Like you, i am always interest in learning a wide verity of techniques to help others and myself move forward. I recently attended a course on Solution Focused Therapy and wanted to share one of their popular techniques The Miracle Question that i have successfully used with clients, with you.
Solution focused brief therapy (SFBT), often referred to as 'solution focused therapy' or 'brief therapy', focuses on what clients want to achieve rather than on the problems that made them to look for help. SFBT approach does not focus on the past, instead, focuses on the present and future.
The Miracle Question The miracle question is a method of questioning that a coach or therapist, uses to aid the client to envision how the future will be different when the problem is no longer present. Also, this may help to establish goals.
A traditional version of the miracle question would go like this:
"Suppose our meeting is over, you go home, do whatever you planned to do for the rest of the day. And then, some time in the evening, you get tired and go to sleep. And in the middle of the night, when you are fast asleep, a miracle happens and all the problems that brought you here today are solved just like that. But since the miracle happened over night nobody is telling you that the miracle happened. When you wake up the next morning, how are you going to start discovering that the miracle happened? ... Ask, what else are you going to notice? What else?"
Whilst you can easily follow the script, the miracle question requires considerable skill to ask well. The question must be asked slowly with close attention to the person's non-verbal communication to ensure that the pace matches the person's ability to follow the question.
Clients will often respond "I don't know." to the Miracle Question. Often if you leave a respectful silence to give the person time to fully absorb the question, clients will then give an answer or you can ask "if you did know..."
Often practitioners will follow this up with Scaling questions, this way the miracle question is not so much a question as a series of questions.
There are many different versions of the miracle question depending on the context and the client you can find lots of examples on the Internet
In a specific situation, the practitioner may ask,
"If you woke up tomorrow, and a miracle happened so that you no longer easily lost your temper, what would you see differently?" What would the first signs be that the miracle occurred?"
The client (a child) may respond by saying,
"I would not get upset when somebody calls me names."
The counselor wants the client to develop positive goals, or what they will do, rather than what they will not do--to better ensure success. So, the counselor may ask the client, "What will you be doing instead when someone calls you names?"
If you have had any success using this technique please leave a comment for others to share your good practice
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2 comments:
Good article. Here's another one on how to use the Miracle Question
I have been using the miracle questions with clients for over 5 years. There is a right time to use it to get the best outcomes. It creates a vision of how life will be without the problem. The client starts to see themselves living in the solution which is a very powerful place to be.
I tend to always follow using scale questions after the client has seen where they want to be with regards to the solution. It is similar to the "Best Hopes" question, which again is a very solution focused question.
Richard Northampton
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