ABSTRACT
Clinicians are often energetic and hopeful persons, and they struggle to connect with patients who are doubtful or even hopeless. Patients are usually responsive to supportive interventions by the clinician including a focus on their strengths. This chapter introduces a brief technique for helping the clinician reflect on the patient’s past successes as a way to reinforce their optimism and motivation for treatment. Rarely, patients who are very negative are struggling with significant psychiatric illness such as depression.
