Sometimes, realizing that mental health is important is not enough. Everyone needs to take practical actions to make sure they’re doing alright and leading happy lives.
We often fail to understand how our brain works and find it hard to cope with our emotions, whether it is anger, sorrow, or trauma we have been carrying since we were little kids.
That’s why we need professional help for anything we may be going through. If prolonged and suffered in silence, sadness and feeling lonely can lead to anxiety disorder and depression.
The best option one has is to deal with their emotions as and when they touch them with the help of a professional who will uncover their thoughts and help them see the answers more clearly.
Therapy has always been problem-focused. You usually sit with a mental health professional and try to figure out the why of things and the root cause of all the problems. That might work for many, but many others still long to answer what will make their lives better.
If you perceive yourself to be one of those people, then solution-focused therapy exercises might be the right thing for you.
Here are some solution-focused therapy techniques or SBFT techniques that a mental health professional will employ if they are more solution and outcome-oriented:
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Asking Questions
One solution-focused technique is to ask questions that invoke a sense of resilience and a positive, goal-setting attitude. These questions cannot be random. They have to encourage one to see how they would feel without affecting their day-to-day lives.
This helps them focus on how to get there instead of staying stuck in the why. There are many kinds of asking questions techniques, like miracle questions, exception questions, etc.
Tiny Changes
In solution-focused therapy, you might be asked to imagine when something in your life didn’t go as planned and then think of one thing you could have done differently. This helps you change at a very minute level as little things can alter many reactions in any situation.
Paced Reaction
Solution counseling also teaches you that acting out on impulse is one thing that might be going wrong for you. It is essential that you feel your emotions as you have them, but it’s unnecessary to react based on our feeling.
It is important to feel sure about what you want to express before you say something that might not be true to what you think.
Presupposing Change Technique
When working with a therapist who encourages solution-based therapy activities, this might be one of the things you will be asked to do. This means that you will be asked to think of the positive changes happening in your life.
The human brain’s thoughts work like a chain reaction, and thinking positive now helps you envision a positive future much more quickly. You have to actively imagine that things will change for the better if you intend to make strides in the same direction.
Solution Mind Mapping
This technique is focused on helping people get more goal-oriented by creating a mind map. They are asked to have a miracle at the center and then find ways to make the miracle happen in real life. This fills people with enthusiasm and helps them actualize their goals.
While making a mind map, people also see how many possibilities lay before them, what they can do with a situation at hand, and consider all their options fully.
Thinking of exceptions
This is a way of making people thinking about the times when everything goes alright and things are exactly how they want them to be. This helps people pin-point the positives in scenarios and learn from those. This also gives people a reference point as to how they should deal with something in the future.
This way of solution-focused intervention is, in a way, helping people think of their solutions and focus more on the positive.
Bottom line
Solution-focused techniques have brought about a lot of change in how therapy is treated and perceived. Solution-focused therapy exercises make people feel in control and give them actual space to figure out how they can get better and reach goals.
The technique is also great because it makes people more independent as it helps them make their judgments, to trust themselves. It also helps them think in a more solution-oriented way which is the end goal of therapy anyway.
If you are struggling with your emotions and want help, the best time to call a therapist is now. Mental health is essential and should be given attention as urgent as any other health issue.
BetterHelp.com has a helpful article on deciding whether solutions counseling is right for you. With solution-based therapy, now you even have the option to help yourself while the therapist helps you.
