Solution Focused Therapy Essay

As an elementary school counselor some of the approaches I would use include solution-focused therapy and play therapy. However, I would also use other strategies or theories in order to fit the needs of the student or situation. Solution-focused therapy can be very beneficial for a school counselor because it provides supportive services to students in a short amount of time (Dollarhide & Saginak, 2012). School counselors often have more than the recommended student to counselor ratio and have many tasks put on them that make it difficult to provide the students with the needed amount of direct services (American School Counselor Association, 2012). Therefore, solution-focused therapy is useful because it can provide brief counseling that …show more content…
For instance, if a child got into an argument at recess because they were not able to share a ball, the counselor could focus on when there were other times that they were able to share and then help the child to brainstorm goals by using the miracle question, which asks the child if they magically woke up tomorrow and their problem were solved, what would that look like (Henderson & Thompson, 2011). This can help the student to focus on the future without the problem and can be used to determine the student’s wants, thereby, helping to identify goals (Henderson & Thompson, 2011). Additionally, breaking up the goal into smaller steps can support positive change because the steps are more measurable and the student gets a sense of accomplishment (Henderson & Thompson, 2011). This would also be very developmentally appropriate for elementary students because it would give them a more immediate sense of accomplishment that would make them more focused to continue onto the next step. Another approach that I would use would be play therapy because it is developmentally appropriate for elementary age