficult and who is (are) their friend(s). They are not asked for any information about what has been happening. The child is reassured that things will begin to get better and told that a group of children, chosen from the names they have given, will be asked to help. The child is asked to notice anything that gets better so they can tell you about it when you review after a week. A support group is made up from these names, ideally 5-8 children. The group is seen separately and simply asked to help with the aim of making the target child happy in school. No explanation is given about why the child may be unhappy. It is important that whoever leads the interviewing does not use the word ‘bullying’ at all and tries to leave behind any judgement about what has been happening. They are asked for suggestions of small things they might try and an arrangement is made to review what they have managed to do a week later.

COERT: Okay, and what happens one week later in the review meetings with the bullied child and in the meeting with the support group?

SUE: In the review meeting the target child is asked about things that are better and is praised for how they have handled the situation. In the group’s meeting that follows, the children are asked how they think things are going and each one is given the chance to report back on what they have managed to do. They are thanked individually for the help they have given and then congratulated for their success as a group. A further review can be arranged in another week's time, if necessary. Sometimes there needs to be more than one review to ensure that any teasing or bullying that is happening, typically by someone outside the group, stops completely but it is rare for it to go as far as five meetings. The criterion for finishing the group is that everyone is agreed that the child is now happy in school: the target child, the members of the group, staff involved at school and the parents.

COERT: I understand how it works. What do you see as the main characteristics and advantages of this approach in comparison to other anti-bullying approaches?

SUE: It is unnecessary for a child to repeat over what has been happening, with the disadvantage of re-traumatising and demoralising a child who is often already feeling powerless and anxious about telling anyone about how they are feeling, plus talking it over may actually reinforce those feelings. It also feels less ‘risky’ for the child when they don’t have to ‘tell tales’ on anyone. Most other approaches presume that bullying has been happening, although in practice this can be difficult to be certain about, since bullying generally takes place outside the view of adults. Other children who know it's happening very seldom report it, and anyone accused of bullying tends to deny it. So ‘proving’ it can be very difficult. Thankfully proving it doesn’t matter with this approach, since no assumptions need to be made about what’s going on. None of the children are labelled by it – ‘bully’, ‘victim’ - whilst at the same time the opportunity is open to them to make amends, if they want to. That applies sometimes, surprisingly maybe, to the target child, too.

COERT: And what is different in the way parents are involved?

SUE: If a parent has made a complaint, they get regular updates at the reviews on how things are going and are involved in evaluating progress. This is reassuring for them at a very difficult time. Often in traditional strategies they get left out, don’t get feedback, and this can exacerbate the difficulties. They can even end up being blamed for being ‘over-protective’. There’s no need to tell other children’s parents that their child has been accused of being a bully – resulting difficulties between parents can become more problematic than the original complaint. On the contrary, parents can be told how helpful and kind their child has been. Parents get to know when their school deals with bullying effectively – and they value it highly because it is something that a lot of parents fear happening to their child.

COERT: How do children typically respond to the Support group approach?

SUE: The children enjoy it – we have interviewed children who have been in support groups and they say things like: I enjoyed doing it, I made more friends too, it made me feel important, it made me feel happier. It teaches children a more helpful way of responding to others and feeling good about themselves. Over the longer term, this can affect the whole ethos of a school. Some other approaches, e.g. assertiveness training, implicitly blame the ‘victim’. However, if you stop the bullying, assertiveness or low self esteem etc. are no longer a problem - and it's easier and quicker this way to stop the bullying.

COERT: This all sounds simple and attractive. What can you tell me about the effectiveness of the approach? Have you done some research for instance or have you otherwise gotten systematic feedback?

SUE: This approach has been subject to rigorous review of a large number of actual cases in terms of outcomes – we know it works, whereas with most other strategies there has been no evaluation based on outcomes (other than solution focused brief therapy, which we have also evaluated). It’s fast acting… and it is maintained longer term. Other approaches tend to rely on the assumed efficacy of the process e.g. traditional counselling, phone help lines, punishment of offenders etc. or anecdotal accounts of a few cases. In an article I wrote at the time (read it here), I describe two types of research: outcome based evaluation and process based. Firstly, and most importantly, evaluation based on the outcomes: in the first 50 support groups that I led, there was immediate success in 80% (40) of those cases, then it tapers off - 7 cases took up to 5 meetings before everyone was satisfied that the child was happy in school and there was no bullying, I called that 'delayed success'. In 3 cases (6%), although there was improvement, I was not completely satisfied, I called that limited success. Importantly, no case got worse. What is interesting, by the way, is that when the group was led by staff from within school, the outcomes seem to be even better - higher than 80% and fewer meetings on average!

Although this research was done about ten years ago now, I still haven't come across any other study of an intervention for bullying that is as transparent in outcomes or as successful as this, over a large number of cases (other than the one I mentioned on SFBT earlier, that Gail Holdorf and I did). I am both proud of this article for that reason, but also frustrated. All the research that has been done into bullying - 'admiring the problem'! - but so little done into what works in individual cases to stop it.

COERT: Can you give an example of an experience of teacher who has used the Support Group Approach?

SUE: In terms of independent corroboration, I trained a teaching assistant to lead support groups in a primary school that had particular difficulties. She kept excellent records which she allowed me to look through later. Her records showed that she also had led over 50 groups and all had been effective. However, she always continued group meetings for about 5 sessions – even when her records showed there was no problem - I think she just enjoyed doing it! At this school they called them ‘Friendly Groups’. I referred to her work in my chapter in Solutions in Schools – but she wouldn’t let me put in her name! Other than this, I’ve had loads of feedback from individuals who have used it and been delighted. Of course, anyone who didn’t have success is unlikely to feed back. Nevertheless, so many people have tried it successfully, and at the first attempt, I’m certain that it is a very robust strategy.

COERT: You mentioned process research. Could you explain that?

SUE: Sure, I did research into the processes happening in the support group, the theories in social psychology about how groups work and the behaviour of bystanders. I was looking for the rational for why it worked so well, and so quickly. Whilst researching on this, I came across 'solution focused brief therapy'. It seemed to me that how I was doing support groups was a good example of solution focused work, although not therapy. More recently, I have done some research on what children who have been in support groups think about it – I made a couple of videos interviewing them. We took two of these children to the EBTA (European Brief Therapy Association) conference in Krakow and they took part in our workshop there. They were great! It seems obvious to them, if someone is unhappy in school you ask other children to help… of course it works…. of course they enjoy it…. what’s so hard to understand about that...?!

COERT: Sounds logical, indeed. Do you have any experiences with or thoughts on situation in which aggression and physical violence are involved? Would you recommend using the Support Group Approach in the same manner or should additional or different things be done?

SUE: I have used a support group where children have had bruises, black eyes or been kicked etc. and in long term cases where bullying appears to have been a problem for more than a year, maybe at successive schools. However, I recommend using support groups in primary schools – and children don’t generally do very serious harm at that age. I have never had a case in a primary school when I felt unable to recommend it. Although I have led support groups in secondary schools successfully, and I know others have, I would not recommend it universally for any situation. For example, one case I remember was of a teenage girl where there had been a sexual assault by two or three boys – I would not have felt comfortable leading a support group including those boys. (I’m not sure I would call this bullying, although on the news here recently a murder of a schoolboy was called ‘bullying’.) With anything so serious, the police would normally be involved and I would not want to interfere with any investigation. Generally, the student(s) would be suspended from attending school whilst this was going on, anyway. In serious cases in secondary schools, I would use solution focused brief therapy to support the ‘victim’, if that was wanted. I wrote an article with Gail Holdorf on the success of using SFBT, mainly with older students (read it here). There are other reasons why a support group may not be appropriate in secondary school, too - e.g. the student may not want anyone else involved at all and we would respect that.

It is interesting that the anti-bullying project very rarely had referrals of ‘bullies’ – almost all referrals were of perceived ‘victims’. Now I work part time for a behaviour support service, I get referrals of students for ‘anger management’, maybe violent outbursts, and bullying others may occasionally be mentioned. I deal with these individual cases using SFBT too – so I work with them individually on ‘staying calm’ or ‘getting on with work’ or ‘staying in school’ (i.e. not getting excluded) - whatever they identify they want to change. This is not as successful in terms of outcomes as I would like, although still far better than other approaches I have used in the past. It can be hard to get any progress noticed, or recognised as significant, by other staff. Generally, I find working in a solution focused way directly with teachers and other school staff to be more successful in terms of outcomes for children with serious behaviour difficulties.

COERT: As a last question I’d like to ask: what practical suggestions do you have for teachers reading who want to try this out?

SUE: It doesn’t need a lot of training or particular expertise – just a willingness to have a go with something different – so it’s accessible to school staff. I think it would be very helpful to read a case study – there’s one in Interviewing for Solutions and another in my chapter in Solutions in Schools, mentioned before. I am hoping to have a new book out soon – my old one, Solutions to Bullying, is out of print. Anyone leading the group needs to remember the suggestions for making the child happy in school should all come from the group - and resist the temptation to give them any other information or advice. When people have watched me leading a group in a school, as they usually did, they have said that the most surprising thing is that I don’t talk about bullying at all – either with the ‘victim’ or the group. And all the staff I know who have done it, love it! Staff and children learn the effectiveness of becoming solution focused. I would suggest just following the guidelines and keep it simple!

The most encouraging thing is that when used well, solution focused support groups contribute to an atmosphere in school where bullying is less likely to happen in the first place.

References

Y. & Rees, I. (2001). Solutions in Schools: Creative Applications of Solution Focused Brief Thinking with Young People and Adults. London: BT Press
De Jong P. & Berg I.K. (2008). Interviewing for solutions, 3d ed..Brooks/Cole.
Young, S. (1998). The Support Group Approach to Bullying in Schools. Educational Psychology in Practice Vol 14, No 1, April 1998
Young, S. & Holdorf, G. (2003). Using solution focused brief therapy in individual referrals for bullying. Educational Psychology in Practice, 19(4), 271-282.
Young, S. (2002). Solutions to Bullying. NASEN.

Moving FORWARD with solution-focused change

2008-01-13T03:22:00.000-08:00

A results-oriented and appreciative way of making progress

The solution-focused approach

Just before the turn of the millennium, a relatively new approach to psychotherapy began to raise curiosity among some organizational consultants, coaches, and trainers. Articles and books claimed this approach to be quite different from other approaches. They claimed it was simple, positive, and amazingly effective. Around that time, several groups of people in different parts of the world started using the approach in organizational settings. Now, roughly ten years later, these pioneers have made considerable progress. They discovered the solution-focused model is also very useful outside the field of therapy. Coaches, trainers, consultants, and managers have started to apply the approach, or parts of it. This has helped them to be more effective in achieving their goals. Moreover, often, at the same time, it has made their work more enjoyable.

Below follows a description of the solution-focused approach to change. We developed a simple and, hopefully, sticky acronym, FORWARD, to make it easier for you to start applying and to remember the main ingredients of the solution-focused model. Next, some examples will follow on how to apply the solution-focused model in the workplace. We will end the article with possible ways forward.

What is solution-focused change?

Many authors describe the solution-focused approach as a process in which practitioners invite their clients to envision their preferred future. Next, they start asking questions about the clients’ strengths and resources, and about things that have already gone well and then they invite them to take small steps forward. Often in this process, they use techniques like scaling, the miracle question, exception finding questions and coping questions.

The FORWARD-model

A new and different way of explaining the solution-focused approach is through the FORWARD acronym. The letters FORWARD stand for:

Below follows a brief description of each step:

1. Focus on what you want to be different

The first step in the solution-focused change process is usually to focus on what you want to change and why you want to change that. There may be two kinds of desire for change: 1) there is something negative you want to get rid of (a problem) and 2) there is something positive you want more of (an unfulfilled aspiration). In this first step of the solution-focused change process, you ask questions like:

What would you like to be different?
What is it you want to change?
What is the reason you want things to be different?
How is the current situation bothering you?

A remarkable aspect of the solution-focused approach is that you skip problem analysis and diagnosis. Analyzing why the problem exists and who is responsible for causing the problems are not part of the approach (read more). Instead, you take the shortest route to the desired outcomes.

2. Outcomes desired are made specific

Next, you focus your attention on specifying how you want things to be. In other words, what should be the concrete positive results of the change process? An important precondition of making any change process succeed is to know specifically what you want to achieve (read more). When people start formulating how they want things to be different, they often become excited and hopeful. By focusing on specific positive goals, the change process has actually begun. In this step, you ask questions like the following:

How would you like things to be different?
What do you want to achieve?
What will be different when the change has succeeded?
What will you do differently?
How will others notice things have become better?
What advantages will this have?

3. Describe results already realized

The third step is often to look specifically at what is already there. It is like looking at the glass as half full. This often has the following strong positive effects: 1) people involved find new energy and hope (read more). People tend to overlook what has already been achieved. When they rediscover what is already working well, they often become more optimistic and hopeful, 2) they find some practical ideas to hold on to what works well and to make some progress. The following questions are associated with this step:

What is already going well?
Which results have already been achieved?
What helped?
What worked well before?

4. When did success already happen?

The following step is to identify specific situations in the past in which things have already gone better. This might involve: a) an exception to the problem: the current problem was less problematic, or b) an earlier success: the situation you want to achieve was already happening to some extent. When you have identified such a situation, you answer questions like:

What went right in this situation?
What was different in this situation?
What made possible for things to go better?
What was your own role in this success?

5. Action: one small step forward

Then, the attention shifts to taking action by looking at how earlier success is useful for the current situation. This is sometimes called building a bridge between successes in the past to success in the future. You focus on taking one small step forward instead of taking a big leap. Taking small steps has several advantages: 1) it is easy: the required energy, motivation, and trust are minimal, 2) it is safe: if it does not work not much will be lost, 3) it is encouraging: aiming for a small step implies something positive, namely that there is already a lot functioning well as it is, 4) there is a chance of positive snowball effects: the one small step approach has a surprising side effect: it may lead to a snowball effect: one small improvement may unexpectedly bring about more positive change (read more). Associated with this step are questions like:

How is what we talked about relevant for your current situation?
What small step forward could you take?
How would you notice that this small step would work?

6. Results achieved are monitored

After the small step forward has been taken you, focus your attention on what goes better. This purposeful improvement-focus helps you to notice positive changes, even small ones. Noticing that you are moving forward is supportive to making further change. First, is it encouraging to notice you are on the right way. Second, it provides you with a clear sense of what works so that it will become easier to take next steps forward. In this step, the following questions are answered:

What is going better?
What helped?
What did you specifically do that worked?
What else went better?
Etc.

7. Desire for further change is made explicit

A next step is to ask specifically what further change is desired. Doing this allows you check your motivation for further change and to adjust your goals, if necessary. The benefits of frequently asking what further change you want are threefold: 1) motivational: by remembering why you want things to be different you re-inject new motivation for change, 2) fine-tuning: it allows you to fine-tune your goals by taking into account new things that have happened, or new insights you may have gained, 3) efficiency: it keeps you from doing too much. The question may help you to realize that you have already done enough and that you don’t need to make further changes. Questions in this step may be:

What further change do you need?
When will you know you have made enough progress?
Use the FORWARD-model like a recipe

The FORWARD model is a descriptive model, not a prescriptive model. Its intention is to describe what happens during a solution-focused change process. Its purpose is to inspire you, not to confine you. The order in which to use these steps is not mandatory. You may also decide to leave out one or more steps when you apply the model. Think of the model as a recipe. You can freely apply these steps, add your own flavors, and experiment. Can you recognize in the case below how the FORWARD steps are taken?

Case: improving productivity

Charles wants to improve the productivity of his team because it has been far too low the last few months. The team is now performing on 49% productivity while the monthly target is 63%. Charles' short-term goal is to get back on target within three months. That way everybody will clearly see the team is back on the right track. It would mean more job security for everyone within the team. In addition, it would mean that the business unit manager would worry less about the team and get off Charles’ back more. It would also be good for Charles’ reputation. It would prove that he is able to turn a bad-performing team into a well-performing team. Charles thinks of how he has managed before to turn a lesser team performance into a better one. He had organized a team meeting in which he discussed all available information with his team and expressed his worry. He had asked the team to come up with ideas to improve the financial performance. In response to this, several good ideas were brought forward. Charles noticed that the team members made more appointments with customers and that sales increased quickly. Charles realizes that the following things worked well: informing the team fully, sharing his worries, and activating every team member to come up with improvements without telling them specifically what to do. Charles again arranges a team meeting and does the same things. This time too, it leads to a quick recovery of the financial performance. The solutions turned out to be already there within the team but they were not fully utilized. By the intervention Charles made they have become more available so that they could be used to improve the results.

Two meanings of FORWARD

For us, the acronym FORWARD has two meanings. The first meaning refers to the characteristics of the approach. The solution-focused approach enables you to focus constantly on helping people move forward in the desired direction. The second meaning of the word refers to how practitioners have made progress in understanding and applying the solution-focused approach in a wide variety of settings. A first field of application for many was in the context of personal coaching, a setting more or less comparable to psychotherapy.

Advantages of the solution-focused approach

When people start applying the solution-focused approach, it can be challenging. You have to learn new skills, mainly in asking helpful questions. In addition, you have to unlearn some things. You leave certain very familiar things out when you work solution-focused, like analyzing problems, finding out who is to blame, and looking primarily at what is not right. When you manage to learn these new skills, the advantages can be great. Some of the main advantages are:

The solution focused approach works as least as well as other approaches.
The approach can be very broadly applied. It turns out to be useful for dealing with a wide range of problems and goals.
It works much faster than many other approaches.
Clients are more satisfied with themselves and about the change process.
Practitioners who use the model to help others are more satisfied with their work.
New applications of the solution-focused model

These positive effects have encouraged many people to start using the solution-focused model in a broader context. Consultants applying it become more client-focused. They have learned how to help clients formulate their own goals and to find their own solutions by asking the right kinds of questions. They have noticed that clients have become more independent because they found out they could solve their own problems.

Solution-focused change in groups

‘Solutionists’ also began to apply the solution-focused model more and more in group situations. From the time it was invented, the solution-focused model had been applied in group situations, mainly in family therapy. Many people have now found that they can apply it in organizational group settings as well. All the steps in the FORWARD-model can be easily used in groups. You can use the model to formulate goals, to share what is going well, to identify steps forward, and so forth.

Solution-focused management

A particular challenge has been to make the solution-focused model available to managers. Many people were convinced right away that managers could use solution-focused techniques to help their employees. However, we wrestled for quite some time with the question about how to deal with situations in which employees are not performing well. The normal solution-focused steps are specifically aimed at helping people to make progress in the direction of their own choice. However, what should a manager do when an employee is not meeting minimal requirements or when the employee’s behavior is unacceptable because it is harmful to others or to the organization? We realized that in these situations the goals of the manager (and the organization) are the starting point for the conversation. These situations ask primarily for providing direction instead of helping. Thinking and experimenting more with these thoughts, we developed a tool, which we call the goals continuum. We developed ways in which the solution-focused appreciativeness and clarity can be used to direct people. We refer interested readers to this article to learn more about that model.

Further FORWARD

The solution-focused approach is not unique in the sense that it overlaps to some extent with positive change approaches like Appreciative Inquiry, the Positive Deviance initiative, Positive Psychology and Strengths-based management. Will all these approaches merge into one new approach? Or will they develop further more or less independently from each other? Who knows…? One thing seems certain, however. The solution-focused approach will not stay the same. It will develop further.

Insoo Kim Berg once answered the following question: “Do you see the solution-focused approach as a finished approach or do you think it will keep on developing and changing?” She started laughing and answered right away in a don’t-be-silly kind of way:

“Oh no, it’s not finished. For any model to stay alive it will need to constantly keep developing and renewing itself.” She smiled brightly and continued: “So, we need bright young people who will do that.”

We would like to invite you to join us in further developing the solution-focused approach by starting to try out some of the things mentioned in this article and by sharing your experiences. Together we may find small steps forward.

We dedicate this article to the memory of Insoo Kim Berg who taught us many things we use every day and who remains an example and inspiration to us.

Finding Flow (review)

2007-12-06T04:47:00.000-08:00

`What is a good life?', is basically the question addressed by Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Well, isn't a good life just about being happy? Ok, but that is not the complete answer. For how do we become and stay happy? Not by watching TV, eating, or relaxing all day! In small doses these things are good and improve your daily life, but the effects are not additive. In other words: a point of diminishing returns is quickly reached. Also you don't become happy by having to do nothing. Csikszentmihalyi's research shows that both intrinsic motivation (wanting to do something) and extrinsic motivation (having to do something) are preferable to not having any kind of goal to focus your attention.

Csikszentmihalyi argues that a life filled with `flow activities' is more worth living than one spent consuming passive entertainment. He says, the point is to be happy while doing things that stretch your goals and skills that help you grow and fulfil your potential. In other words: the content of your experiences over a lifetime determines the quality of your life. Then what exactly ìs `flow'? Is it just some vague new New Age concept? Not at all! It is precisely defined and well-researched. The experience if flow is the sense of effortless action we feel in moments that we see as the best in our lives. In order to have flow experiences you need clear goals/demands, immediate and relevant feedback and a balance between your skills and the demands. Then your attention becomes ordered and fully invested. Because of the total demand on you psychic energy you become completely focused, your self-consciousness disappears, as does your sense of time, yet you feel strong and competent. When in flow, you are not exactly happy, because you are not focused on your inner states (that would take away your attention from the task at hand). But looking back you are happy. Having flow experiences leads to growth and learning and improving your life becomes a question of making flow as much as possible a constant part of your everyday experience.

Csikszentmihalyi describes how you can find flow in several important life domains. One domain is work. Often we short-sightedly spend a lot of energy to take the easy way and cut corners, trying to do as little as possible in our jobs. If we would spend the same amount of energy trying to accomplish more we would probably enjoy our work more and be more successful as well. To improve your work you can try to take the whole context of your job into account. Doing this you can better understand your contribution to the whole and understand and value your role more. This enables you to invest more energy and withdraw more meaning from your work. Further, to use flow at work you can try to establish a situation in which your job (an other people's jobs) provides clear goals, unambiguous feedback, a sense of control, few distractions and challenges that match your skills. Just as much as in work you can create flow in your family and other relationships according to Csikszentmihalyi. He says it is particularly important to give attention to building harmony between participant's goals and to find ways to balance the meaningfulness of the rewards you get from work and relationships.

This book is definitely worth reading. Csikszentmihalyi's answer to the question `What is a good life?' is practical and convincing.

Luxury Fever (review)

2007-11-27T23:25:00.000-08:00

This fascinating book describes how a new virus, the luxury fever has Americans seemingly inescapably in its grip: people spend a larger and larger proportion of our money on luxury goods. And, because for most people incomes have remained static or have even declined (in the US and the UK), this extra spending was financed by lower savings and higher debts, making the economy weaker and more vulnerable.

Further, most people work longer and tend to spend less time on important activities such as vacations, being with family, sleeping exercising, etc. To make things worse: Americans spend less on vital public services which leads to a deteriorating infrastructure, to higher crime, to dirty streets and parks, to water pollution, to a deteriorating education system, etc.

And what about health? 40 million Americans currently lack health insurance.... This book explains how there is a competition 1) between different forms of private spending (do we buy luxury or do we spend our money differently?) and 2) between private and public spending. To expand on the latter point: a growing share of the US national income is spent on consumption and spending on vital publics services is increasingly threatened.

Frank explains (on the basis of well-being research and the adaptation-level theory) that the main reason we buy luxury goods is to demonstrate to others that we can afford to thereby trying to distinguish ourselves from them. In doing so we try to achieve happiness by improving our relative status.

The irony is, however, this absolutely doesn't work! The satisfaction we get from luxury spending, which Frank calls conspicuous spending, depends largely on context. The satisfaction we get from luxury spending lasts only shortly.

Two examples:

If we buy an expensive car, this distinguishes us from our neighbour and we feel happy. If, however, next month our neighbour buys an even fancier one, our satisfaction will be largely gone. You can see how this leads to an escalation, an arms race, with no winners.
The satisfaction we get from luxury goods tends to decline steeply over time. We tend to get used quickly to what we have and the favourable features of the luxury good tend to fade into the background rapidly: we no longer notice the fancy features of our expensive car and our satisfaction diminishes.

Bottom line: this increasing conspicuous spending does more harm than good. We have to discourage conspicuous consumption in favour of inconspicuous consumption. Frank explains that no individual or family alone can solve this problem. It has to be solved at a higher level. He proposes a simple but effective measure to discourage conspicuous consumption, a progressive consumption tax levied on consumption rather than income. Frank claims this tax can stimulate radical changes in the ways we lead our lives. Contrary to the believe of many, he convincingly argues, this progressive consumption tax would not cripple the economy but invigorate it. A fascinating book also highly relevant for European countries I think.

The Goals Continuum

2007-11-14T01:55:00.000-08:00

Helping, negotiating, directing

The goals continuum is a model reflecting in which situation you can apply which skill. The extreme left of the continuum describes situations in which the goals of the employee are the center of the discussion. In these situations helping (coaching) is the most suitable approach. The extreme right is about situations in which the goals of the manager are central. Between the two extremes on this continuum are situations that require negotiation.

Managing people is not always an easy thing to do. Take a look at this example:

A manager told us recently: “One of the people in my team, Bert, does not perform well. Time and again he does not meet the deadlines. As a consequence the delivery to our customers is frequently delayed. This has to stop! But no matter how much I try to help him, I can’t seem to get through to him. He gets irritated, he tries to avoid me and he dismisses my suggestions. What am I to do?”

Use the right skills in the right situation
In order to constructively achieve your goals as a manager it is important to apply the right skills at the right time. In the above example this did not happen. The manager tries to solve a problem by helping the employee. However, directing the employee is in order in the above example. Therefore, helping or coaching does not work. It seems like the manager and the subordinate are on a different wave length which causes nothing to change.

The goals continuum

The goals continuum is a model which describes which skills to apply in which circumstances. The extreme left of the continuum describes situations in which the goals of the employee are prevails. In these situations, helping (coaching) is the most suitable approach. The extreme right represent situations in which the goals of the manager prevail. Between the two extremes on this continuum are situations that require negotiation. The figure below represents the continuum.

1. Extreme left of the continuum: Helping

On the extreme left of the continuum, the goals of the employee are leading. This is the case when the manager does not feel the need to change the behavior of the employee. In these situations, the employee wants to change something and the manager is all right with these changes and goals. This can be the case for example when the employee is performing well and is looking for new work challenges. Another example is a situation in which an employee is performing well at work and asks his manager for help regarding a personal problem. In help-requiring situations, the manager can use the solution-focused approach about which we have written several articles (see here, here, here and here).

2. Extreme right of the continuum: Directing

On the extreme right of the continuum, the goals of the manager (and the organization) prevail. The right side of the continuum describes situations in which the manager wants to change something in the behavior of the employee. This can involve two kinds of change:

Imposing limits / correcting: when the employee’s behavior is unacceptable because it is harmful to others or to the organization, it is necessary for the manager to draw boundaries and clarify to the employee that the particular behavior has to stop and change.
Clarifying performance expectations: when the employee does not show the minimally required performance, and the manager has to take action to stimulate the employee to perform up to standard.

As a manager it is to be recommended you prepare your conversation with an employee properly. In your preparation you can come up with answers (preferably in writing) to the following questions:

What do I want the employee to do differently? What does he have to start doing or what does he have to stop doing?
To what end do I expect this of him? What are the advantages of what I expect him to do? To whom and from what perspective are these behaviors useful?

Also, it is useful to ponder the following questions: Do I have a mandate to direct the employee in this way? What exactly is my mandate? Do I have the authority to ask this? When it becomes clear that you can’t answer these questions affirmatively maybe it is better to check this first with your manager. If you find out that you don’t have the required authority you can try to enlarge your mandate by starting a discussion about the topic with your colleagues or superiors.

In the conversation itself you can provide direction in a solution-focused way by being clear and friendly at the same time. You can be both firm and inviting by using questions while you lead. A format for questions which often work well is:

How can you ensure that …… (what you expect from the employee)
so that …… (the advantage of the behavior you expect)

In this article you can read more about how to do this and also about how you can respond to different ways in which employees might respond to your attempt to direct them. The interesting thing about this way of directing is that an authoritative or bossy tone can almost always be avoided - making it much less likely that employees will resist your attempt to direct them.

3. Middle part of the continuum: Negotiating

In the center of the continuum, between Helping and Directing, there is negotiating. The center of the continuum describes situations in which the manager has goals and wants to exercise some influence. But you realize it is not an all or nothing situation. You are prepared to give and take a bit with respect to the moment in which the change has to be realized and in the amount of change that has to be made. You may want to use an “if you do this, I’ll do that” approach.

Preparation is also very useful when you want to negotiate. Questions that can be helpful are: What goals do you minimally want to achieve? What is your negotiating space? What do the both of you agree on?

Experiences

We have trained many managers to use the Goals Continuum. In a group of managers in a large hospital many of them were satisfied with the model because it helped them to prepare much better for difficult conversations. It also helped them to approach the conversations with employees with confidence. In another organization, we trained all management-levels in this solution-focused approach. The advantage they experience is felt both on an individual level and on a group level. They are pleased to have found a shared way of managing people which helps them to achieve their goals more easily and which the employees generally find pleasant.

We end this article with an example on the right side of the continuum

Steve, a manager in a factory department, had to engage in a difficult conversation with Richard, an employee who had several times shown intimidating behavior towards his colleagues. A few colleagues had already said they were afraid of him. Steve had once before said to Richard that he would not accept physically aggressive behavior. Richard had responded evasively and had said:”It is very hard for me to control my temper because I was mistreated as a child myself”. This conversation between Steve and Richard did not lead to a clear understanding and agreement. Recently, there had been a new situation of Richard intimidating a co-worker and Steve wanted to talk about it with him. This time, Steve had prepared well for the conversation. He had written down what he expected of Richard and why. In the conversation he said: “Richard, you are a much appreciated person in this department because of your commitment and your readiness to help others. No wonder we would very much like to keep you around. For that, it will be necessary for you to restrain yourself at all times when you feel angry so that your colleagues can feel safe around you at all times. How can you that care of this?” After a few seconds, Richard responded like this: “I understand you ask this of me but it is very hard for me to control my anger when I feel challenged. Steve responded understandingly but firmly “I can imagine that after what you have told me recently. And given that is hard for you …. How can you still take care of it so that people will feel safe and we can keep on employing you here?” During the conversation Steve kept on coming back to the HOW-question. The conversation proceeded constructively and Richard and Steve made an agreement that Richard would at all times control himself when angry. Richard has since found a way to do this.

The Not-Knowing Posture

2007-11-13T08:12:00.000-08:00

This article presents some thoughts about the not-knowing posture. Is it easy? Is it valuable? Is it ethical to charge money for your services while assuming a not-knowing posture? Does the not-knowing posture mean you have to completely discard expertise?

Many who are new to the Solution-Focused practice principles seem to get confused by the concept taking a “not-knowing” posture when facing their clients. The not-knowing posture (Anderson and Goolishian, 1992) means that as practitioners we work from the assumption that each case is different. Therefore we do not know exactly what the situation of the client is and what he should think or do. This is why in order to arrive at a more satisfying outcome, solution-focused practitioners ask lots of what seem like strange questions that activate their minds.

We did not realize for a long time that the “not-knowing posture” was creating some confusion among the newly learning therapists, coaches, consultants, trainers, educators and managers. Several questions are raised by confusion.

Does “not-knowing” imply that it’s easy and that anyone can do this work without training and a solid grasp of the philosophy behind it?
If we take a “not-knowing” posture, how can we ethically charge money for our services?
How can I prove to our clients how valuable my service is to them if I don’t know?
I went through years of education and post-graduate training in order to be an expert and now you are saying I should forget everything I learned?

These are some of the most pressing questions we have come across. Let’s have a look and each of these important questions.

Is it easy?

The phrase ‘not-knowing posture’ might suggest that this is very easy to do and that anyone can do this without much effort. Quite the opposite is true. Taking a not-knowing posture is much more difficult than it might seem, because it seems counter-intuitive at first glance. Both as professionals and human beings we have all kinds of experiences, views and opinions. Actively setting these ideas, knowledge, and skills aside by assuming a “not-knowing” posture is demanding and requires great discipline. Furthermore, applying the solution-building model is a specific expertise in itself. We are not expert in knowing what caused the client’s problem and what he or she should do to solve it. Instead, we are experts on “solution-building conversation,” a process by which clients discover their own most effective ways of achieving their goals. Again, this is not easy: It requires both attention and skills that are quire different from problem analysis.

Is it ethical to charge money for it?

The mere fact that taking a “not-knowing posture” is hard, is not enough justification in itself to charge money for it. Taking a not-knowing posture engages clients in their own solution-building process, thus reading his/her goals much quicker, and with confidence. There is an important difference between telling clients what they should do and helping them to find out for themselves what they should do, instead, clients discover what works for them. Traditional tell-sell approaches to coaching and consultancy are wide-spread but can be problematic. Clients might wonder whether the solution offered by the expert will work in his specific situation. Also, they may wonder whether they will be able to execute the solution effectively without spending additional time and expense. Since the solution-focused approach builds on what has already worked for clients it will therefore not create resistance but energy and confidence. This is probably the main reason why the solution-focused approach works well and efficiently (Gingerich & Eisenhart, 2000; Visser & Butter, 2006). This efficiency and effectiveness adds value for the client.

How will clients accept the not-knowing posture?

Taking a not-knowing posture is demanding and valuable but how will clients be able to recognize and understand this? After all, clients may expect you as a consultant, coach or therapist to tell them what to do and think. So, what will they think of you when you will instead start asking a lot of questions? From our careful observations of client response to our thoughtful questions many clients report how our questions are because they help them to form goals and discover strengths, they usually find this very helpful. There is nothing like a personal experience to discover the benefits of the “not-knowing” posture as be activated and energized to make further progress.

For example, a colleague of ours, Steve Langer was interviewed for a job as a consultant for a prison population. The Director of the prison who interviewed him asked him many questions, and Steve found himself describing what he might do as a consultant to difficult prisoners who are hostile, angry, and uncooperative. Instead of continuing to explain to the Director, he said to the director, he knows his prison population very well and would he mind playing one of the difficult prison that Steve might work with. The Director took on the challenge and played a very tough prisoner who was causing a great deal of difficulty for the staff. Of course Steve used all the solution-building practices and took the “not-knowing” posture and asked many questions. The Director was so impressed with Steve that he got hired immediately on the spot.

Some clients may be confused, however. After all, they may have some experiences with other professionals which use a quite different approach. Sometimes it may be helpful to explain it. A manager who was talking with her coach, suddenly smiled and asked: “You do ask a lot of questions, don’t you?” The coach replied: “That’s right, it helps me to understand your situation better.” The manager responded: “Okay, I did not quite expect that but I think it’s very useful.” On another occasion a client explicitly asked for tips from his coach. The coach replied by answering: “Alright, I will give you some tips. Is it alright if I first ask some questions so that I can focus my tips on your specific situation?” The client said: “Of course, you first need to know more about my situation, I understand. I can see that you are very careful with your suggestions, and I like that.”

What about my expertise?

The not-knowing posture does not mean that you know nothing and that you have no expertise. Being able to conduct a solution-focused conversation requires expertise in itself, in addition to others you have, and keep all the other skills you have acquired over the years and continue to learn. While continuing to engage in solution-building conversations, you take a “not-knowing” posture and you postpone your judgments for a while and approach the client’s situation with great curiosity. Many experienced practitioners find time and again that their curiosity has been more than rewarded. One reason for this is that the client will feel he’s taken very seriously and respect for their own expertise. Another reason is that it will create a conversation in which client and solution-focused practitioner will be able to find tailor-made solutions that will fit perfectly to the situation.

We are not alone in arguing for a not-knowing posture when helping clients. Peter Drucker, the famous management guru, once said: “My greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant and ask a few questions."

References

Anderson, H. (1990) Then and now: From knowing to not-knowing. Contemporary Family Therapy Journal. 12:193-198.

Anderson, H. & Goolishian, H. (1992) The client is the expert: A not-knowing approach to therapy. In. S. McNamee & K. Gergen (Eds.). Social Construction and the Therapeutic Process. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Berg, I.K. & Dolan, Y. (2001). Tales of Solutions. WW. Norton & Company, Inc., New York

Gingerich WJ, Eisengart S: Solution-focused brief therapy: A review of the outcome research. Family Process 39:477-498, 2000

Visser, C.F. & Butter, R. (2006). What works in coaching and consultancy? www.m-cc.nl/solution-focusedchange.htm

Organizational Resilience in Times of Crisis

2007-11-10T00:33:00.000-08:00

Does the people centered management philosophy still work during crisis?

© 2005, Coert Visser

Summary - Researchers like Kim Cameron and Wayne Cascio have said for years that a strategy of laying-off people in many cases does not work, and may even backfire, in times of crisis. The situation in the American airline industry after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 was an almost unparalleled crisis. An excellent chance to take the test. Which companies proved to be most resilient and why?

“We are willing to suffer some damage, even to our stock price, to protect the jobs of our people.”

- Jim Parker, CEO of Southwest Airlines”, 8 OCTOBER, 2001

Crisis in the airline industry
Since 9/11 terrorist attacks, the world economy has suffered severely. The airline industry is one of the worst hit sectors. Passenger numbers fell back drastically, companies showed huge losses, and stock prices fell. Large numbers of employees lost their jobs. These traumatic events have confronted the sector with an ultimate test and have provided organizational scientists with a unique natural experiment. What different strategies have companies followed to handle this crisis and which strategies have proven most effective? These are the questions that researchers Jody Hoffer Gittell, Kim Cameron and Sandy Lim (2005) have formulated and answered.

What does research say on the use of downsizing?

For anyone who has followed the management literature of the last 20 years, this is an exciting study. Researchers like Kim Cameron (Cameron & Whetten, 1987; Cameron, 1994, Cameron, 1998) and Wayne Cascio (Cascio, Young & Morris, 1997; Cascio, 2002) have researched the effects of downsizing for many years. The central questions they have addressed were: does laying off personnel lead to a quick and lasting improvement of the financial position of companies? In brief, the conclusion of their research is: companies that use downsizing are not more profitable than companies who don’t downsize and often hurt themselves in the long term. As a result of the negative impact on relationships downsizings usually negatively impact organizational performance. Furthermore, starting a downsizing scenario often leads to repeated downsizings in the future.

But does this also apply in situations of crisis? Can lay-offs be avoided in these circumstances? Is that realistic? A majority of managers tend to see downsizing as a logical, useful and unavoidable tool in times of crisis. However, research by Kim Cameron (1998) shows that most of these companies are confronted with declining profits, product and service quality, and innovation and a deteriorating organization climate. Based on research findings, Cascio (2002) argues that it pays off to use lay-offs only as a last resort, even in a crisis situation. Is this statement confirmed in the airline industry crisis since 9/11?

How did Southwest Airlines stand the test?

One of the companies with an explicit no-lay-offs strategy is Southwest Airlines. This company has been described in many management books as an example of a company which has achieved extremely good financial results while advocating a very people-centered management philosophy which is very consistently implemented. Herbert Kelleher (see picture), the previous CEO of Southwest once made the following comment which summarizes the Southwest philosophy (O'Reilly & Pfeffer, 2000):

"Who comes first, the employee, customers, or shareholders? That’s never been an issue to me. The employees come first. If they’re happy satisfied, dedicated, and energetic, they’ll take real good care of the customers. When the customers are happy, they come back. And that makes the shareholders happy."

It is wonderful to read how Southwest Airlines has flourished in the good times before 9/111. But how did this company perform during the extremely tough times after 9/11? Did it have to own up and start laying off personnel? How did Southwest Airlines do compared to competitors in these challenging times? Below is a summary of the study by Gittell, Cameron, and Lim.

The research by Gittell, Cameron, and Lim

In the three years that followed 9/11, the researchers studied the ten largest U.S. airline companies: Alaska, American, American Trans Air, America West, Continental, Delta, Northwest, Southwest, United and US Airways. The most important variables they looked at were:

financial reserve: a) low debt position, b) high cash position
percentage lay-offs
recovery of stock prize

The researchers were particularly interested in finding out how relational and financial reserves could account for resilience. Based on the above described research by Cameron, Cascio and others the researchers hypothesized that a strategy of commitment to personnel, in which lay-offs would be seen as a last resort, would create relational reserves and would therefore contribute to a quick recovery. Financial reserves were defined as a low debt position and large amounts of cash on hand. The expectation was that strong financial reserves would muffle the blow of a crisis and that strong financial reserves would thus be associated with resilience. In other words, financial reserves would make it easier to realize a strategy of commitment to employees.

The results fitted the expectations perfectly. Financial reserves coupled with a strong commitment to employees turned out to be strongly associated with organizational resilience. In other words, the higher the financial reserves and the lower the percentage of lay-offs, the quicker the stock price recovered. I made the following table to illustrate the most important results. It ranks the companies on the most important variables (click to enlarge).

Conclusion
It is crystal clear: Southwest Airlines has stood the test brilliantly. Thanks to its excellent performance in the past it has built strong financial reserves. Isn’t it ironic? Analysts had often criticized Southwest for keeping these strong reserves saying they should have been used for acquiring other companies. But this crisis showed that the financial reserves played a crucial helping role. Southwest Airlines did not have to lay off any personnel. Because of this, the company could stick in word and deed to its strong commitment to personnel. Employees understood this message very well. All kinds of negative side–effects of downsizing could be avoided and the Southwest Airlines stock recovered faster than any of the competitors' stocks. Furthermore, Southwest was the only American airline company to make a profit in every single quarter of the period studied, while US Airways, which followed an almost completely opposite strategy (see table) showed a loss in every single quarter.

An airline analyst remarked the following about Southwest: “They are doing what they do best, which is to shine in the hours of trouble.”

1 In 1998 Jeffrey Pfeffer notes: "Southwest Airlines produced a stock market return of over 21,000 percent between 1972 and 1992 and has been profitable in each of the past twenty-four years, a record unmatched by any other airline in the world except Singapore Airlines." Further, he notes that Southwest has the lowest costs and the lowest fares in the American Airline industry. Pfeffer describes the people-centered management practices of Southwest as follows: "Southwest emphasizes training, selective recruiting, profit sharing and stock ownership and has never had a layoff or furlough in its history - all elements of high commitment work systems."

References

Cameron, K.S. & D.A. Whetten (1987). Organizational effects of decline and turbilence. Administrative Science Quarterly, 32: 222-240.
Cameron, K.S. (1994). Strategies for successful organizational downsizing. Human Resource Management Journal, 33: 189-212.
Cameron, K.S. (1998). “Strategic organizational downsizing: An extreme case.” Research in Organizational Behavior, 20: 185-229.
Cascio, W.F., Young, C.E. & Morris, J. (1997). financial consequences of employment change decisions in major US corporations. Academy of Management Journal, 40. 1175-1189.
Cascio, W.F. (2002). Responsible restructuring: Creative and Profitable Alternatives to Layoffs. Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Conlin, M. (2001). Where Layoffs Are a Last Resort. Treating them as unthinkable can have big benefits. BusinessWeek online, October, 2001
Gittell, J., Cameron, K. & Lim, S. (2005). Relationships, Layoffs, and organizational Resilience: Airline Industry Responses to September 11th. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
O'Reilly, C. & Peffer, J. (2000). Hidden Value. How great companies achieve ordinary results with ordinary people. Harvard Business School Press
Peffer, J. (1998). The Human Equation. Building profits by putting people first. Harvard Business School Press

Constructive and Activating Management Techniques

2007-11-08T08:12:00.000-08:00

Managers frequently say that directing people can be a challenging task. There can be hard situations in conversations when managers try to direct people. What should you do when an employee reacts defensively and does not acknowledge the point you are trying to make? Or what about an employee who raises all kinds of different subjects and one who complains utterly? This article describes a tool for leading in a constructive and activating manner and for dealing effectively with different kinds of responses by employees.

You are a sales manager responsible for leading a team of salespeople. Mike is a senior salesman with outspoken opinions which he is not shy to share. He does not have a high opinion of Pascal, a junior salesman in the team. Yesterday, there was an incident between Mike and Pascal. Another salesperson has told you that Mike called Pascal a “loser who will never become a good salesman”. The incident is the talk of the day. Pascal has reported sick. This situation is not acceptable to you and you decide to have a talk with Mike.

1. Preparation: What about? What? Why?

You know that this is not a situation which lends itself to a coaching approach. Coaching is a useful approach for helping people solve their problems in cases in which you don’t have an opinion about and a stake in what should happen. In this case you do require a specific outcome and that is why this situation lends itself more for providing direction. Because you notice feeling slightly irritated and you don’t want this conversation to lead to accusations and reproaches you decide to prepare it specifically and constructively. In your preparation you avoid heavy-laden and accusative words while making no concession whatsoever regarding your goal. You phrase this goal as much as you can in terms of desired positive results. By doing that, you maximize the chance the conversation will lead to a positive result. You complete the following sentences:

1. I have noticed that …..

2. How can you accomplish that …… so that …….

Through the first sentence (I have noticed that …) you determine the topic of the conversation (WHAT ABOUT). The first part of the second sentence helps you to make clear WHAT you expect from the employee and the second part helps you to explain WHY you expect this. Through the use of the word ‘how’ you activate the employee to determine the way in which the results will be achieved. You make clear that this is his responsibility. After thinking about it for a minute you write down:

Mike, I have noticed that there is some rumor about an incident between you and Pascal. You appear to have said that Pascal is not suited for his job. To perform well as a team it is necessary that we treat each other respectfully and help each other to achieve good results. How can you ensure that Pascal knows that you respect him and accept him as a colleague, so that the two of you can achieve good results together and contribute to a positive work atmosphere in the team and to good team results?

2. Different types of responses to your direction

Employees can respond in different ways. We distinguish between visitor-typical responses, complainer-typical responses and customer-typical responses (DeJong & Berg, 2001). It is useful to recognize the employee’s type of response so that you can deal with it adequately. Below, the case is elaborated in three ways.

a) Visitor-typical responses are responses in which the employee does not see the usefulness and importance of the conversation with you. In the case of Mike, he would respond in a visitor-typical way when he would say: “What’s the fuss about? Surely, we have better things to do than talk about this kind of trifle?” A good way of responding is:

Repeat the nature, the reason and the topic of the conversation
Stress the importance: It is important that you … so that ….
Activate the employee by repeating: How can you accomplish … so that …
Keep on repeating and stressing these elements as long as the employee keeps on responding visitor-typically. Let the power of repetition work for you.

Mike: What’s the fuss about? Surely, we have better things to do than talk about this kind of trifle?

Manager: It is really necessary to talk about it now. It is important that we treat each other respectfully and help each other to achieve good results. How can you make sure that Pascal knows that you respect him and accept him as a colleague, so that the two of you can achieve good results together and contribute to a positive work atmosphere in the team and good team results?

b) Complainer-typical responses are responses in which the employee does see the importance of the conversation and the topic but also complains and/or behaves helpless. Mike would respond complainer-typical when he would say: “Yes, I regret what happened between Pascal and me but he performs so badly that I thought it was time for the truth to be told. He makes so many mistakes!” When confronted with a complainer-typical response it is important to stay patient while sticking to the topic. A good response would be:

Show understanding for the perception and the behavior of the employee: Aha, I understand that you …. (You don’t have to agree with what he says!)
Activate the employee by repeating: Given that this is the case ……how can you accomplish … so that …
Keep on repeating and stressing these elements as long as the employee keeps on responding complainer-typically. Let the power of repetition work for you.

Mike: Yes, I regret what happened between Pascal and me but he performs so badly that I thought it was time for the truth to be told. He makes so many mistakes!

Manager: “Aha, I understand you thought the truth needed to be told because you see Pascal’s mistakes. I can imagine this makes it bit harder to stay respectful. Given that this is so, how can you ensure that Pascal knows that you respect him and accept him as a colleague, so that the two of you can achieve good results together and contribute to a positive work atmosphere in the team and good team results?

c) Customer-typical responses are responses which show the employee sees the importance of the conversation and the topic and wants to live up to the expectations. Mike’s response would be customer-typical when he would say: “Yes, I did not treat him with due respect and I should change that. But he gets on my nerves so much that I don’t know how to control myself. Do you have any tips?” A good way of responding is to start coaching. Mike acknowledges the problem, sees the usefulness and the importance of what you ask of him and asks for your help. To provide help is now the most constructive way of proceeding.

Mike: Yes, I did not treat him with due respect and I should change that. But he gets on my nerves so much that I don’t know how to control myself. Do you have any tips?

Manager: I am glad to hear that you see you did not treat Pascal with due respect and that you want to do something about it. I’d be pleased to help you with that.

When confronted with customer-typical responses, it usually works very well to keep on activating the other person to find his own solutions. It is beyond the scope of this article to describe a complete coaching method. On this site you can find some articles with more information.

Finish the conversation with specific agreements on the results to be accomplished. If you can’t reach that in one conversation, make a new appointment and continue in that conversation until a clear agreement is reached.

Applications and limitations of this approach

The tools in this article can help you to effectively provide direction to employees. We realize this method oversimplifies reality a bit and that management conversations will not always be a piece of cake. This approach can not guarantee success in 100 percent of your difficult conversations. No method can promise that. Many managers, however, have experienced that this approach helps them to lead clearly and constructively and to keep the responsibility for achieving results with the employee. It turns out, clarity and friendliness very often can go hand in hand.

References

DeJong, P. & Berg, I.K (2001). Interviewing for solutions. Wadsworth Publishing; 2nd edition.
www.solutionfocusedchange.com

Circles of Change

2007-11-07T08:05:00.000-08:00

The solution-focused approach has brought forward a simple technique which can help to make meetings about organizational change stimulating and effective.

Organizational change
Organizations, departments, and people in organizations work are practically permanently going through large and small changes. Those changes can encompass structural aspects like a change in the business process, merging departments, implementing systems, or changes in the management structure. They can also be about cultural changes like improving customer satisfaction, improving co-operation, raising productivity, and so forth.

Talking about progress
In large-scale change projects, it is very important to keep communicating about the goals of and the progress in the change process. Our observation is that meetings about organizational change often focus on two topics: 1) what goes wrong? and 2) What will we do about that? When people focus attention on these two questions, the result often disappoints. Participants in the meeting can get discouraged of everything that goes wrong and everything that has yet to be done.

The circle technique
The solution-focused approach to change has brought forward a technique that often helps to make meetings about organizational change simulating: the circle technique. It works like this. The facilitator of the meeting draws two circles on a large board or sheet, an inner circle, and an outer circle. In the inner circle, he writes down everything that has already been achieved and in the outer circle, he writes down what has yet to be achieved. It is also useful to divide the circle in two parts. Topics that refer to the department are written on the left side; topics that refer to the whole organization are written down on the right side (see figure 1).

Way of working
You can apply the circle technique quite broadly and flexibly. You can use it in one-on-one situations, in small groups and in large groups. When applied in small groups a serial approach often works well. The process facilitator asks one person after the other which results have already been achieved and which things have yet to be achieved. In larger groups, a parallel approach might work better. All participants can mention examples of achievements and goals. Splitting up the group into subgroups might also work well. Each subgroup is asked to draw their won circles and write down achievements and goals. Of course, after that, these subgroup circles can be discussed and integrated.

Positive terms
The circle technique works best when the words in the circles are phrased as concrete and positive as possible. In finding the most constructive words, the facilitator plays a crucial role. When participants at first phrase a goal in terms of a complaint (“the managers never gives us feedback”) the facilitator may help them to rephrase this complaint into a goal (“helpful management feedback”). De complaint is rephrased in terms of the presence of something positive instead of in terms of the absence of something.

A department manager did the circle exercise together with his team and came to the following achievements and goals (figure 2).

GoalsWhen the circles are filled, the facilitator focuses on the outer circle. First, he asks participants to prioritize the goals mentioned. Often it is wise to limit the number of goals to two or three. Then some attention may be paid to how the goals may be achieved. For this, the scaling technique may be used. More information about this technique can be found here.

AdvantagesUsing the circle technique has several advantages. First, it is very simple and goal oriented. It forces people to focus on the essence: making progress in the desired direction. Secondly, we often notice how participants in meetings are positively surprised by what everything that has already been achieved. This strengthens their confidence, pride and faith. Thirdly, it is very pleasant that people leave the room with some very concrete goals.

Using the circle technique can provide a useful impulse in the change process. We hope you like it and try it out. When you try it, do let us know how it worked!

Looking at the Other Side of the Coin

2007-11-07T08:01:00.000-08:00

When we, as managers, change how we view a person, we can generate much simpler and easier solutions to them so that we can focus our attention on more difficult and time consuming issues.

Managing people takes more than clear black and white views. Even though it certainly is important to make expectations and rules of conduct clear, it is not as simple as it is described in textbooks. Many good managers have discovered that managing people is an art rather than a science, and all artistic skills take time to develop and become good at. Many competent managers discover this reality by trial and error.

Sometimes this art is described as practice wisdom. By trial and error, good managers have learned that bringing out the best in their workers is the best strategy to motivate, encourage, and teach their workers without “teaching”. Many wise managers have learned that when it is the worker’s idea to change, they will change as much as they can, for as long as they can. On the other hand, when workers are forced to change, they change as little as they can, for as short period as possible.

The most important tool that managers can have is their ability to see both sides of a same coin. Human beings are so complex and multi-faceted that a single, one-dimensional view of a worker is not adequate to describe the whole person, yet we often hear one-sided comments from managers about their workers. “George is unmotivated,” “Linda doesn’t know how to be tactful,” “Mark is a loudmouth,” and so on. It is easy to reduce a worker into a simple description because it saves time and we come to the point.

The problem with this approach is that it does not offer managers better ways to “manage” the difficulty they have with their workers. On the contrary, it reduces the manager’s options. For example, if the problem is one is “unmotivated”, then the logical solution to that is to lecture George about his lack of motivation. You can easily imagine the conversation that might follow which in turn proves to the manager that indeed George is unmotivated. This sets off a chain reaction to “do something about the problem” and leads to further “problem talk” with George. This rarely works in the long run. Pretty soon the manager may find herself repeating the warning, threat, reprimand, and nagging again and again without lasting desired outcome.

On the other hand, suppose the manager saw George as “distracted” instead. One can easily imagine what the manager might do to bring the attention of George back to getting his task done. And reminding and helping George to refocus on his task is much more pleasant for the manager and George than to be nagged at. Seeing George as “unmotivated” may be quite accurate, and so may his being “distracted” and losing his focus be. But framing it in a constructive way offers much more flexible ways to solve the manager’s problem.

The same thing happens with Mark’s “loudmouth” When we label someone as “loudmouth” then our solution to it is to suggest to Mark to be quiet or soft spoken, be more careful when he opens his mouth. It is improbable that Mark will agree with this definition. He is more likely to be defensive and offended, and become angry. Reframing Mark’s behavior as his “outspoken style” will lead to a greater chance to change his tendency to blurt things out. Changing his style is much easier to do than to change his personality. Linda’s lack of tactfulness can be easily viewed as her open and honest style. Again, one can more easily and subtly help them to change the style of communication than offering them communication training.

We believe that most of the time, all of us mean well and generally we just like to be valued and recognized for that. The same goes for George, Mark and Linda. That is why it not so strange they feel hurt and offended when spoken to offensively. It is only understandable they will get defensive. It is only logical that a more constructive approach will make them feel more valued for their good intentions and will make them more open for suggestions and more ready to make some changes.

When we, as managers, change how we view a person, we can generate much simpler and easier solutions to them so that we can focus our attention on more difficult and time consuming issues.