Chris Ward

Solution Focused Therapy is known for being brief, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it has to be short term.

‘Brief’ in this context means as many sessions are required by the client.

I’ve recently been working as a subcontractor, and part of the contract is that clients are offered up to 8 sessions.

Although this type of arrangement is very typical in the contracted therapy world, assigning any kind of expectation around the number of sessions the client might have in advance is not generally a feature of Solution Focused practice. The usual suggestion is to book one session, then book another if you think it would be useful to and continue booking sessions until you don’t feel you need any more, and this is what I say to my private clients.

Because of the efficient nature of the therapeutic approach, clients of Solution Focused therapists typically reach the point where they don’t feel they need to book further sessions after around 3 sessions (although there are always exceptions of course, and it’s not unusual for someone to have just one session, or more than 3. In rarer cases, sometimes many more than 3).

Offering up to 8 therefore seems logical enough to meet the requirement of the service hiring the contractor to have a limit on what will be paid for on behalf of the client, whilst ensuring most clients will have enough sessions to meet their needs.

Several clients have remarked to me after 2 or 3 sessions that whilst they feel they’ve made sufficient progress to believe they may not need any more, they’d like to book another as they are aware they are entitled to several more at no additional expense, and have made comments such as ‘I think a conversation like this could always be useful, so why not!’

I can’t help but agree. Having experienced the client role in training exercises, listened to feedback from clients over the years, and discussed it with other practitioners, I have no doubt that everyone can often find a lot of use for a Solution Focused conversation regardless of their situation, including if everything seems to be going well (the conversation then naturally centres around confidence in maintaining this, and in dealing with any future difficulties).

The process of change doesn’t stop throughout our lives, which means that new hopes continue to emerge, so there is always something to talk about in a Solution Focused way. The only consideration is whether the client regards the expense of time and money in booking a session as necessary for them to achieve what they would hope to through doing so – something only they can really decide, if their agency is to be truly, universally respected.

I maintain that the most ethical stance is to, as far as possible within the bounds of contractual obligations, available resources and so on, leave it entirely up to the client to decide how many sessions to have. This might mean the full extent of a contracted limit, just one session, fifty sessions over several years, and everything in between.

The bottom line, for me, is that although I’m aware that the introduction of a limit on sessions has altered the variables influencing the clients decision around how many to book, they are deciding on the number taking into account the context of their unique circumstances, the complexity of which only they can ever fully appreciate, and they are making their choice for their own good reasons, which I am choosing to respect.