What is solution-focused brief therapy, who developed it, and what was its goal?

A 1970s short-therapy approach by Steve de Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg that turns attention radically toward solutions, aiming to relieve people quickly.

De Shazer and Berg, psychotherapists in Milwaukee, built the solution-focused brief therapy model (lösungsfokussiertes Kurzzeittherapiemodell) around a simple bet: you can help people faster by devoting yourself to solutions rather than dissecting problems. Its goal was an explicitly fast-acting method that gives people relief quickly. Its inspirations show its systemic-constructivist lineage:

• The Palo Alto Mental Research Institute (Satir, Bateson, Watzlawick, Weakland).
• Milton Erickson, pioneer of modern hypnotherapy.
• Wittgenstein's philosophy of language.
• The teachings of Buddhism and Taoism.

From the 1980s it spread far beyond family therapy and is now widely used in coaching and organisational development, wherever you'd rather build a wanted future than autopsy a problem.