“In between: how I Solution Focused my way out of cancer”
by Brigitte Lavoie, Canada.
I have been a psychologist and SF trainer for years and I have used SF practices in many different contexts. And then I was diagnosed with cancer. Being on sick leave for one year means living “in between”. Family, friends and colleagues continue with their lives, and you try to embody SF as you spend a lot of time in hospital waiting rooms, waiting.
After my initial reaction, I decided to be intentional in applying what I know about SF to my own life. SF practices cannot cure cancer, but they certainly helped me have more good days than bad days while fighting it. Thanks to SF practices, cancer didn’t take over my whole life. I laughed a lot, and I felt connected to important things in my life.
In this workshop, I hope to share some insights gained from this experience, particularly how an “in between” position between knowing and not-knowing can help us with clients facing adversity (or our own adversity). If knowing about SF helps us in our personal lives, should we keep these ideas to ourselves? If we share them with clients, does that mean we are abandoning the not-knowing stance? Or can we say that a little bit of SF knowledge can be useful sometimes?
Objectives: - Learn to avoid well-meaning problem-focused conversations - Learn to use SF techniques to help clients have a good/meaningful life as they face adversity - Learn to use an “in-between” stance, with a bit of knowing while still managing to stay SF.
Brigitte Lavoie
Brigitte Lavoie has been a psychologist for more than 30 years. She has always been passionate about promoting solution-focused practices in a problem-saturated world. She has made a significant contribution to the implementation of SF practices in the province of Quebec (Canada), particularly in the field of suicide prevention, grieving and the creation of training programs in mental health agencies, hospitals and community organizations. She wrote a book to reach out to more traditional men, a SF DIY (“do-it-yourself”) manual. Lavoie has presented at conferences in North America and in Europe. In 2019, she was the chair of the SFBTA Annual Conference and received the Insoo Kim Berg in memoriam prize in recognition of her contribution to the field.
