Positive psychology and solution-focused therapies
Build what is absent rather than only removing what is present.
Chapter 15Beyond the standard syllabus
What you should be able to do afterwards
- 1Explain the two-continua model and its clinical implication
- 2Conduct a miracle question properly
- 3Use scaling and coping questions
- 4State honestly what has and has not replicated in positive psychology
The reading
Two claims worth taking seriously. Keyes: mental illness and mental health are separate dimensions, so removing symptoms does not produce wellbeing. De Shazer: problems and solutions are not logically connected, so understanding a problem thoroughly buys you nothing. Both are counter-intuitive, both have clinical consequences, and both have less evidence than their popularity suggests.
What belongs to this unit
- systemPositive Psychology & Well-Being Therapies→
- systemSolution-Focused Brief Therapy→
- systemNarrative Therapy→
- sessionA solution-focused first sessionnot yet written
Questions to take away
For a seminar, a supervisor, or an argument with yourself.
- 1Can you help someone without understanding what is wrong? What is lost, and what is gained?
- 2When does building the positive become a way of refusing to hear the negative?
- 3Positive psychology has had a difficult replication decade. What survived, and why those findings?
Your notes
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