Disadvantages Of Solution Focused Therapy

Solution Focused Therapy was first seen to work best with middle-aged adults (Dahl, Bathel, & Carreon, 2000, p. 47). Now that research and its application have been conducted it has been seen to work well with a wide range of populations. Some populations that it works well with are elderly, immigrants, psychiatric hospitals, families coping with suicide, Native Americans, children with social phobias, adolescents with moderate depression, and caregivers of stroke survivors. This list is short compared to the many other populations that solution-focused therapy has been seen beneficial for.

Solution Focused Therapy works well with the elderly outpatient population according to Dahl et al. (2000). The elderly that Dahl et al. (2000) refer to are elderly that had “depression; anxiety; marital, family, and relationship problems; and stress-related to chronic illness and loss of functioning” (pp. 48-49).

To conclude that

Three reasons according to George (2008) of why this type of therapy is useful are that it takes into account how resilient children are so the children build on the strengths they have to work towards a solution. Also because the counselor accepts, understands, and uses the child’s worldviews, and lastly because it uses the imagination of children in the miracle question. The miracle question gives insight if the problem is not clearly defined.

Exposure therapy has been seen to work with phobias, but George (2008) says that exposure therapy is used for this and seems effective at first but long term it brings negative effects. Solution therapy is more helpful that exposure therapy because it “counteracts the natural tendency of clients to be self-critical by incorporating the client’s existing strengths and resources into the treatment plan…and the client and counselor work at a pace that is comfortable for the client” (George, 2008, p.