Mental Health

Solution Focused Therapy in Mental Health

Second of the six groups from Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust at the close of the Solution Focused Therapy in Mental Health – Working towards Recovery course

This Solution Focused Therapy in Mental Health training will help me to focus on people’s competencies rather than inadequacies – help motivate people by asking questions which enable them to recognise and build on skills they already have. Engaging, relevant, entertaining and challenging.
Dr Claire Bailey, General Practitioner, Buckinghamshire

Stop Press: We now also provide all of our training courses via MSTeams and Zoom – please get in touch via info@brief-therapy-uk.com or Tel: 07779 242 289 for further information.

Solution Focused Therapy in Mental Health – the ethos: 

All of us depend on good mental health to thrive but probably few of us ever consider what good mental health means in reality.

Sometimes a “good enough recovery” is hoped for by the client and the client will have good expertise to bring to the discussion about when that point is in sight.  There are many instances of people who have suffered anxiety, trauma or depression, being able to make small steps of recovery following a small change in their environment or following an interaction with someone who connected with the “person” rather than with the “problem” – the crucial element in both was that the individual remained the expert of the minutiae of those steps.

Inspiring, clinically exciting – an excellent training experience!
Kath Randle, CPN, Community Mental Health Team, Grimsby, NE Lincs

This Solution Focused Therapy training has changed the way that I think about mental health support entirely. The idea of the client being the “expert” and therefore holding the key knowledge about what will benefit them was truly eye-opening. An engaging, hilarious, eye-opening and transformational two day session. The Silent Session, Change Balloon, “staying small” and scaling are such useful tools.
Kate McDougall, Wellbeing Coordinator, Student Services, University of Southampton

Solution Focused Therapy in Mental Health: Tailored Training and Project Development

Our tailored training and project development courses enable “conversations for change”; are patient-centred and help the patient move towards their own preferred future in small achievable steps that are self-identified and collaboratively produced between professional and patient. This collaboration enables the patient to tap into inner resources, strengths, self-knowledge and survivor experiences that both professional and patient can harness in the work towards recovery.

Finding and identifying the “exceptions” will make all the difference to people written off by the system. Inspirational – loved it!
Joan Marsh, Therapeutic Co-ordinator, Royal Oldham Hospital. Oldham

The Solution Focused Brief Therapy model connects with the uniqueness of the individual – Solution Focused conversations can be more spontaneous, more accessible and can happen at ad hoc times during a patient’s experience. The Approach can be instigated by non-clinical staff, therefore providing a fast-track resource for mental health teams by:

1. encouraging staff to hear who the patient is as well as listening to the details of presenting issue
2. equipping staff with “tools for curiosity” about times when the patient does well
3. enabling patients to be curious about, and connect with, their inner resources and strengths and self-expertise
4. work collaboratively with patients on their own personal recovery map

Details of the course and evaluations from participants can be seen below and on the main Evaluations Map.

I feel like I have a whole new enthusiasm towards my work. I love how positive the approach is and how it highlights the patients strengths and empowers to goal set achievable goals
Navenka Love, Mental Health Nurse, NHS, Oldham

The training identified a different way to work with our patients and I am hopeful that I will be able to utilise the techniques with a positive effect. Worthwhile, Interesting, informative and thought provoking.
Barbara Walsh, Ward Sister, NHS, Oldham

Overview of the 2-7 day Staff Training Course:

We have developed various Pilot Projects for the NHS and related organisations on working with patients and clients who are presenting with depression, bipolar and anxiety and our Returning to Mainstream programme was recently commissioned as a training tool for the staff of The Mayor’s Employment Project, in London.

Our Pilot Project for the NHS includes Martin Hospital, Canterbury – training a group of volunteers from the local community including ex-patients of the Mental Health Unit, to mentor patients in their own recovery and return to independent living.

I believe the clients I meet will feel more empowered and recovery may accelerate. This in turn may have an effect on the practitioner who may feel more confident and progressive in their practice.
Rebecca O’Reilly, RMN Practitioner, NHS, Oldham

Because the models we utilize: Solution Focused Brief Therapy (deShazer);  Examine, Repair & Move On Approach (E.Murphy ’93)and Optima Communication Skills (E.Murphy ’93) are collaborative, strengths based, forward looking approaches that take a non-pathological stance – this allows participants to access a respectful approach that is well evaluated and provides for a fast track resource.

The Solution Focused Therapy in Mental Health training is available as an in-house course across the UK as either a 1, 2 and 3 day course or a 7 day Restructuring and Reorganizing Framework for Acute Wards and Residential Recovery Units.

Specialist Solution Focused Therapy Training for Carers:

Our training within the Mental Health field includes the provision of a specialist course for Carers. Our work with the Carers of Adults who have been diagnosed with conditions including Bipolar and Schizophrenia on behalf of Enfield Carers in London, prepared the Carers to utilize the benefits of the Solution Focused Therapy training for themselves and for those they Care for.

Following the six, weekly sessions, evaluations from both staff and Carers indicates that no matter how long-standing the diagnosis – small changes can bring giant affects:

This is a course on which carers can see the results of their own work very quickly. It was a pleasure to see the group change from negative worriers to positive change makers in six weeks. I have never seen such positive results in such a short time.
Rosemary Willis – Carer Support Worker, Enfield Carers Centre

Often a small change in the built environment can change moods and allow for a new viewing and new thinking. Similarly, a staff member “connecting” with the person (rather than the problem) and displaying a curiosity about past strengths and current successful strategies can ignite a renewal of those resources and indeed infect the patient to harness those resources to make small steps forward in their recovery or self-management.

We are fortunate to have access to, and time given by, patients and ex-patients. The insight that they offer us about a patient’s experience reinforces that the “one-size fits all” ethos is not conducive to facilitating individual recovery. This, we would imagine, is not a groundbreaking discovery, but what is encouraging for us is that patients agree that sometimes they have “felt able to progress because a nurse or doctor spoke to me not the illness in me”. It is this ethos that all of our training courses are founded on.

The training has made me more confident, thoughtful, creative and flexible in my approach – and less self- critical – I have stopped doing things that have no effect and started doing things that help my son cope and in future lead to his independence. The training has enabled me to be assertive and feel very much empowered.
Carer of Adult Male diagnosed with Schizophrenia, Enfield

For further information about our courses within Mental Health – please contact us at Tel 0208 947 8093 or 07779 242 289 or email: info@brief-therapy-uk.com