“Can I see you ask the miracle question?”

• +..Electro
• +..turntablism
• +..Blue desert

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but SF work is not based on diagnosis – the client’s complaint is not relevant in determining what they want (the ‘solution’ in solution-focused terminology) and times when what they want happens already. Steve’s work was part of the tradition that questions the value of diagnosis in any case, and even if an accurate assessment of the condition could be made, each client would want something different – leading to a course for treatment which would vary in each case. There was therefore no value in even considering whether the client was an ‘alcoholic’ or not. Part of his ‘I don’t know’ was a rejection of this as a relevant term in his work. The other presupposition is in the “Does it work?” element. “Does it work?” implies that “it” is working, rather than someone is acting skilfully to make something happen. We might say of a piano, “Does it work?” – meaning that if someone hits the notes, then the relevant sounds will emerge. It doesn’t matter who is hitting the notes, the sounds will emerge. In SFBT, solutions are constructed in conversation, which is an art as well as a science. To ask if SF therapy works is therefore to ask not if the piano works, but instead to ask if piano- playing “works”. This is not a sensible question – pianos can be made to sound beautiful with skill, but someone without the skill could scarcely claim that the piano didn’t work – just that they were not yet individually skilful enough.
Vogt, Manfred