Switch - Chip Heath [14]
5.
Solutions-focused therapists use a common set of techniques for discovering potential solutions. Early in the first session, after hearing the patient explain his or her problem, the therapist poses the Miracle Question: “Can I ask you a sort of strange question? Suppose that you go to bed tonight and sleep well. Sometime, in the middle of the night, while you are sleeping, a miracle happens and all the troubles that brought you here are resolved. When you wake up in the morning, what’s the first small sign you’d see that would make you think, ‘Well, something must have happened—the problem is gone!’?”
Here’s how one couple in marital therapy answered the Miracle Question posed by their therapist, Brian Cade of Sydney, Australia:
WIFE: I’d be happy, feeling at ease at last. I’d be more pleasant to Bob, not jumping down his throat all the time.
CADE: What will you do instead?
WIFE: Well, there would be more understanding between us. We’d listen to what each other was saying.
HUSBAND: Yes. At the moment, we don’t really listen to each other. We just can’t wait to get our own point in.
CADE: How could you tell that the other was really listening?
WIFE: In the face, I think. We’d perhaps make more eye contact. (Pauses, then laughs.) We’d nod in the right places.
Yes. We’d both respond to what the other was saying rather than just attacking or ignoring it.
Notice that Cade prods the couple for specifics: “What will you do instead?” “How could you tell the other person was really listening?” The Miracle Question doesn’t ask you to describe the miracle itself; it asks you to identify the tangible signs that the miracle happened.
Here’s another example from a therapist’s session with a man with a drinking problem: If a miracle solved your drinking problem, what would you be doing differently the next morning? “I don’t know, I can’t imagine.” Try. “Well, all my friends drink, so what do you expect me to do?” I know it’s not easy, but think about it. “Well, there are all sorts of things.” Name one. “Maybe I would go to the library and look at the newspapers.” How would your day be different if you went to the library?
Solutions-focused therapists learn to focus their patients on the first hints of the miracle—“What’s the first small sign you’d see that would make you think the problem was gone”—because they want to avoid answers that are overly grand and unattainable: “My bank account is full, I love my job, and my marriage is great.”
Once they’ve helped patients identify specific and vivid signs of progress, they pivot to a second question, which is perhaps even more important. It’s the Exception Question: “When was the last time you saw a little bit of the miracle, even just for a short time?”
An alcoholic would be asked: “When was the last time you stayed sober for an hour or two?” Or the wife in the dialogue quoted above would be asked: “When was the last time you felt like your husband was truly listening to you?”
It’s an ingenious tactic. What the therapist is trying to demonstrate, in a subtle way, is that the client is capable of solving her own problem. As a matter of fact, the client is offering up proof that she’s already solved it, at least in some circumstances. For instance, Brian Cade worked with a mother whose children were out of control. He asked her the Exception Question: “What was different about the last time your kids obeyed you? In what circumstances do they seem to behave better?”
MOM: (after a pause) I guess it’s when they realize they have pushed me too far.
CADE: How could they tell that?
MOM: You know, it’s funny. I think it’s when I stop ranting and raving at them and my voice goes very, very calm…. I think I’m able to do that when I feel generally less harassed, when I feel I’ve got things done