Difference Between Solution-Focused Therapy And Narrative Therapy

Solution-focused therapy and narrative therapy are both utilized in counseling. They are both social construction models. They both serve a purpose in counseling, which is to help client’s change the way they think, not how they behave (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2013). Although solution-focused therapy and narrative therapy are social construction models, there are major differences between the two approaches. The first difference between the two approaches is that solution-focused therapy is question-oriented, while narrative therapy is story-oriented. Solution-focused therapists ask questions. The three main questions are miracle questions, exception-finding questions, and scaling questions (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2013). All three questions
In solution-focused counseling, the counselor leads the session. Counselors set the tone for the counseling session. They lay out clear expectations and expect the clients to actively participate, in order to produce change. (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2013). Solution-focused therapists guide the counseling session, while the clients come up with goals to achieve. Narrative therapy is client-led. The clients lead the session by sharing their stories with the counselor, and come up with new stories that will free them from their past problems. Narrative therapy is also client-led because “narrative therapists reject the expert role, that of believing they understand clients better than clients do themselves” (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2013, p. 398). Narrative therapy encourages clients to examine their own lives through the stories they tell, with the hopes they will positively change their stories. Narrative therapy is also client-led because the counselor does not enforce goal achievement. Clients determine whether or not they will achieve their goals. Their ultimate goal is to rewrite their story and change their lives for the