Transcript Solution-Focused Counseling for Eating Disorders

Copyright 2012 by Jeffrey T. Guterman and Clayton V. Martin
Identify and review
the main principles
of solution-focused
counseling
Identify and review
solution-focused
conceptualizations
for eating
disorders
Identify and review
advanced
counseling
techniques for
eating disorders
Identify and review
multicultural
considerations
when using
solution-focused
counseling for
clients with eating
disorders
Coconstrcuting
Problems and Goals
Identifying and
Amplifying
Exceptions
Assigning Tasks
Identifying and
Amplifying
Exceptions Derived
From Tasks
Reevaluating
Problems and Goals
21-year-old single European
American white female
referred by physician.
Recently hospitalized for severe
weight loss, fatigue, and
physical weakness.
Current episode occasioned by
breaking up with fiancé
immediately after discovering
he was cheating on her.
After break-up, client could not
make herself eat, even when
she was hungry. She often
experienced high levels of
anxiety when eating or upon
thinking about eating.
A solution-focused approach requires that the
counselor begins working with the expectation
that clients inherently possess the strengths and
the skill sets necessary to identify exceptions to
solve their problems, even if they don’t realize
this fact at first. In keeping with this principle,
we believe that each of you already has what it
takes to apply this approach to your work with
clients. So, think about a time in your work as a
counselor when you were particularly effective
at helping a client with an eating disorder to
identify and build upon their own exceptions
and thereby develop a solution. Feel free to
share your answers to the questions below with
the group. You can write you answer on the
handout if you like.
● What did you do to help the client identify
and build on exceptions?
● What skills did you use?
How did you act differently in this case as
compared to other cases?
 What was different in this counseling
relationship?