Solution focused therapy questions for this hour

Noah’s hour is fictional. Solution focused questions are the sentences you say, not a course list. Copy the blank fields. Fill them with the person in front of you. Ask one.

Authored by Dr. James Whitfield, an HCPC-registered counseling psychologist working across NHS and private practice.

Educational content for licensed clinicians. Adapt every question to formulation, culture, developmental stage, risk, and scope of practice. This is not a substitute for supervision, a safety plan, or local clinical policy.

When to use solution focused therapy questions

Solution focused therapy questions do one job in the room: get a sign you could point at, in their words, before you assign anything. If you searched solution focus therapy questions, this is that set. The hyphen does not change the stem.

Question type	Ask it when	Switch away when
Miracle	They can stay with tomorrow morning, not a perfect life	The picture lands as a demand to feel better, or they pass
Scaling	You already have their picture or their words	You are about to treat the number as a symptom score
Exception	You need a recent stretch when the problem was smaller	They say there is no such time
Coping	A future picture would feel false, or no exception is there	You are about to praise them out of a hard week
Relationship	You have a sign, and a named person who would see it	You are about to interview that person from this chair

Pull one row. If the row does not fit, switch once. Do not work down the table because it is printed in that order.

A published group protocol names several of these moves. It does not give you Noah’s wording. Kulbaş and Fakirullahoğlu, BMC Psychology, 2025 say the basic techniques of the approach include “the pre-session change technique, the formulation of the first session, the miracle question, rating questions, exceptional cases, coping questions and the crystal ball technique.” The abstract on that paper says the sessions used “the miracle question to highlight participants’ strengths and goals, scaling questions to monitor progress, and identifying exceptions to identify functional behavioral patterns.” That study was six group sessions. Nine mothers were in the experimental arm. It is not a script for an individual hour, and it does not define a relationship question. Ask a relationship question in original session language: what a named person would see, not what they would feel.

The same paper’s exception session aim is “Gaining awareness of times when there is no problem.” That is the job of the exception row. A short window counts. Tuesday’s fifteen minutes counts. A whole better life does not. Shrink it to one stretch, then stop mining if they say there is no such time.

Pick one question, then stop

The failure mode is volume. Five good questions in one hour teach the client that the point is to perform insight. Solution focused therapy questions work when you hold one of them long enough for a second sentence.

Say the pass line before a future picture. “You can pass on this. If you pass, we stay with this week.” If they pass, you stay. Do not rephrase the miracle question until they give in. A pass is information about fit, not resistance.

If they answer with a feeling word, do not accept it as the sign. “I would be happier” is not a camera shot. Ask what a camera would catch in the first ten minutes, once. If the second answer is still a feeling, switch to coping. Do not keep digging for a prettier morning.

Scaling comes after you have their words for both ends. Noah’s 10 was “kettle before the laptop,” not “functioning well.” His 0 was “opening email in bed,” not “rock bottom.” Ask what keeps the number from being lower before you ask what would raise it. Then ask for one point, in something you could see. A jump of three points is a lecture wearing a number.

Do not argue with the number. Do not enter it next to a PHQ-9 or a GAD-7 as if it were the same object. Those instruments have their own items and their own scoring rules. This number is a handle for the conversation you just had.

Miracle, scaling, exception, coping

Use the miracle row when they can tolerate tomorrow morning as a thought experiment, not as homework. Get permission. The first sign should be ordinary and small. Noah’s kettle is usable because you could see it. “I would feel calm” is not. The longer walk through one future-difference question, including how to set it up when the first wording stalls, sits on the miracle question page. Keep miracle as one of five here. Do not turn this hour into a seminar on that one stem.

Use scaling only after the picture or the phrase exists. If you ask for a number before you know what 10 means in their mouth, you get a mood rating. Write both anchors in their words in the note line, or the number will not mean anything next week.

Use exception-finding when you need a recent time the problem was smaller, later, or handled differently. Ask whether they did it on purpose or noticed it after. Noah noticed after. That is still an exception. Do not upgrade it into proof he should have planned it. If they cannot find a window, say so in the note and switch to coping. “None found: switched to coping” is a complete line. Insisting is not.

Use coping when the week is too hard for a future picture, or when the exception search came up empty. The question respects what they have kept doing. It is not a compliment. Do not say they are resilient, strong, or brave. Do not ask why they are not worse, as if survival were a puzzle. Noah’s limit, “do not turn that into a project,” belongs in the note. Protect the dog walk. Do not add a morning routine on top of it.

Compliments and a between-session observation task are real moves, and they are not these five questions. A compliment needs evidence from this hour, offered as a guess they can correct. A task, if you assign one, is to notice, not to perform the better morning. Both sit on the solution-focused therapy techniques page. Do not staple them onto a question that already landed.

Relationship questions ask what someone would see

A relationship question is not a couples session and not a collateral call. You ask who else would notice, and what that person would see you doing. You do not ask what they would feel. You do not phone them. You do not put their guess in the note as fact.

Noah named his partner and a closed bag. He also named the limit: do not ask him. Write the limit. “Other person was not interviewed” is the point of the line, not a courtesy.

If they cannot name a person, do not supply one. A coworker you invent is your hypothesis, not their observation. Skip the row. Stay with the sign they already gave.

If the named person is someone who should not see the work, say that out loud before you write the line. A partner who monitors the phone is not a useful observer for a note that might be read at home. You can still ask what a camera would catch. You do not have to name the partner to have a sign.

What to write in the note

One sentence. Their words. The type you asked. The sign or the number. What you did not assign.

A usable line looks like Noah’s scaling line: the number, the anchors, what held it off the floor, and the one-point picture. An unusable line looks like “used SFBT questions, client engaged, will continue.” That sentence could sit on any chart. It will not help you next week, and it will not tell a colleague what was actually asked.

Do not paste the miracle picture into the goal field. The picture was a question, not a contract. If you want a goal, that is a different conversation, and it belongs on a plan you build with them, not on a morning they were invited to imagine.

Paste that one sentence into the chart. The session note workflow is built for that paste, not for a transcript of the picture.

When the job changes

For prompts across opening, processing, and close, use the therapy questions guide. That library is how you choose a question form. Solution focused therapy questions are one family inside it, not a replacement for the rest of the hour.

SFBT questions in the sense of a training path are a different job. Hours, live or self-paced format, whether anyone watches you practice, the certificate name, and the price on the provider page are compared on solution focused therapy training. A certificate does not put the wording in your mouth. The filled rows do.

If you only needed the future-difference question, use the miracle question page after you have used the row once. If you needed the compliment or the observation task, use solution-focused therapy techniques. Return to the five rows when the next hour needs a question you can say, not a menu.

Download the question cards

You already have the five filled rows and the blank fields. Those solution focused therapy questions are enough for the hour. The desk cards add a chooser page, a compliment, and a between-session observation task, each with a one-line note stem. Print one. Ask one question. Write their words. Copy the stem. Do not run the file as a script, and do not send it home as homework unless the hour produced one sign worth noticing.

References

• Kulbaş, E., & Fakirullahoğlu, A. M. M. (2025). The effect of solution-focused group counseling on rumination and life satisfaction. BMC Psychology, 13(1), Article 1393. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-025-03749-y