Focus on Solutions

This revised edition of Focus on Solutions is a clear and inspiring application of the solution-focused approach in a medical and community setting. Besides its lucid explanations of solution-focused principles and practices, the book is rich with case data in the form of detailed solution-building dialogues with clients. In this way the author Kidge Burns, a gifted speech and language therapist, opens the reader to the heart of what it is to be solution-focused with clients.;Bonus content includes how to be solution-focused in supervision, training new practitioners, and measuring client outcomes. Practitioners and managers in any human service setting will find this book a rich resource for introducing and sustaining client-centred and competency-based practice in their contexts. ;Peter De Jong;Professor of Social Work, Emeritus, Calvin College, Grand Rapid, Michigan USA;;A book for clinicians who like people! Full of good ideas and rich stories that will stimulate creative and effective practice in both newcomer and experienced SF practitioner alike. ;Dr. Dominic Bray, Head, Southport & Ormskirk Hospital NHS Trust Clinical Health Psychology Dept;;The way Kidge explains how the Solution Focused Brief Therapy approach can be used in Speech & Language Therapy is enlightening and exciting, while still being clear and practical, and thus achievable for the rest of us to use. Kidge is skilled in showing us how to use this approach to facilitate a positive and respectful conversation in the therapy session. She shows us how this approach can ensure an appropriate balance of responsibility for the changes that patients aim for, and how we can support them in choosing and reaching their own meaningful and achievable outcomes.;Dr Lisa Hirst, Head of Service, Speech & Language Therapy Services, Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust;;As a practitioner of SFBT I have found this revised edition invaluable in reaffirming the kind of conversations I have with my adult and paediatric clients, work colleagues and myself! The new, detailed transcripts are particularly helpful in seeing how the seemingly ‘simple’ questions can elicit such meaningful solutions. I will keep this book close at hand in all my future work. ;Lisa Aldwinckle, Speech and Language Therapist (Adult and Paediatric Speciality), Central London Community Healthcare;;This is an extended second edition of the excellent textbook written by Kidge Burns who is a leading speech and language therapist in London. The book has been a continuing success since first publication because of its readable style and clinical expertise. There is no other book currently available in English which deals as explicitly with the use of solution-focused brief therapy in the field of acute and chronic physical ill-health. This new edition provides extensive technical information in succinct form. It includes a wide variety of original ideas from the author’s own experience. She emphasises the importance of a non-problem focus and of following the patient’s own goals and leads. Her case examples demonstrate the application of the method in many situations and show also how to combine its use with the work of the patient’s professional and professional carers;Dr Alasdair Macdonald, author, Solution Focused Therapy: Theory, Research and Practice;;It is good to see a second edition of this book that brings in some contemporary thinking around SFBT. Kidge has a style that whilst close to the practice of BRIEF has its own ‘Kidge flavour’. She manages to show the difference between behavioural approaches (such as CBT) and observational approaches without making that explicit in relation to each other. The talk of movement from symptom recovery to personal recovery is completely in line with current international thinking in this area and adds strength to this edition. The case studies are in many cases moving and illustrate well that a solution focused approach does not need to be formulaic. Congratulations on this book and it will no doubt be a valuable addition to the solution focused practitioners bookshelf.;Paul Hanton, Solution-Focused Brief Therapist, New Zealand