1. Defining and Describing Problems and Preferences
Chapter 7
Defining and Describing Problems and Preferences
By: Noah M.P. Spector and Shaofan Bu

2. Getting Inside the Story
Without the client’s subjective experience, we have a recounting of “facts” alone
What sorts of questions help gain an insider's view of the client’s experience?
Instructions: Ask students to suggest questions which promote an “inside view” of the client’s experience. Invite students to draw from the book.

3. Problem definitions
How counselor and client come to an agreement about the purpose of their conversation.
In order for us to help, we to need to define the concern or problem
Defining concerns leads us into task-oriented territory and forms the basis for constructive collaboration.

4. Temperature Reading
Does the client feel good, bad or indifferent towards an experience/ intervention?

5. Temperature Reading
More than dry facts, a sense of the client's perspective on the experience. How do they see it?
Without this the counselor and the client can be on divergent tracts.

6. Naming rights
Prioritizing client’s account of what is problematic for them and what they would like.
Allow the client to name and define their experiences
When we don’t hear client’s goals, we tend to impose our goals on them.

7. Shifting definitions of a problem
Even a seemingly straight forward complaint is complex, it has the potential to expand to a variety of discussions.
Counseling conversations are non-static, flowing from moment to moment.
Meanings of the problem change as we co-construct meaning
Client and Counselor can come to see concerns in new light

8. Externalizing Problems

9. Problem as Identity X

10. Problems obscure other accounts about people “every story a form of censorship” Problem as IdentityX
Actions taken,
Skills and abilities,
Hopes,
Purposes
Intentions, Values

11. Separating person and problem through how we talk
Anxiety
ADHD
Stress
Restlessness
Anger
Etcetera…. X

12. Collaboratively Naming Problems
When possible, better that the name for a problem is in client’s words (for the usual reasons….!)
Personifying problem can help:
When X sneaks up on you…
When Y whispers in your ear…

13. Relative influence: Once you have shared language, you can talk about:
1. the problem’s impact on the client, and
2. the client’s impact on the problem—promoting sense of agency.

14. Separating person and problem First, learn about the problem:
How is Distraction affecting your learning?
What is Stress taking away from you?
If the Discouragement had a voice, what would it be saying
to you?
What does Procrastination get you doing instead? ETC. X 

15. Second, expand the descriptions of exceptions:
How have you managed to reduce the Distraction?
What do you do that helps to shrink the Stress?
What responses to Discouragement's message have you
come up with?
How have you managed to sabotage the Procrastination?
ETC. X 

16. Problems and preferences: Two-sides of the same coin
“helpful change is not merely the extinction of unwanted experience: it involves replacing problems with something different, something more in line with client preferences” p 217
Preference is the flipside of problem

17. Client preferences as a compass for the journey
“An account of problems indicates where clients don’t want to travel, while an account of preferences points to where they do want to venture.”
Client’s preference indicates the direction of therapy.

18. Invoking preferences through questions
Descriptions of the problem hint at preferences. Preferences can be implicit and may not be well-developed.
Use questions that draw preferences into the foreground. Try to discover an alternative to the problem experience.
E.g. Do you have any images of where you’d like to be when this issue is behind you?

19. Describing preferred outcomes
“When clients struggle to name what a preferred state of affairs might look like, questions tapping into their imagination can help them”
If they were to look into a crystal ball how would they like to see their lives?
“Letter from the future”
The goal is to develop a rich description of a preferred outcome