ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with some of the general implications of brief therapy for clients and public issues. Ecosystemic and solution-focused brief therapy discourses provide therapists and clients with differing practical concerns and vocabularies for constructing social realities. While solution-focused brief therapists sometimes ask questions that are similar to those asked by ecosystemic brief therapists, they are not the same questions. Within solution-focused brief therapy discourse then, all questions are constructive. Solution-focused brief therapists use a variety of opening moves in their interactions with clients. Solution-focused therapists frequently follow their opening interactional exchanges with clients by asking scaling questions. The therapist used this question to move the interaction toward the specification of one or more goals on which he and the client might work. Solution-focused brief therapists assume that exceptions to clients' troubles are always present in their lives. Solution-focused brief therapy teams are little concerned with assessing clients' social systems.
