Solution Focused Brief Therapy - History of Solution Focused Brief Therapy

History of Solution Focused Brief Therapy

Solution Focused Brief Therapy is one of a family of approaches, known as systems therapies, that have been developed over the past 50 years or so, first in the USA, and eventually evolving around the world, including Europe. The title SFBT, and the specific steps involved in its practice, are attributed to husband and wife Steve de Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg and their team at The Brief Family Therapy Center in Milwaukee, USA. Core members of this team were Eve Lipchik, Wallace Gingerich, Elam Nunnally, Alex Molnar, and Michele Weiner-Davis. Their work in the early 1980s built on that of a number of other innovators, among them Milton Erickson, and the group at the Mental Research Institute at Palo Alto – Gregory Bateson, Donald deAvila Jackson, Paul Watzlawick, John Weakland, Virginia Satir, Jay Haley, Richard Fisch, Janet Beavin Bavelas and others.

The concept of brief therapy was independently discovered by several therapists in their own practices over several decades (notably Milton Erickson), was described by authors such as Haley in the 1950s, and became popularized in the 1960s and 1970s. Richard Bandler, John Grinder and Stephen R Lankton have also been credited, at least in part, with the inspiration for and popularization of brief therapy, particularly through their work with Milton Erickson. While Jay Hayley and the team at the Mental Research Institute at Palo Alto aimed to uncover the principles that underpinned Erickson's approach to brief therapy, John Grinder and Richard Bandler provided practical guidelines for the application of some of the hypnotic techniques of Erickson.

Solution Focused Brief Therapy has branched out in numerous spectrums - indeed, the approach is now known in other fields as simply Solution Focus or Solutions Oriented Therapy. Most notably, the field of Addiction Counseling has begun to utilize SFBT as an effective means to treat problem drinking. Johns Hopkins University, the Center for Solutions in Cando, ND, and notable others, have implemented SFBT as part of their program, wherein they utilize this therapy as part of a partial hospitalization and residential treatment facility for both adolescents and adults.

The field of Christian Pastoral counseling has also seen Solution Focused Brief Therapy make inroads into its practices where it is referred to as Solution Focused Pastoral Counseling or Brief Pastoral Counseling.