Not sure what to expect from a therapy session? Wondering how Solution-Focused Therapy can help you? Then this blog series explaining the key techniques of Solution-Focused Therapy is for you! Read on to find out what happens in our second therapy session, where you will find out everything about What’s Been Good & the Miracle Question.
Haven’t read about the Breakthrough Session in part 1 yet? Then read it before delving deeper into What’s Been Good & the Miracle Question. And don’t forget to check out part 3 to explore Deep Relaxation or Hypnotherapy afterwards.
Overview
Our first session, the breakthrough session, will have left you with lots of new knowledge about your brain. You will also have started to fall asleep to your relaxation recording.
A week later, we will have our second Solution-Focused Therapy session. And I will begin by asking you what’s been good about your week. Notice, I don’t ask “How have you been this week?” I only want to hear what’s been good about your week.
Now, understandably, this can prove very difficult if you’re feeling anxious or depressed. But by doing this we are beginning our sessions in the positive, objective part of the brain and my aim is to keep you there.
I don’t for one minute deny that you will have had plenty of stresses and strains this week, too. But I only want to hear about all the good things. This is part of the solution-focused “brain training” that we will continue to do from now on.
What’s Been Good?
I will keep asking you “….and what else has been good about your week?”, “……and what else….?” and “what else?….”. By continuing to do this, we are keeping you away from the irrational, negative part of your brain, and even getting it a bit bored! And no worries, I will give you lots of positive feedback to encourage you even more and I will keep you on track.
Also, I’m not looking for anything major at all… It’s the little things that matter like the sun was shining, I had a nice coffee with a friend and, my personal favourite, I saw a cute dog!
This is the reason why I’m known as ‘a therapist that doesn’t want to hear about your problems!’. I only want to hear all about the good stuff.
A lot of my clients say that this experience is entirely new to them. They’ve always been asked about their problems and go over them in detail, even when talking to friends and family, never mind a therapist. So they find this technique quite refreshing. This is where solution-focused work is vastly different from other talking therapies and why I find it so enjoyable.
From now on, every session will begin with What’s Been Good & the Miracle Question. And I can guarantee that, after a few sessions, you’ll find it easier and more and more enjoyable. You will even find that you begin to write down the good things in your week so you can remember to tell me.
The Miracle Question
After doing some revision of our brain diagram, and adding to it with more details relevant to you, we move on to the Miracle Question.
This is an exercise where I ask you to use your brilliant imagination to have a vision of what you would be doing tomorrow if you felt a little better. It needs to be realistic and yet it should be a little exciting and interesting, too.
Now, using your imagination in this way is really powerful. By doing this exercise you are focusing your thoughts on feeling better. Your mind always focuses on what you think about. So, instead of anxiety or depression, let’s focus on feeling calm, relaxed and happy instead.
I will guide you and help you. And, once again, we’re not looking for anything major. Just something small that makes you feel good.
For example, let’s say that if you felt a bit better tomorrow, you could imagine that you would wake up with a little more energy. And an indication of that would be that you would have the motivation to go for a walk.
I will ask you to give me some more detail here: What time would you go for a walk? Where exactly would you go? Would anyone be with you or would you go on your own? The reason for this is that your subconscious loves details. Therefore, you are giving the subconscious lots of details about things that make you feel good.
This way, you are beginning to literally re-programme your subconscious with the Miracle Question to move forward. Remember, it’s just an idea or suggestion, I’m not going to insist you actually go for walk.
Once you have a detailed ‘picture’ in your mind that makes you feel good, you will be ready for deep relaxation and that is where your subconscious truly gets to work.
Every step of the way, I will help you, guide you and decide when you are optimally ready for relaxation – as by then you’ve done all the hard work and now your mind is ready to relax.
Find out more about that in Part 3: Deep Relaxation or Hypnotherapy.