·        Perception can be considered a person’s ___________ or awareness of his or her own life, achieved through the senses, a person’s capacity to think and feel, and his or her intuition.

·        Perceptions include a person’s thoughts, feelings, ___________ and experiences.

·        Interviewer’s can learn about the client’s perceptions by asking them to ___________ them in words; this description can be thought of as ___________ between the client’s experiences and frame of reference.

·        Asking client’s about their perceptions helps them feel understood; it also helps ___________ their perceptions

·        In solution focused therapy, the feelings are seen as an important part of the client’s perceptions but they are no more important than client thoughts, attitudes, beliefs and ___________.  Perceptions are listened to in a ___________ manner.

·        Exploring and confirming client’s ___________ is a major share of what is done in solution building interviews; doing this affirms the importance of the clients’ perceptions and keeps the ___________ on the client.

·        Even when the interviewer is concerned abut the client’s perceptions, the interviewer can proceed from a posture of ___________and gain more information about what is prompting the clients’ perceptions; this often leads to affirming the clients perception which, contrary to what we often belief does not usually lead to encouraging clients to acts on those perceptions.  Instead, having those perceptions respected often leads the client to relax more and turn the conversation toward working on ______________________possibilities.

1.Natural Empathy: 

·        Empathy is thought to be the result of ___________ entering the clients’ world of thinking, feeling and acting. Empathy does not mean losing yourself in that world, but rather exploring or adopting the client’s sense of his or her experiences without ever losing the inner sense that he or she is a ___________ person from the client.

·        ___________ means having the same feelings and concerns as the client and is not the same thing as empathy.

·        There is contradictory research on whether empathy is necessary for a successful helping relationship; it has been suggested by solution building proponents that empathy can represent a subtle form of interviewers imposing their ___________interpretations on clients’ difficulties and their solutions, when the emotions are separated from the client’s perceptions by the interviewer; this may lead to a focus on these feelings as chosen by the ___________, not the client.

·        Solution building encourages ___________empathy, or empathy that affirms a client’s perception.

·        You can demonstrate natural empathy for your clients through ___________, paraphrasing and summaries that communicate your understanding of the ___________of what the client is saying, through respectful silences and a ___________ tone of voice.

·        Empathy is part of your presentation, not a ___________skill.

2. Normalizing:

·        Clients who are struggling with emotionally charged issues often feel their problems are ______________________and beyond the bounds of ___________; it is easy for interviewers to get caught up in this feeling.

·        Normalizing is meant to help the client and the interviewer avoid the tendency to see problems as deep seated ___________, rather as ordinary problems in living that can be addressed through solution-building.

·        Normalizing can include asking the clients if the situation they describe is to be ___________ , or to simply  respond with brief statements of agreement.

·        Normalizing needs to be done naturally and confidently or the client may feel you are ___________ their struggles.

·        To become more comfortable with normalizing, a beginning interviewer might use more of a ___________ approach in asking the client their view of the ___________of their difficulties.

·        Formulating questions about what the clients would like different, following examples of behaviors that the client sees as ___________ helps bring the focus back to solution building.

·        Normalization is useful in solution building as it may ___________ the clients’ difficulties and helps clarify what the client wants to be ___________.

3. Returning the Focus to the Client

·        Clients often talk about what they would like others to do differently and may have difficulty ___________ what they themselves can do differently.

·        In order to move from a sense of ___________ to a sense of ___________, clients will have to shift their focus from the perceived difficulties with other people and their current ___________ to what they would like to have happen differently in those circumstances and how they see themselves participating in a ___________.

·        The type of questions asked by the interviewer can help the client do that; questions may ___________ ask the client to shift their focus or ___________ ask them to do so.  This includes the miracle question which will be discussed more in the next chapter.

4. Noticing Hints of Possibility

·        It is important for solution building interviewers to pay attention to and notice ___________ that are made by clients that could lead to a discussion or some aspect of building a ___________.

·        It is helpful to avoid getting too ___________ about the problem, rather get more details about what the client might want different, what they , past successes or what they have already done to try to ___________ their situations.

5.Exploring client meanings

·        In solution building, the interviewer is not attempting to ___________the client’s experiences for them; the focus is on the meanings that the client attaches to past ___________and future possibilities.

·        There are two not knowing questions that may be particularly useful in inviting clients to struggle with and construct  their own meanings:

a.       The first question is asking the client if there is something that she did in the ___________ or is contemplating doing in the ___________ that might be useful or helpful.

b.      The interviewer can also ask the client about future ___________, which may lead to the client constructing the meaning of a possible future ___________ and that may help the client to decide whether to actually take that action.

·        Solution building interviewers also primarily ask for ___________, or meanings that reflect the possibility of changes on a relationship with a change in the client’s actions.

6. Relationship Questions:

·        It is important to know ___________ is in the client’s life and how the changes would occur in interactional terms.

·        The questions may lead to potential solution building in terms of differences in the client’s ___________ and this can be ___________ to reflect the differences in one relationship that may lead to changes in other relationships.

7.Amplifying Solution Talk

·        Solution talk involves the aspects of life that clients want to be different and the possibilities for making those things happen; amplifying this helps put more of a focus on what would be ___________ and how that can happen.

·        Solution talk can help counter the ___________ that clients often feel when they first come for services.

8.Leading from Behind

·        Adopting a posture of ___________that allows clients to provide information about themselves and their problems and respecting that the client is the ___________can promote client trust, confidence and ___________ about the future.

True or False

1.The “not-knowing “ posture involves the interviewer setting aside his or her own frame of reference and taking a stance of genuine curiosity toward the client and the client’s experiences. 

2.The authors state that practitioner non-verbals (posture, head nodding, the use of smiles) are as important as what the practitioner says in demonstrating to the client that the practitioner is respectfully listening and understanding the client’s story. 

3.Clients’ use of language is the primary means by which they convey their frames of reference; therefore, practitioners should listen carefully for and explore clients’ key words. 

4.In a solution-building approach, practitioners rarely make use of silence.

5.In a solution-building approach, practitioners make frequent use of describing their own past experiences to help clients generate possibilities for solutions. 

6.In solution-focused interviewing, the interviewer attempts to build client trust by the interviewer affirming clients’ perceptions about their own lives. 

7.The centerpiece of solution-building work with clients is the careful exploration of client feelings. 

8.Research indicates that empathy is more closely related to client progress when client progress is measured by the client’s subjective point of view than when it is measured by a standardized test or the observations of researchers. 

9.When clients complain about the failings of their significant others, the authors suggest that the interviewer ask questions which both respect these perceptions and shift the focus to the client. 

10.The authors state that most clients will engage in solution talk when the practitioner leads them in that direction. 

11.Allowing the client to be the “expert” means that the practitioner remains passive and allows the client to take the lead in determining what topics will be discussed in the interview. 

Multiple Choice

1.“Suppose that things were to get better between you and your parents, what would be different?”  This is an example of:

a.an expert question.

b.an open question.

c.a process question.

d.a diagnostic question.

e.a problem-focused question.

2.In                 , the practitioner states back to the client his or her thoughts, actions, and feelings.

a.summarizing

b.complimenting

c.self-disclosing

d.empathizing

3.According to Carl Rogers, which skill blocks the practitioner’s tendency to evaluate when trying to listen to a client?

a.Summarizing

b.Complimenting

c.Self-disclosing

d.Empathizing

4.                refers to the way in which clients express information in an interview.

a.Content

b.Process

c.Self-disclosure

d.Amplification

5.When interviewers notice and make favorable mention of personal qualities which clients demonstrate and which could be useful to them in building solutions to problems, this action on the part of interviewers is called                       .

a.self-disclosing

b.complimenting

c.affirming client perceptions

d.amplifying solution talk

6.When an interviewer observes:  “You seem to be a mother who cares very much for her children,” this is an example of:

a.a direct compliment.

b.an indirect compliment.

c.a reality-based compliment.

d.a general compliment.

Essay

1. What is meant by the posture of “not knowing”?  Select three of the skills discussed in Chapter 3 and explain how each promotes not knowing.