🎙️ Toward Solutions Podcast | Episode 13: Neurons, Agency, and Going Slow with Dr Gil Greene

Yeah, the word empowerment has been thrown around a lot in a lot of different settings and ways and The thing is is that in at least in my perspective on that We cannot unilaterally empower somebody If we're trying to unilaterally empower somebody It's got to disempower them. You're taking an expert position Hello and welcome to the towards solution podcast where creativity meets practical application I'm Deon Singh and I'm Jason Pasco Together we dive deep into the world of solution focus exploring its transformative power across a variety of Contexts come join us each month as we engage in enlightening conversations with experts and practitioners who are applying solution focus in their unique Environments whether you're looking to enhance your personal life professional practice or community projects our discussions will provide you with Valuable insights and actionable ideas tune in to discover how you can implement solution focused practices in your own context Unlocking new possibilities and creative solutions Let's embark on this journey of exploration and innovation together if you like this podcast Leave us a review and subscribe now so you don't miss an episode of towards solutions Gill I want to say welcome to the towards solutions podcast We never in the week when you interviewed me on the family based solutions podcast Sure death and that was a great conversation and I'm looking forward to this one But then this morning you sent me your resume and I don't think I've ever read a resume that is so long So you've been doing what you do for a while now well, you know, I'm retired academic And as as academia goes my resume is on the shorter side actually Some some academics really pack I put put everything they've ever done in there, you know, and Mind is on the thinner side, but I had a Like a 38 and a half year academic career There's a full-time academic. That's amazing because I noticed right you started your undergrad social work degree in 1972 and now your professor emeritus at Ohio State University But I'm looking at my notes over here and you Solution of August practice which sort of emerged in the in the late 80s and things so you were India career when Stephen in sue were playing around with this stuff and discovering it and studying to put it into practice and you work in Crisis intervention and and family systems work so over that that career How did you actually find solution focus practice? Well, it was an evolution Over time I I got my masters in social work in 74 And I was working in It's psychiatry the veterans administration hospital in Nashville Tennessee Which is my my hometown I actually did my internship there and then I was working I had worked as a medical social worker there New in back to school my masters and social work and wanted to go into the mental health side of things Actually back then it was run called psychiatry was called the mental health and behavioral science service So it's very into disciplinary Mm-hmm. And so I did my MSW and then I was wanting to work in there and worked in inpatient and outpatient you know in my MSW I got like the latest Knowledge, you know, okay, and I go back in time. I'm trying using it with the veterans and I'm I am a veteran myself But you don't have to be a veteran to work effectively with veterans But but I found what I'd learned in school really wasn't that effective and I was getting good supervision But even that still wasn't that that effective and so after a couple years I started a postgraduate on one week in the month for two years in What was really kind of a hot thing at the time transactional analysis and Gestalt therapy and It was doing during that that I got exposed to the work of milked Ericsson and and And then Fritz pearls and others should all and but I found that the training and tri-trendaxial analysis Gestalt therapy It worked good with therapists and training But again, I still didn't translate that well to working with the veteran population. I was working with but a friend of mine who was working on her PhD in clinical psychology at Vanderbilt University in Nashville she shared a book with me that her advisor shared with her by Jay Hayley called Stradges of Psychotherapy and Which Jay Hayley was one of the founding members of the mental research institute approached in Palo Alto, California Well, that just it's a whole different way of thinking and it's just like my gosh I'd open things up and then soon after that One of my fellow trainees and the transaction analysis Gestalt therapy program shared with the group the book change Subtitle principles of problem formation and problem resolution Done by the three of the co-founding members of the mental research institute approach and again that took it to a whole another level. It's like my gosh just And then I started using some of that stuff in my work and getting very different and positive more positive results well As I think maybe we talked about the other day how the solution focus really I think In influence emerged out of the mental research institute approach John Weaklin one of the founding members of MRI was good for it became good friends with Steve De Shaser and consulted it the brief family Thayer presented Milwaukee and so this Shaser and then took it the next level because MRI is problem focus on The attempts to solve the problem that are maintaining the problem which they called first order change and the Shaser and in suburg in the group at Milwaukee in their Recreation and innovative work start of focusing on the patterns that are present when The solutions are occurring when the acceptance are happening and But I was teaching using the MRI approach and teaching family therapy and using the work of Salvador Manuchin and structural family therapy and the work of Jay Haley and Chloe Madonna's and And then doing part-time private practice and getting good results with that So when I got exposed to solution focus. I didn't just jump right at it But a little by little I started playing around with it in my private practice and started getting even better results and and just learning more about it I When it came to solution focus I just became more self-taught and then learning from a sort of a peer group and sharing cases and in readings and things like that and Then just a little by little I just started getting even better results and sort of so so to speak self-tapping and then and then started Using in my teaching and class, you know when if you really want to learn something well teach it and You know, Jay says you know being an education with your education background that What I mean by that that you know you really have to to teach something you really have to know Well, so I emerged myself into it even more and Continual learn, you know, that's that's the thing about this work is you never stop learning That's awesome So what what is it over all of those years? What is it that's kept you using solution focus as a I guess I'm making an assumption that it's you know the main the main thing or you'll but what do you love about it? I do think it it gets better and quicker results now I'm also a fan of the the research supporting the common factors of therapy you know and And so cordy to that research it's just as effective as any other approach But in my actual use of it I find that it does get better and quicker results uh with clients And with a wide variety of clients in terms of their diagnosis, presenting problems, configurations with its individual couple family. And then I like it that it's been used widely in education and organizational consulting and coaching and things like that. It really makes sense. But it's foundational to me because I do think it's helpful to know other approaches. You know, I mentioned MRI. They talk about first order change and second order change. And first order change is doing the same thing over and over again, getting the same results. The vicious cycle and no one likes that. So second order change is changing the pattern of the vicious cycle. And to do that, you have to do something different, new and different. It has to be new and different to the client. And it has to be a different class of intervention. So first order change. Some people may think they're doing second order change when they find that, well, what if you tried and that hasn't worked? And then you think, well, you just need to give them new information. In fact, so it would be new to them. But the thing is, is giving facts is the same class of intervention as have been tried with them before. So it has to be something new and novel. And I find the solution focus approach, having solution focus conversations is new to most people. New and novel to most people. But I think that, and when you work that, well, you know, it's in therapy, it's to refer to as brief solution focus brief therapy. And I think I read where the shazers said, well, they didn't set out for it to be brief. It's just when you work that way, it lends us up to being brief. And that's true. But there are some clients who want and maybe need something more than brief. But if solution focus is the only thing you know, after a while it loses its novelty. And so it helps to have other things you can draw upon. But to me, it's foundation. I've just found that you can get more done in a shorter period of time and the more different kinds of clients than any other approach. And I think there's other research that is consistent with that. You may be with the familiar with the research of positive psychology and all the research under that broad umbrella. And that research is consistent with the solution focus approach. Also, I think in the last, oh, I don't know, 10 or 15 years, there's been all this interest in neural science and therapy and coaching change. And the neural science, I think, supports that. And also, I mean, I mentioned like the common factors as all approaches are, when you do the meta analysis of hundreds of thousands of studies and clients, it shows all approaches about equally effective. But I came across a couple of years ago, I came across a couple of meta analysis. Again, I'll kind of say therapy studies, outcome studies. And it, one meta analysis compared straight based approaches. And that's writ large. So solution focus isn't the only one that identifies and amplifies client strengths. But so I look at all strength based approaches compared to non-strength based approaches. And I found that the strength based approaches had small but significantly, significant better outcomes than the non-strength based approaches. But I don't think you have to, you know, be steeped in this kind of research. So no, if you want you to learn and start using it and you start getting, see how clients respond so positively to it. It sort of, again, sort of sells itself. So, Gil, I found out the other night that you've got one of the biggest solution focus libraries probably on the planet. That's just, that's just what I said. You know, that's what I claim. Might be I sure or Joe that do you in for that one. So, distilling all of that. Imagine, let's suppose you, you know, you bumped into your neighbor on the street and they said, yeah, we heard you, we heard you like this solution focus practice stuff. How, how would you explain it in a brief conversation with them? Well, now that is one of the toughest questions I've been asked in a long time, Jason. Because, you know, someone who asked you that question on the street, then I really wanted a long answer. So, so I might ask them, I might ask them a question. And I might say, well, tell me about something you've been struggling with and have been able to resolve on your own in a while. You know, and then I might ask them in the subject, except, tell me, tell me about when the thing's just a little bit better. So, I just might start having that kind of conversation with them. And then, and then they'll kind of hopefully realize what's going on right there. Then they're, but then if not, we can have that kind of conversation, you know, about the questions I'm asking and why and the effect it's having. Does that kind of answer your question? You know, let them experience it. Ask them some questions and let them experience it. Yeah. And also, I think this consistent with your approach, because you were talking the other day about what was in that, when I wrote down here, in active solutions, which is very experiential. Yeah. So, Gil, if you, you know, maybe you've got that a half an hour window with this same person and they've experienced it. And you're saying, I think you said the questions that you're asking, why you're asking them and what the outcomes are, what would you, what would you, you know, explain to them in a bit more depth about why you're asking the questions and the in a little bit more detail? Well, I mean, let's say that, you know, rather than focusing on what's wrong and the problems, especially what someone themselves, the problems they're struggling with. And then you know, instead of asking them about the history of the problem and and asking them why they think it's, they haven't been successful. That the more you, the more you talk about something, you reinforce it. And that, that comes out of the metaphoric, a metaphereous, of social constructivism. The more you talk about something, the more you reinforce it. The more you and and the keep I'm talking about it, you can enlarge that. So the more you talk about the problem, the more you enlarge it, the more you talk about somebody's shortcomings, the more the worst they feel about themselves. And and that it's it's pretty much proven that changes all occurred all the time. Never nothing stays the same. You know, and you know, when I would, I'm not formally teaching in the classroom anymore, but still do some training consulting. And so would bring that up that even people with long term severe problems, you know, in the mental health field, it could be severe diagnosis. There are times when things are better for them. Nothing stays the same all the time. And that's sort of a basic subject out of the original creators of the solution focus approach, you know, the originators changes happening all the time. And so and and people we start having that kind of conversation with them is, oh yeah, yeah, that that's true. So so the more you talk about what what people are doing at those times when things are better, the more it strengthens that reinforces the strengthens that. And the better they they start feeling about them, you know, then you want to have the follow-up question, what do you do to get that to happen? And I find that a very important part of the Solitra Focus question process in the therapy field. There's, you get over the years, there's been research that's found that the majority of clients when they come in are feeling well as one of the, if probably the primary developer of the common factors approach or perspective of the therapeutic Jerome Frank, who was a psychiatrist. So I think it was first of the late 1960s, early 70s, he wrote a book titled Persuasion and Healing and where he identified the common factors. And he looked at not just in a mental health field but also culturally as well, looking for the curative factors has been called. And he said when clients come in, they're feeling demoralized. They've had a problem for a while, they've tried, they've tried solving it on their own, they've tried over and over again, nothing to worry. Again, it's another way to talk about first order change. And so that therapy is a process of remoralization. And so, but the research has found that people come in and they're feeling demoralized. They have a sense of external locust control rather than internal locust control. Another way saying that is they're lacking a sense of personal agency in their life. So when you first identify the exception, then it's important to follow up and say, so what have you done to get that to happen? And almost always there's something they've done. And as you start to ask them to elaborate on that. And then what happened? Then what did you do? It starts helping you co-create a sense of personal agency for them or a sense of internal locust control. Another term we've all seen used in the literature is empowerment. We want to empower clients. So I tend to equate the sense of personal agency with a sense of personal empowerment as well. And a set entry question, Dionysic, get at it? Brilliantly. Yeah, thank you. It's very insightful how we can have a conversation that increases personal agency and empowerment. You've touched to talk about internal locust control, personal agency and then empowerment. There's a whole conversation in education about educator agency. And empowerment is, as you've identified, kind of one of those buzzwords that people attach to things. So I love that secret that you just took us through. Well for me anyway, some more clarity to some of those buzzwords that get thrown around. Yeah, the word empowerment has been thrown around a lot in a lot of different settings and ways. And the thing is that, at least in my perspective on that, we cannot unilaterally empower somebody. If we're trying to unilaterally empower somebody, it's going to disempower them. You're taking an expert position. So it comes out of the process that to co-creative process, a conversation, a dialogue. And we talk about, you know, taking in the solution focus world, taking a non expert position, the clients, the expert. But we do have to have expertise on knowing how to structure and facilitate these kinds of conversations where clients arrive at their own solutions or rediscover them and create them. Wow. Fantastic. Yeah. I feel like I could spend at least the next hour unpacking that bit. So what's how are you applying in solution focus now in your, you know, in your world? Well, in various ways, in my most recent writing and publishing, it came that's been out for a little over a year now, something I did with a couple of people in Toronto, Canada, this little book here. And if you've seen this, I don't know, coaching for person in the same scale. Oh, wow. And the subtitle is a solution focus approach to collaborative care. So I did that with a couple of people in Toronto, Canada at the Holland Blurview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital. And I became friends with the first, I'm the second editor, we co-added it and it's Elaine Cook. And we became friends during the pandemic. We became Zoom friends like I became Zoom friends with Joe, Joe and I, you know, and and so I was, I was zooming with Joe and I, for a long while, we would zoom weekly and the same with Elaine. And I became aware of her work at the SF 24 conference. I think first or second one. And so she was talking about the neuroscience supporting the solution focus approach. So I had contacted her, found her email and we started meeting regularly. And so I was very impressed with what they're doing at the Holland Blurview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital. Every patient facing staff member that comes in, it gets like a two day training and solution focus approach. And so I said to Elaine, really, I had not done much publish yet at the time, especially on the solution focus approach. But soon after we started meeting, she published an article and she's a health coach. That's her background, health coaching. And I said Elaine, you should write this up. You guys at your hospital, you're doing this great creative stuff. And so after many conversations and after a while, we put together a book proposal and it's an edited book. And so they were and are, it's solution focus, but they refer to it there as a humanistic solution focus approach. And I think solution focus is inherently humanistic, but they make it explicit. So I wrote a chapter there, kind of an overview chapter. And in putting that together, I dove into the work of Carl Rogers and put it within that context and gave an overview of solution focus approach. And another literature I discovered in doing the sort of the reading background reading for this is called patient activation. And there's been some research that has been there's been short, a short instrument developed for measuring patient activation in the physical health care. And then there's one been developed for behavioral health care. And it and separate from the solution focus approach, solution focus literature. And the idea is, is that medical people, physicians, nurses, anybody working in the health care field that it's important to work collaboratively with clients and to activate their involvement. And it fits with a research literature related to solution focus called resource activation, which comes out of psychotherapy, which was originally done in Switzerland, I think. And it's compatible. And they later made, they the developers of this research on resource activation connected it to solution focus approach. And not the patient activation literature had not been connected to that literature or solution focus. So, you just think about that patient activation. You can have the best medical facilities, the latest technology, the best medical professionals, the best in the world. working with patients. But we all know that there's usually things that patients have to do, especially in an outpatient setting, they have to do on their own between physician visits to make sure that they're successful in terms of diet, exercise, medication, thing like that. But if the patients are not engaged and active natives involved, all that great medical expertise would be all for not. And so in that chapter, I just sort of make those connections that the Solution Focus approach is probably in my humble opinion, the best way to activate patients and engage them in a collaborative relationship. So that's the kind of the latest thing I've done in terms of of writing. Also, I co-authored a chapter with a friend of mine who's a former student on using the Solution Focus approach with older adults in therapy. That was where at the time she was working only with older adults to an outpatient psychotherapy with them using a primarily Solution Focus approach. And that chapter, I think when we talked the other day, Jason with Ish and Joe, I mentioned how there I come across a couple of studies on research supporting a Solution Focus approach counters stigma. And so in that chapter I wrote with my former student, Jacqueline Carver, we talked about how Solution Focus and how she was doing this in actual practice. Because she's working with clients who were having mental health issues, but part of it was the stigma of ageism. So it was in doing the research or the search of the literature for that writing that. Then I came across this research supporting the Solution Focus approach to counter stigma. And that research that came across really been done in mental health. Crestigma is an ongoing issue in their mental health. But in any place where there's ladenling of any sorts, there's going to be. And really it works best with internalized stigma, of course. So someone who's internalized stigma would see themselves as somehow deficient. Or less than which can lead to disempowerment. And so she, so we use some case material, some cases that she she had an experience with using a Solution Focus approach. Another way I've been using it is not with a pure Solution Focus approach, but it's an integral part of it or sort of about half of it. For about, I don't know, say, well, probably it was started in in early 2000s with four other clinicians. We started developing something called integrated family and systems treatment. Yes, my father. Yes, so I fast. Yes. And against based on common factors, but it's it's strength based. And one of the one of the originators of that is my former faculty colleague at Ohio State, Moe Lee. And Moe Lee, we we co-authored several things before then and afterwards we co-authored several things just on using a Solution Focus approach. But she and I collaborated on this with with three other people on family systems work. And the three other people use variations of strategic therapy. So when it comes to working with with families, and these were at risk families, and I say at risk, multi-problem families in community mental health settings. And so based on the common factors in in family work, couples and families work, one of the the relationship is really your client, not any individual, though like with a family, usually it's a child or adolescent who's been diagnosed, you know, with a problem. They've been diagnosed with the ADHD or oppositional defined disorder. They're getting in trouble in school at home and things like that. But what you're looking at are relationships. The interactional patterns within the family. So, so that's would be a common change, focus on pattern change would be a common factor. A common focus of your work. And so, since it's based on the common factors, you could say, well, at least theoretically any theoretical approach could be used along with your focusing on pattern change. So most most approaches focus on changing the problem maintaining patterns of the vicious cycle. But what Moe and I brought to our collaboration with our three other colleagues and collaborators is well, there are also patterns when there are exceptions. So we say you could you could work effectively with families using this integrative strength based approach by either changing the vicious cycles, the problem patterns, or identifying and amplifying what we refer to as interactional exception patterns. Or both. So we bring and when we do that, we also again, I think it said solution focuses on the only strength based approach. I also find it helpful to bring in narrative therapy, the narrative approach, which also looks for looks at exception patterns, just two or different, different lens. But using those in combination, you could use you could use that as well. And so we continue to write and train and do research on the eye-fast approach as well. That's fascinating. There's three things. Come to mind. Number one is if your co-editor agrees, could we get a copy of your overview chapter from that book? I think that would be really into attached podcast, but I'd like to read it as well. Sure. I'm also interested in what you've written about solution-vogueers practice and stigma. That's both those chapters are in the just a little book here. Okay. Well, I probably need to get a copy of the book. I'm just thinking of what we might be able to attach to this so that people can dive a little bit deeper into things. Now, with eye-fast and you're talking about problem patterns and exception patterns, because the guys at brief and others started to talk about instances of the preferred future. How does that fit with your work as well? So we've got exceptions, but people are also now talking about instances. I haven't come across that they are brief talking about that, but I mean we use the term "est" and says that sounds like exception to me. Yeah, so my understanding of a guilt is that we can look for exceptions to the problem, work out what's happening and amplify that. And the instances are instances of the preferred future. It could be the answer to the miracle question, but there are instances, what's the best way I can put it? The future hasn't happened yet. So when we ask people about the future from multiple relational perspectives, they have to draw on things from the past to fill that description, which means there are patterns of those instances of the preferred future happening as well as exceptions. Are they the same thing? I don't know. Well, I think maybe what's new is just using the term instances. I mean, I also have a fairly large video library. And so. I'm coming to your place now. Well, in teaching this, I just think students tend to really like the videos. So. and where I taught, then always have the money to purchase videos and if the institution bought them, I would not always have access to them. Some other professor may be used at the same time I want to. So I just started buying my own videos and they became more expensive than textbooks as well or other professional books. So I accumulated the videos that ensued Steve produced and so I've seen that are commercially available. I mean there are many floating around that are not commercially available but whatever the brief family there be Senator Milwaukee put out and also audio recordings. That's a really good audio recording. So I know I've seen in their videos they'd ask the miracle question and then ask are there times when a little bit of this miracle is happening now and that sounds like what you're talking about the brief is Starbeer or instances. So that's not necessarily new. Am I my? And then you follow up with asking detailed questions about that. So tell me about that. When does that happen? How does that happen? What do you do to get that to happen? Yeah look it's just it's making me think that maybe maybe they are very similar or the same and asking about a preferred future helps people access those exceptions or instances in a different way because you say when it when doesn't it happen? It's always there. I don't know what would you like to be happening instead and what difference would that make? Tell me about it's when maybe some of that's happened and now you back in that potentially second order change conversation. Yes. One of the things Gil really interested to hear you take on it relates to what you're saying Jason is that I think a lot of a lot of solution focused questions help to help people to see things from a different perspective or from a creative perspective that they may not be able to identify if you were to ask the question in a way take a relationship question. For example, it's a way of helping people to maybe step aside from what they can naturally think and think about it from a more creative perspective. And I I think that maybe a lot of what we do in solution focused practice if we were to directly ask somebody about what your strengths are. It's a very hard question to answer. But if we ask the question in a really different way then same with the miracle question, we could say what do you want? How do you want things to be? Or we can actually ask a question about so imagine you know imagine miracles happen and you don't know the miracles happen but what would you notice that would show you that it's happened? Does that does that make sense what I'm saying? I think it I think a lot of what we do is asking questions in a way that help people to tap into creativity and a different way of thinking about things. Oh I definitely think so. I like your your emphasizing creativity the creative the creativity that that is a byproduct of having a solution focused conversation asking these questions. I I refer to I feel Miami plug plugging another book I did with Moe this is with Moe Lee. This came out of what you can orient in social work practice fabulous. Yes this came out in in 2011 and in there when we talk about the miracle question we talk about it that asking the miracle question for someone to hand well even all the solution focused questions really but especially the miracle question for someone to answer they have to think and imagine the answer they've created an image or recall a time and so in there we refer to the miracle question as using unguided imagery. I mean a lot of people in in our business are familiar with guided imagery but guided imagery comes from the clinician or the coach. So when you ask the question the clients come up with the image so the question is a catalyst for them to come up with it so they have to stop and think about it and search their memory bank and I think what that does is it starts making some connections that have kind of been dormant and and this is I think where the neuroscience comes in and about I want to put a put a plug in for Eve Lipchick who was a I think the first in slushia focus therapy to bring neuroscience to slushia focus approach and in a couple uh they she wrote what about 20 years ago but um that there's a saying uh it's what's it called uh hebes forebrelation or or hebes hebes principles developing a neuroscientist named hebe H e b b e I think is I spelled and you've probably heard this for neurons that fire together wire together and that's where the creativity comes in because when you ask the solution focus questions and someone has to stop and think about it they're searching and it starts getting those neurons firing and you may have neurons firing together that really had not fired together so it starts the creative process and and talking about this I think about those times and and and we've all had this happen I'm sure um but you you working I mean I'm coming from a behavioral mental healthy aural background outpatient therapy background so you you work with a client and then I've seen this happen in first second third like in the second third very quickly so they come back and you say so what's better since we last met and they start telling you positive changes they made and you ask them wow to to quote isuburg wow that's amazing how did you do that and and they say well I just did what you told me to do now you know you did not tell them to do what they did but they think they did that's but they came up with it on their own and it was something new and creative something they had not son before and the and the beauty of that is they came up with it on their own so I just think I think this approach is just inherently creative yeah definitely I think um something that's fascinated me is I think you know what you're talking about when we have when we have um memories they have to be you know it has to be real estate in our in our brains it's got to be neurons you know we don't really know exactly how it works but I think when we build a rich description of a preferred future we're actually building you know physical real estate in our minds about what that is and that I find that incredible that you know by the way that we ask questions that we're actually creating something physical in our in our brains it's it's amazing absolutely it's real yeah right these neuronal connections these new neuro pathways are real and um and and they're likely to stay you know they're not you know they're not likely to go away anytime soon they can become dormant with lack of use but I think that's that's the again that's the the beauty of the solution focus approach uh we assume clients have the resources in competencies strengths to make the changes so that and then a lot of time they're there they're just and they've been used in a while and connecting it back to to what you were talking about earlier you know that's the thing is if we talk about the problem you know what's what not's not working we're strengthening those connections we're we're you know we're actually building that real estate in our brains bigger yeah absolutely if we if we talk about you know the exceptions what's working how we want our future to be that's the that's the connection that we're building the physical real estate bigger I found it amazing. I know it. It seems almost miraculous sometimes, doesn't it? And that's what I'm thinking, guys, because it's like, Gil, you were talking about common factors and, okay, most therapies are bad as effective as each other. But solution-focused brief therapy can be quicker. Yeah. Now, this is, and we think that change is hard. But have you ever decided to buy a new car? You haven't bought it yet. How many of those cars do you start to see around you? Right? I've got four years when my wife told me each time she said she was pregnant, what did I start to notice in my world? We have twins or wives with prams, you know, or prams pushing around. Maybe on board cars, stickers on cars. Yeah. All of that stuff was always there. But in an instant, it's now a bigger part of my world. And Gil, this is what we were talking about the other night on the family-based solutions chat is that, and Dion, we talked about it with Hayson when she was on the podcast, that as you have these conversations and those pathways, or, as Jenny Clark put it on the podcast, we're reimagining. So that real estate that's already there, we're talking it differently. Yeah, I like that. We go out into our world, and the answers have all been there in some way, shape or form, or at least there's a sense that P.C. We're more likely to notice it, and it affords us a different choice. And that isn't, you know, we're pretty good at describing mind-body stuff, but that's person-world stuff. That's the inter-in-all-pace, I think. You're coming through, maybe, think of something else we're literature-referred to. And doing their background reading for this book, something I came across, and it comes out of the, I think, more of the marketing and advertising literature is called the mere measurement effect. And it's been found, there's a lot of research on this, but one study I came across that stuck with me, that if you, and there's a study, experimental study, that people were randomly asked, randomly assigned. One group was asked this question, but during the next year, how happy? And then next year, do you think you buy a new car? Something like that. Or what are the likelihood you'll buy a new car the next year, or something you think about? The other group, they had a conversation with them, but they were not asked that question. So the group that were asked the question about buying a new car, a year later, a significantly larger proportion of that group bought new cars compared to the comparison group. So just asking these questions, have an impact. And I think that's what you're getting at too, Jason, that you start noticing things in your environment that have been there all along. But you haven't had a reason to pay attention to them. Yep. Fantastic. And Gil, one of the things that when we started this podcast, we were really keen on was giving people something they could go away and try in their practice in their world. What can you teach us something? What could listeners go away and try? Something new and different? Sure. Or something, something not so new and different. Boy, I don't know. I don't know. That I haven't, I can't think of anything else on my head that we haven't talked about already. But there's an article coming out in the journal, the systemic therapies that Michael Durant and Kate Kowalski put together, I think with David Haynes, the tribute to Eve Lip Chick and several people that was fortunate to be invited to make a contribution to it. So there were some like 12 people asked to say something about how Eve has affected, had an impact on their work. And so in doing that, I went back and I read most everything. I was even ever written in public so I could find and get my hands on. Which was a joy, which was a treat. Over the years I'd read her stuff. Sometimes you use some of her publications and classes and things that I'd written and things like that. But one thing I came away from, one of the things she talked about, I mentioned earlier, she's one of the, if not the first to talk about the neuroscience, the impact. The also the importance of the relationship. That's one of the common factors. The therapeutic alliance is the number one contributing factor, regardless of the theoretical approach, the number one contributing factor. So that's something else she and the role of emotions. But there are something else that she, in some of her publications she mentioned, is the importance of going slow and working with clients. And something I learned in my own practice and then I would then share with students when I get into this, talking about brief therapy. One of the things I learned is one of the most effective things you can do, or let's say one of the best things you can do to have effective brief therapy is to go slow at first. And I found that just from my own experience. Because I really, in my career, I would, before I really learned Solution of Focus, is that I feel like it was all mean to make something happen for the client. And the more I did that, the worse things got. So I just kind of learned from experience. Well, let's just slow things down first. And I think slowing things down helps one. Helps the client feel really heard. And slowing down, you're really listening to the client that giving them your undivided attention is very powerful. And I talk about this in class with students, I'd say, when I talk about this, I'd say, how many of us have, let's say, we think therapy, that's once a week. So it's for the 50 minute hour. How many of us in our lives get the undivided attention of a loved one for 50 minutes? What's a week? Well, I don't know. I don't happen in my life, you know, nobody. So when you get the undivided attention of someone who's, you're seeing them there, becomes significant to you, that's very powerful. So it helps strengthen and build that relationship. And they feel really validated, just by listening, you know, they feel really validated. But also, you're taking in information so you can know them a little bit better and not get too enamored with the techniques of the solution focus approach. I love the questions, the tools of the solution focus approach. I think they're unique, I think they're very powerful. But if you don't have, if the clients don't feel listened to and validated, that they matter to you, then it can become counterproductive, I think. And the, again, all the meta-analysis that have identified the common factors have found that the theories and techniques account for less than 1% of the outcome variance of therapy studies. So, the other way of saying that the theories and the techniques account for no more than 1% of the effectiveness of therapy's success. So I spend some time. Yeah, spend some time really listening. Yeah. Don't have to add anything. - I think. - Just listen. I love that because I always have a little thing. - Well, and being curious, really, when you listen and then you ask questions, you know, also know, I said one other thing, and it's kind of a lot of these lines. And it's not pure solution focus. It's impure. I think in terms of listening, it's important to give clients the space to tell their story. And that may include the past, their negative feelings about themselves, venting about other things, you know, expressing negative feelings, that they feel heard. Now, but I'm not a fan of, it's a thing that they tell their story. You give them space to tell their story. And it's through how you respond to their telling stories that the relationship is built, that they feel validated, they feel heard, that you express empathy, curiosity. Because there are clients that they don't want to tell their story again. But you just give them space. I like what we met with Ish and Joe the other day. And I heard I should say this before, she asked clients from the get-go, what do you want to tell me about you and what do you want to know about me? Or I should, what do you want me to know about you and what do you want to know about me? So that's another way opening up, giving them space to tell their story. So good. Yeah, listen with curiosity. And and and being pressed, being pressed, that's what I had a conversation yesterday with a leader on that. Because sometimes we try and drag people to their resource for past if I'm using Hayson's dialogic orientation quadrants or we try and drag them to the future. And they just want to hang out in the troubled past for a little bit longer. Yeah. Well, I think I can't remember where I came across this. I think it was in Suburga who said this, I don't know whether something I read of hers or whatever videos. I think we came from in soup is when you start then in the conversation asking future oriented questions. And the clients don't go there with you. They go back that that's that is just feedback to to the clinician to you or the coach that they're not ready to go there yet. Yeah, they haven't they haven't finished telling their story. And and because a lot of people feel like that is in really important for you to hear their story. Because that's who they are at least at that point in their lives. So just see it is not not as the client being resistant. But just not ready yet to go there. It's it's feedback to you to let's just keep the slow it down here. I'm not ready to go there yet. I think it was Peter layman. It's not excuse it Peter layman. I think he co authored an article about being solution forced. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And so yeah. And it's important not to be solution forced. Yeah. And our work. It goes. Go slow. Love it. I feel like we could talk for probably at least another four or five hours. Yeah. I think so too. We might have to come back for another for another round I think. But for me it's been an incredible conversation. And I think in some ways it's really consolidated a lot of my thinking. So thank you for thank you for sharing because I think for me it's yeah. It's been a really amazing conversation. So really enjoyable. You guys asked some good questions. It's it's it's me some of my neurons fired together here. Maybe I'm a while I'm asleep tonight. I'll come up with some new ideas. I love it. I'd love to connect again and I'd love to hear those ideas. Fantastic. Thanks so much for your time. But um sure. I really enjoyed thank you D.I. Thank you. All right guys. Okay. Take care. All right. Bye. Thank you for joining us on the Toward Solutions podcast. We hope today's insights inspire you to apply solution focused in your own life and projects. Whether you're applying these strategies in your personal life, professional practice or community projects, we're excited to see the impact you create. If you found this episode useful, please leave us a review and share it with others who might benefit from our discussions. Your support really helps us to reach more people and continue to bring you quality content. Stay tuned for more enlightening conversations, subscribe now and let's continue this journey towards solutions together.