More than miracles: The state of the art of solution-focused brief therapy

Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, Jan 2008 by Nelson, Thorana S

de Shazer, S., Dolan, Y., Korman, H., Trepper, T., McCollum, E., & Berg, I. K. (2007). More than miracles: The state of the art of solution-focused brief therapy. New York: Haworth Press, 177 pp., $44.95 hard.

In their latest book (and last for de Shazer and Berg), de Shazer and colleagues bring us up to date on their thinking about Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT), its practices, and its philosophy. The book includes a chapter on basic tenets and several that are transcripts of SFBT sessions conducted by de Shazer, Berg, Dolan, and Korman, a solution-focused psychiatrist in Sweden. The authors spent many hours in discussion together in person and via the Internet while viewing the sessions, talking about what they thought was happening and sharing their ideas about how the solution-focused approach works and has evolved. Comments, questions, and dialogue with each other are sprinkled throughout the transcripts in the form of side boxes, increasing the reader's understanding of the approach.

Additional chapters provide in-depth explications and discussion on the miracle question, famous as the cornerstone of the approach, and the miracle scale, which is a useful follow-up to the miracle question. Two chapters give us glimpses into de Shazer's ideas about language and language games as inspired by the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein (e.g., 1958), a philosopher whose ideas helped de Shazer to understand how description (in terms of understanding what happens in therapy) is more important than explanation or theory, and whom de Shazer studied in the original German. For neophytes to Wittgenstein's work, this chapter is quite valuable.

Because many have criticized the SFBT approach as ignoring emotions, de Shazer and colleagues wrote a full chapter to help clarify how they think about emotions and the part emotions play in therapy, following the work of Wittgenstein. In this chapter, they note that descriptions, particularly in terms of relationships and what they mean to clients, replace traditional explanations and theories from philosophy, psychology, or other structuralist approaches. This work clarifies their assumption that clients' experiences always have not-noticed components that, when uncovered, help clients to first interpret their experiences differently and then to place them into a future that does not include descriptions of problems. Although not directly instigated, changes in clients' lives seem to follow these discussions.

A final chapter of the book answers common questions that the authors have encountered throughout years of conducting training workshops on the approach. These include misconceptions about the way therapists who use this model "ignore problems" and critiques of the nonexpert stance that SFBT practitioners use and that is central to the approach. One section in this chapter discusses the differences between SFBT and other approaches (e.g., Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) and how SFBT can be integrated with other ideas and approaches.

The SFBT approach has clearly and understandably evolved over the more than 25 years since de Shazer and Berg first started noticing exceptions to problems and solutions that work rather than problems and solutions that do not work. Always paying attention to what clients told them rather than what theory might say, they allowed their thinking and practices to evolve more and more elegantly.

More Than Miracles should not be considered as a main text for SFBT, although it does cover some of the basics. Suitable for both neophytes and experts, it is the last word of de Shazer and Berg and the latest from some of the major advocates of the work. It is enjoyable and quite readable, including the philosophy chapters, which help readers to understand how this minimalist approach works in therapy.

Thorana S. Nelson, PhD

Marriage and Family Therapy Program

Utah State University

Logan, UT