Senior Project Blog Post 4

This week, the Heath's focus on Bright Spots continued with a variety of new case studies.  They talk about "solutions-focused therapy" which is a technique far removed from traditional methods.  Instead of "archaeology" and digging for clues about why people act the way they do (ie delving into one's childhood), solution's focused therapy aims only to solve the pronlem at hand.  Understanding a problem doesn't necessary solve it.  Change doesn't require a long and arduous process to reverse a habit.  There are a variety of techniques used to find such solutions.  The first of which is the Miracle Question: "Suppose that you went to bed tonnight and sleep well.  Sometime, in the middle of the night, while you are sleeping, a miracle happens and all the troubles that brought you here are resolved.  When you wake up in the morning, what's the first small sign you'd see that would make you think, 'Well, something must have happened -- the problem is gone." The therapist then prods for specifics and forces the person to identify the first hints of the miracle (not overly grand hints such as a million dollars or a new car).  For example, in a Marital session, a wife or husband might say that a first hint could be their spouse listens to them more which would be clear if the other made more eye contact and nodded in the right places, and responded without atacking or ignoring their ideas.  The specific and vivid signs lead to the Exception Question: "When was the last time you saw a little bit of the miracle, even for just a short time." By asking this question the Therapist aims to show the client that they have actually already solved it in at least some circumstances.  For example, if a Mom is having trouble controlling her children, the therapist can help her focus on the times her kids have listened to her and figure out what she was doing during those specific instances in order to replicate them again.  Like analyzing game film of a sporting event they can work through how they were behaving, whether they were smiling, their tone of voice, etc.  If it worked once it can work again.  An alcoholic is able to see that they stayed sober for a couple hours one day because they went to the library to read the newspaper, so maybe if they do it every day they can beat their addiction.  These bright spots provide direction for change and are far more efficient than trying to find the root of the problem.  This relates to my project because there are many bad coaches out there.  Probably hundreds of thousands.  Instead of going to these coaches and trying to figure out why they are bad coaches (perhaps when they were young they had a bad coach who caused them to adopt bad habits), if they adopt my website's tips and player tracking device, they can immediately improve the quality of their player's development without having to do a major overhaul of their coaching style or technique.