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In therapeutic conversations, questions can be considered as interventions in their own right. This study is a cross-cultural replication of Grant (Journal of Systemic Therapies, 2012, 31, 2, 21) study on the effects of different types of questions on various clinically relevant variables. A total of 204 students of a Spanish university described a real-life problem that they wanted to solve and were then randomly assigned to either a solution-focused or a problem-focused questions condition. Before and after answering the questions, they completed a set of measures that assessed positive and negative affect, self-efficacy, and goal attainment. Solution-focused questions produced a significantly greater increase in self-efficacy, goal approach, and action steps than problem-focused questions, and a significantly greater decrease in negative affect, providing further empirical support to solution-focused practices., (© 2015 American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy.)

Solution-focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) has generated outcome research worldwide and in a variety of intervention contexts. A systematic literature search yielded 251 published outcome studies on SFBT. SFBT was found superior to control groups or at post-test in almost nine out of every ten studies. Taking only 91 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) into account, SFBT was still found superior in seven out of every ten. Results varied slightly according to intervention type and format, manualization, and components of SFBT. They also varied more according to type of comparator and use of diagnostic criteria. These results widen the evidence base for SFBT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relational Communication of sixteen dropout versus sixteen continuation sessions of solution-focused therapy was studied using two different coding schemes. On the Topic Initiation/Topic Following coding scheme (Tracey, 1986) no differences were found between dropout and continuation sessions, whereas the Family-Relational Communication Control Coding Scheme (Heatherington and Friedlander, 1987) yielded a number of significant findings. Both in ‘successful’ and in ‘unsuccessful’ dropout sessions, therapeutic interaction was found to be more conflictive than in continuation cases, with clients showing more domineering behaviour in dropout than in continuation sessions. Markovian and lag sequential analysis are used to clarify some of these findings, and their implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]