Five minutes or fifty, every Solution-Focused conversation has the same three parts. Like driving a car: you start it, you drive it, you park it.
Every Solution-Focused Conversation Has the Same Three Parts
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How to Handle Problem Narratives
When a client is stuck in a problem narrative, the trained instinct is to fix it. Dr. Deborah Teplow on the three small moves that work instead: acknowledge, ask coping questions, and look forward.
When Strategy Becomes the Destination
When a client names a strategy, that is not the destination. It is the door. Here is how the Solution-Focused approach uses strategy talk as a starting point for building a real preferred future.
Stop Fighting for Your Client
When a client knows what to do but isn’t doing it, the instinct is to fight for them. Here’s why that backfires, and the Solution-Focused move that puts ownership back where it belongs.
Select and Preserve: Why Your Paraphrasing Might Be Blocking Client Progress
When you paraphrase a client’s words, you’re making a choice — not just a communication decision. Research into the microanalysis of therapeutic conversations shows that how practitioners handle client contributions directly predicts follow-through. Here’s what the evidence says.
The Brief Coaching Session: Why You Should Stop Evoking Motivation and Start Building a Preferred Future
The check-in is scheduled for 15 minutes. Your client is struggling with a habit they’ve committed to multiple times. You can feel the clock ticking as you try to help them find the drive to stay on track. In health coaching, many practitioners rely on...
When They’re Already Motivated: Why Motivational Interviewing Can Stall Your Patient’s Progress
When a patient has already decided to change, Motivational Interviewing’s evocative structure can slow their momentum. Here is what the evidence shows about a different approach.
Motivational Interviewing vs. Solution-Focused: What the Evidence Says About Patient Follow-Through
You explain the plan clearly. The person leaves seemingly committed — and yet the follow-through never happens. When this pattern repeats, the evidence suggests the problem may not be their motivation, but the structural starting point of the conversation itself.
The Consultation Conversion Gap: Why Your Leads Aren’t the Problem
Most specialty practices lose patients not from lack of leads, but from what happens in the conversation after the lead arrives. Here’s what the research shows.
The Hidden Cost of Conflict—and How to Protect Your Health While Resolving It
Research shows that ongoing interpersonal tension raises stress levels, disrupts sleep, weakens immunity, and even doubles the risk of early death. That’s the cost of constantly being in “fight mode.” Whether the tension is with a partner, a colleague, or a friend,...