Skip to main content

Quickfix Solutions




The tagline of Quickfix adhesive in the 1970s was “Joins everything except broken hearts”.  At about the same time, a therapeutic process known as Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) was gaining ground in psychology. It sought to help people arrive at quick solutions to psychological problems since everyone was too busy to go digging into the past and thus arrive at radical solutions. 

The advocates of SFBT argue that it is not necessary to know the cause of a problem to solve it and that there is no necessary relationship between the causes of problems and their solutions.  The problem is not what matters, but the solution.  Searching for the “right” solution is as futile as seeking to know and understand the problem.  What is important is to know your goals, what you want to accomplish, rather than diagnosis of the problem and its history.

The fundamental assumption of SFBT is that people are healthy and competent and have the ability to construct solutions that can enhance their lives.  Each one of us has the ability to resolve the challenges that life inevitably throws on our path.  But at times we lose our sense of direction or awareness of our competencies.  We become negative in our orientation as we focus on the problem more and more. 

What if we started focusing on solutions?  On the goals that we wish to achieve?  This is exactly what SFBT tries to accomplish.  It asks us to focus on what is working in our life.  Nine things out of ten may not be working.  Catch the tenth one that is working.  It is important to concentrate on small, realistic, achievable things.  Such things lead to big changes eventually.  Success tends to build upon itself.  Modest goals are the thresholds of great changes. 

SFBT suggests the following simple strategies while dealing with your problem(s).

1.     State your goals positively in your own words.
2.     Define your goals clearly.  Make sure they are action-oriented.  No abstract, sublime goals, please.
3.     The goals should be structured in the here and now.  Don’t make five-year plans.
4.     The goals should be attainable, concrete and specific.

Here are some strategies that may help in focusing on solutions rather than problems.

1.     Look at exceptions: You had expected the problem to occur but somehow it did not.  What was different?  Can that difference lead you to a solution?  At any rate, the exceptions remind you that problems are not all-powerful.  You’ve beaten them sometimes at least.
2.     Ask the Miracle Question: “If a miracle happened and the problem was solved overnight, how would you know it was solved, and what would be different?”  If you can visualise what would be different, you can also work towards it.  In fact, viewing the problem from the solution-angle is already halfway to the solution.
SFBT may not work in the case of broken hearts with deep wounds.  But it can work miracles with most problems of day-to-day life. 

  
Top post on IndiBlogger.in, the community of Indian Bloggers


Comments

  1. Replies
    1. You don't sound very convinced, Aparna. Quickfix solutions have their disadvantages, no doubt. But the advantages outweigh them.

      Delete
  2. I don't have time to sit and eat a breakfast slowly and peacefully and so i agree that What happened in the past or the route of the problem is not that vital, the solution is. Every thing has the other side or another dimension but focusing on the solution seems more logical and practical.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, Athena, quite a lot of problems can be solved that way. Of course, there are problems which need more radical solutions. My next story, The Devil, is going to be about one such problem.

      Delete
  3. I am realistic..I believe in miracles..:)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wonderful! I love that comment, Preethi, and thanks a tonne for it.

      Delete
  4. For me genesis of the problem too is important-it points to the remedial measures which should be taken.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It depends on the problem as well as the individual who is facing the problem, Indu.

      Most of the times, going back to history only gives more money to the counsellor.

      Delete
  5. I believe in miracles and I love them... two thumbs ups ^_^

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Miracles happen everyday, Namrota. Good you believe in them because what you believe is what will happen to you eventually.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why I won’t vote

From Deshabhimani , Malayalam weekly Exactly a month from today is the Parliamentary election in my state of Kerala. This time, I’m not going to vote. Bernard Shaw defined democracy , with his characteristic cynicism, as “ a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve .” We elect our government in a democracy. And the government invariably sucks our blood – whichever the party is. The BJP and the Congress are like Tweedledum and Tweedledee though the former makes all sorts of other claims day in and day out. BJP = Congress + the holy cow. The holy cow has turned out to be quite a vampire and that makes a difference, no doubt. In our Prime Minister’s algebra, it is: (a+b) 2 which should be equal to a 2 and b 2 . There is an extra 2ab which is the holy cow. In George Orwell’s Animal Farm , the animals revolt against the human master and set up their own nationalist republic. Soon politics develops in the republic and some pigs become leaders. The porcine

Prelude to AtoZ

  From Garden of 5 Senses, Delhi [file pic] Hindsight gives an unearthly charm and order to the past. There can be pain too. A lot of things could have been different, much better, if only we possessed the wisdom of our old age back in those days. As a writer put it, Oedipus, Hamlet, Lear and a lot of those guys must have thought, “I wish I had known this some time ago.” Life is a series of errors with intermittent achievements. The only usefulness of the errors may be the lessons they teach us. Probably, that is their purpose too. We are created to err so that we learn, I dare to put it that way. I turn 64 in a month’s time. It’s not inappropriate to look back at some of the people whom life brought into my life so that I would learn certain lessons. No, I don’t mean to say that life has any such purpose or design or anything. Life is absurd. People come into your life as haphazardly as vehicles ply on your road or birds poop on your head. Some of these people change the chemist

How Arvind Kejriwal can save himself

Narendra Modi and Amit Shah have a clear vision. Eliminate all opposition. Decimate them or absorb them. My previous post [link below] showed a few people decimated by them. Today let’s look at the others: those who are saved by joining the Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP]. 1. Himanta Biswa Sarma  This guy was in Congress and faced serious charges related to the multi-crore Saradha chit fund scam. He also faced corruption charges related to drinking water supply in Guwahati. His house was raided by the Central Bureau of Investigation [CBI]. Then he switched over to BJP and all his crimes just vanished. It’s as simple as taking a dip in the Ganga and all your sins are forgiven. Today he is the chief minister of Assam. Nothing is heard of all the charges that were levelled against him. 2. Amarinder Singh  This former Captain in the Indian Army was a Congressman until Modi’s Enforcement Directorate [ED] started raiding him, his son and his son-in-law. He put an end to all those raid

The Good Old World

Book Review Title: Dukhi Dadiba and irony of fate Author: Dadi Edulji Taraporewala Translators: Aban Mukherji and Tulsi Vatsal Publisher: Ratna Books, Delhi, 2023 Pages: 314 If you want to return to the good old days of the late 19 th century, this is an ideal novel for you. This was published originally in Gujarati in 1913. It appeared as a serial before that from 1898 onwards in a periodical. The conflict between good and evil is the dominant motif though there is romance, betrayal, disappointment, regret, and pretty much of traditional morality. Reading this novel is quite like watching an old Bollywood movie, 1960s style. Ardeshir Bahadurshah, a wealthy Parsi aristocrat in Surat, dies having obligated his son Jehangir to find out his long-lost brother Rustom. Rustom was Bahadurshah’s son in his first marriage. The mother died when the boy was too small and the nurse who looked after the child vanished with it one day. Ratanmai, Bahadurshah’s present wife, takes her

The Blindness of Superficiality

An Essay on Anees Salim’s novel The Blind Lady’s Descendants Superficiality is a deadly human vice though most people seldom realise it. It is easy to live on the surface of everything from one’s profession to religion. Anees Salim’s novel, The Blind Lady’s Descendants , tells us a story of superficiality as lived by quite many people. Amar, the protagonist of the novel, is 26 when he thinks that life is not worth living. He became an atheist at the age of 13. He had become a half-Muslim at the age of 5 when his little penis was circumcised partly since he ran away in pain during the process. Amar’s atheism, however, is as superficial as most believers’ religion is. What initiated little Amar to atheism is “Dr Ibrahim’s farting fit.” Islamic prayer has to follow many a rule. “If you break wind during namaaz, you break a big rule, and you are to discontinue the prayer then and there, with no second thoughts.” Little Amar was unable to control his giggles as Dr Ibrahim struggled to