Solution Focused Brief Therapy
Essex, UK 1995
Our special experience during the last two years has been in coping with the traumatic physical and psychological damage caused by the stroke and heart attack suffered by one of us (HT); the main effects were some visual and sensory loss and severe communication difficulties in all channels. This occurred shortly after taking part in an international workshop organized by the Brief Therapy Practice, which we had left accompied by Bill O'Hanlon's message to "Keep the feet moving," even when one's worst fears have materialized. We found O'Hanlon's possibility habits invaluable as we coped with the demoralizing effects of the usual rehabilitation approaches.
Thus we endeavored to "Do normal," to focus on possibilities without denying the reality of the damage, to provide purpose and note exceptions and achievements. We have attempted to ensure respect, to value, to validate all the experiences (clarifying as far as possible, whenever confusion arose), to make good use for talents, skills, past learning and experience, and to erect a safe boundary whenever the risk of further damage became evident.
Through being in contact with others who have had similar experiences, we notice that many do much, or perhaps all that we do in their efforts to cope, but for us, the easily assimilated and widely applicable message of the solution oriented approach, provided clear guidelines at times when there was not sufficient energy available for any complexity; perhaps this is what is often needed in the face of difficulties.
Hugh & Geraldine TollintonEssex, UK, November 1995 

Some personal Experiences of
Hugh & Geraldine Tollinton

Our interest in models of briefer therapy goes back to the 1960's, when one of us (HT) wrote a postgraduate student dissertation on placebo effects. Efforts into research on expectations of psychological therapies and change followed. Then, in the 1970's, there was Geoffrey Fish's "Placebo Therapy" (now unfortunately unobtainable), and in the 1980's O'Hanlon and Wilk's "Shifting Contexts," which was read and reread.
The London based Brief Therapy Practice made a major contribution to our work and to the psychological therapy and counseling practices in the UK, when it began offering training in solution oriented or solution focused therapy, including organizing memorable international workshops with a range of stimulating leaders. As a result of this, solution-oriented or solution focused ideas are now widespread and often appear in surprising contexts (e.g., managers who make requests for solution focused opinions on organizational changes); they seem to fit well with other popular ideas about the need for change and doing something different in British society in general.In meeting and talking with friends and colleagues, we have been surprised to realize the range of settings in which people are finding these ideas useful. We have colleagues working with general child and family mental health services, in educational services, with autistic children and their families, with abused and abusing children and their families, and with adults suffering both acute and chronic mental health problems; we know of colleagues working with elderly and of others working with prisoners; and we have a colleague working with the dying and another providing pastoral care in the community.All these colleagues are finding solution oriented or solution focused ideas useful, both for themselves, in direct and consultative work, and for those they try to help.
We find that the approach gives managers, practitioners, and clients, who have not necessarily been intensively trained in coping with powerful or traumatic states, a way of tackling difficulties that allow proper recognition of the extent of problems, without the probability of becoming overwhelmed and rendered ineffective by the size of the task facing them.