Solution-focused therapy is built on a straightforward premise: that you are already doing something that helps, and that finding it is often faster than analyzing what is wrong.
Not everything requires depth work, and not everyone wants it.
Solution-focused brief therapy, developed by Steve de Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg, deliberately spends less time on the origins of a problem and more on the exceptions to it. When has this been less of an issue? What was different then? What would the first small sign of improvement look like?
It is a genuinely different orientation from most of what we do, and that is why we keep it available. Some people arrive with one specific thing they want to move, on a timeline, and the most respectful response is to help with that rather than to open everything up.
Sessions are focused and forward-looking. You are likely to be asked scaling questions, where you rate where you are and describe what one point higher would look like, and to notice moments when the problem was absent.
It is often shorter than other work here, sometimes only a handful of sessions, and it can be a starting point rather than the whole of therapy. If deeper patterns surface, we can shift.
Solution-focused brief therapy has been studied for several decades and is supported by multiple meta-analyses across a range of presenting concerns, including depression, anxiety, family and relationship difficulties, and behavioral concerns in children.
The general finding is that it produces small to moderate positive effects, comparable to other established approaches, and that it does so in fewer sessions, which is a meaningful practical advantage. It has less evidence for complex trauma and severe or persistent mental illness, which is consistent with how we use it: for focused work rather than as the primary approach for trauma.
Our therapists work with clients located anywhere in Connecticut. Sessions are virtual, with limited in-person availability in Madison, CT. Most clients begin weekly, and you and your therapist will decide together what rhythm supports your capacity. Many of our therapists accept Medicaid/Husky, Aetna, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, and Cigna, and coverage varies by therapist.
