Hello, I'm Dr. Linda Metcalf speaking to you today from Fort Worth, Texas, USA, about Fearless Mindset, about the solution-oriented narrative therapy approach that is very suitable for working with children and adolescents who have a fear problem. 

This focused approach stems from a belief that when clients find themselves in a context where they can identify their strengths, abilities, and exceptions, they can build a better future where all their hopes are allowed.

In the case of fear, solution-focused therapy often focuses on contexts in which the client was able to face his fear, or was able to manage it better. When a child or teenager comes to talk to you about their fear, this is what they feel when they are facing you, without realizing that they have done so when they were in your desk with both feet flat on the floor talking to you, which means he has the means to cope. In solution-focused therapy, the therapist might want to ask questions about how the patient has dealt with this fear so far: “How did you know you had to come talk to me today? Did you? - It's incredible ; I am impressed !"

The narrative approach to therapy focuses on the perception a person has of themselves, which can result from many things, including the talk that looms large in their life. The discourse may emerge from family relationships or other contexts creating a problematic story. The person lives their life based on the speech or this problematic story. In the case of fear, the narrative therapist can help the client map their fear, deconstruct the client's current self-description as a person who is afraid, and perhaps help them develop a plan to alleviate that fear. fear and, in our case today, begin to develop a calmer state of mind. The ideas in this presentation are based on a book I wrote in 2017: “Solution-Focused Narrative Therapy”. And as a solution-focused narrative therapist, I've suggested in this book that there are three different paths to follow based on the stories clients have presented to me over my years in therapy, entering into their worldview which is a solution-oriented construct.  

First, I find a way to cooperate by looking at where they are in the description of their problem, which is also a construct of narrative therapy. I try to explore with them, by their side (never by imposing on me) what they do best to have a bright future, and with their help, and once they have started to tell me, to what that would look like. But sometimes it takes a little longer to get them to say something other than what their highest hopes sound like. To do that for some clients who are very fearful, who have been traumatized, who are very depressed or anxious, it's almost disrespectful in a way. So I like to give them a small chance to tell me a bit about their problem, not a lot, but enough so that I can see and understand the discourse that surrounds them and keeps the problematic story going. I take this first path with customers who seem to be overwhelmed by a problem such as fear. I will start by mapping the influence of fear on the problem to get an idea of ​​the impact of the problem. Then I'll show you the questions I tend to ask. I could say, "-tell me how we could talk about this issue trying to take over your life" and I would expect them to give me some ideas. Sometimes they dodge this question, which is an important question because it gives both of us a chance to access a language that seems to correspond to what the client is experiencing. For young people and children I even use pencils and paper, and ask them to draw a picture of what the problem looks like. Then I ask them to explain to me how it happened and for example to talk about "the monster of fear that prevented you from living your life as you wanted".

What's the next step? Mapping the effects of the problem that Michael White suggested in his work: when I do that, I start making a list, I'm going to call that list list number one, I'm going to write down all the answers they give me.

How are other things stolen from you, how is the interference done? We often see a dozen things emerge. The more evidence you get on 'how something impacted their life', the more likely you are to build something against the issue. I called it "building a case against the problem".  

I will continue then with "what do you think of what the fear of the monster arouses in terms of feelings, thoughts, beliefs?" "And what are other people saying about how this monster of fear has taken a toll on your life. What are the teachers saying, what are your parents saying? What are your best friends saying?" What else about this monster? By the end of this conversation you should have quite a list and you will notice that they continue to respond and they keep talking deeper and deeper, almost emotionally. At the end of this first part, I rate the impact on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 meaning that the monster of fear has completely taken over. You are number one in your life and you are responsible for it. Where is he now? For young children I like to use my hands "if the fear monster is thick like that taking into account that it makes things difficult and that means that you are no longer responsible for your life, it that is to say that it is he who takes charge of everything and thinks for you and that this thickness means that you are more responsible, that things are better, and that then you will come and tell me that you you feel good and that things are going well”. This is another way of working with young children.  

Stay curious and ask the client to think about overcoming the fear monster and suggest, with his permission, how he will feel afterwards, and what might help him. I also ask him, with his permission, and check, "What would you do if you defeated your monster, how could that be helpful?" I also ask him if he's okay with talking about fearlessness. What will you be able to do differently once fearlessness takes over from fear? and what else....? It's an opportunity for them to dream, it's the beginning of building a privileged future. And then what else? What else do you see yourself doing? We really want a full description, so a long list is very helpful. You will be surprised that he can pause for a while, and if he doesn't know what to answer, give him some time and he will continue giving you answers: Write them down!

We then come to the miracle question: "Suppose tomorrow you wake up and the fear monster has become much smaller overnight, tell me what you could do when the fear monster is not so big anymore. when you get up and during the day? What else would you do? What would others do when they saw you doing and what would you say to them? "Your monster has shrunk in size and it continues to shrink and it is going back to how you used to be, tell me about times when you did certain things just a little bit”. We can then reinforce their abilities by talking about the exceptions: “Tell me about what you did with those things just a little, when your monster was near and even when it was there, very present, you have it when same fact? » Ask him to write them down, the ideal is to obtain 10 to 15 different answers. You will be surprised, keep asking questions. For example, what would your friends say about what you did? What would your parents say? Your coach said you did it, your cat said you did it, and you get all kinds of responses that you list.  

Then I found it very helpful to re-read both lists and especially the first one, I slow down, I go really really really slow, pausing between each response, at the point where the monster impact starts, and then I read what they said, when they were able to do things, the things they planned to do in the future, when courage will take over from the fear of the monster. At the end of the conversation I say something as simple as: "I hope to see you again soon and learn what you have decided to do from these two lists: It will be really exciting for me to see what you decide to do. or “I can't wait to see you again”. Afterwards, I let my clients tell me when they want to come back. I will then make a copy of each list and give it to the young person to take away. with him.  

I want to end this interview by talking briefly about a case that I included in my book on solution-oriented narrative therapy. It's about a young woman named Olive, the day her mother brought her to therapy, she sat down and said "my daughter says she has a monster in her head" and when the mother started crying i imagined she was very concerned about her daughter who she thought was troubled with something terrible like a mental disorder from the things she had been doing since she was 10 years: she went every morning and every evening to each door of the house that she opened and waved her hand before closing it twice, she did not drink from a water fountain at school before from staring at the ceiling three times she combed her hair 15 times each morning and brushed her teeth five times a day she was relentless in her need to do all of these activities and much more and when I spoke with her , she told me that she was afraid that it would not be perfect. “I'm not going to be able to do things right and I'm afraid of failing in one of these tasks”. When I asked her how these actions helped her, she said she had a monster in her head and she couldn't say how it happened. She even said it kept her from watching her favorite show, "Mermaid Power." They are mermaids with superpowers. I listened to Olive for a while, and learned that there were times when the monster was no longer in her head, with examples in several common situations and currently there are none. wasn't as much as a few years ago.  

It was encouraging and so I wrote all these things down on my second list and then asked her a question: "suppose I sprinkled pixie dust on your house tonight and when you wake up tomorrow , the monster will no longer be there, what will happen the first time you wake up, who will tell you that it is better, what will be the improvements?" and she described them in detail: she would be a very enthusiastic young woman, she would do a lot of crafts, more often, and would watch her favorite superhero in the "superheroes" series! She would go to a mermaid show, go for a drink with a few friends, drink from the school fountain without looking at the ceiling three times and read an entire chapter of a book without stopping and not do this thing with the hand that is to lock and unlock the doors because she was so scared that the locks in the house wouldn't work the way she did it made me think that she was a young person really live!

So I asked her if she could jot down her thoughts on the paper as she started drawing on the theme of what she will do one day when she has no more monsters in her head. While she was busy drawing, I also told her that I would be curious to see this series of superheroes. I asked her what she liked about it hoping to find other things to use in our conversation, and learned that the mermaids on the show have superpowers. I wondered aloud if she too could claim to have superpowers like mermaids and she smiled, laughed, and looked at her mother so she was able, that day, to tell me much more about this what she was doing to keep the monster out of her head. It was fascinating to hear her suddenly talk about what was going on at school, she even said that at times it also happened at home, she was playing with her brother and the monster appeared less , while she also drew . This is what the drawing looks like, she told me that the monster defends the power and that is what she appreciates. This is proof that in some cases, she did not want to repeat what she heard in the shows. She tended to do a lot of these things in a way that sounded like obsessive compulsive disorder but not once did I allude to that and instead we talked about the monster in her head. This is another reason why I like to work this way, it helps to avoid misdiagnosis. Not making long sentences, talking more about the things that are happening in her life that are good for her, these were all ideas that emerged to help her defend herself and made the monster go away.

The therapy lasted 3 sessions and one day I asked her if she wanted to do a certificate. She liked the idea. So I brought the certificate with the intention of putting only a thing or two that she had to do to successfully drive the monster out of her head, but she found so many different things that I wrote them all down , so we wrote together everything that Olive had managed to do to reduce the monster in her head. And she accomplished this task: refusing to close doors, brushing her hair only five times, reading books and making many other great changes. She has developed superpowers to drive the monster out of her head, so she can have much more fun doing graphic activities, playing with her friends, and watching her superhero show! I made a copy of the certificate and kept it. She kept the original and her mom told me later in an email that she was doing very well, and that she continued to add things to the certificate.  

To complete this presentation of solution-oriented narrative therapy, I would say that the therapy can combine the best of postmodern therapies and that each takes place under the same mindset, which is that clients are resourceful and confident that the solution is targeted. The narrative therapy model also allows the therapist to use the action-oriented side and finding solutions in stages and that the narrative therapy model is also very suitable in problems such as fear. We are together, the therapist has a way of involving clients to identify their values, their beliefs, but also to look for exceptions and skills that can annihilate their fear. This is the end of my presentation and if you have any questions I look forward to them in our discussion, I will give you my contact details. There's the book I wrote in 2017 that I'm very proud of because it uses the solution-focused narrative therapy model even though I didn't know it at the time. I kept telling myself that I was a solution-focused therapist who used narrative therapy but I can see now what the spirit was. Thank you very much.