At the core of a Solution-Focused approach is the notion that EVERY problem has an 'achilles heel' .

When trailblazer clinician Milton Erikson was faced with a man who refused , despite all interventions , to be dissuaded from the belief that he was Jesus Christ - Dr Erikson found him work as a carpenter ! For more information on Solution Focused interventions see www.brief-therapy-uk.com . (Any requests for training or interventions can be made through Eileen Murphy at this website .)

When we first realise our child is autistic our world gets turned upside down . We inhabit a confusing and frightening place . The future takes on a nightmarish quality as we envisage how different our life will be and how difficult it will be for our child. The natural response is to seek out an 'expert' who can make things better . What dawns on most people as the years go by is that this external 'expert' on our child doesn't exist . Nobody has that 'silver bullet' . Often the more we chase salvation via the health and education systems the more frustrating it is. Far from making life better - engaging with these systems makes our perception of the problem worse because (a) they highlight our child's weaknesses (b) our expectations of what they can do for us can be much higher than their inclination/ability to deliver . 

 A Solution Focused approach places far more emphasis on the internal resources of the client . - in this case the child and the parent(s) . These key resources are insufficiently respected or nurtured in our specialised 'expert-led' world.

The first thing we need to do to unlock this huge resource is to join our children 'outside the box' . We have a novel situation . It requires novel thinking . Remaining hidebound by convention is not an option . Deference to institutional and societal requirements needs to go so that eg 'School' becomes a resource we may or may not use to help educate our children not an inflexible institution with rules we must comply with . The only thing that matters is a good outcome for our child . An ultimate objective may be that by the age of 25 we want them to be 'mentally healthy personal navigators'. If this is our objective - anything that impinges on this outcome needs to be given short shrift . We need to carve out a path that suits our children . Other people's aspirations for their children need not be ours .

For all their difficulties , our children's neurological endowment often gives them a great capacity to focus intently on chosen topics . With a conventional head on this can be viewed as merely eccentric or even a nuisance From a solution-focused perpspective however, this splinter skill may be 'the achilles heel' of the problem , the crowbar we use to release innate potential . We can also use it to springboard self-esteem that can plummet to dangerously low levels - especially in adolescence .

If we expend all our resources chasing other people's resources we may just end up unhappy and frustrated. It may be that we sometimes choose to fight 'the system' rather than the condition because the former represents a more tangible target. But burning ourselves out  fighting 'the system' does nobody anygood. Not to say that we wave the white flag in getting the best support for our child that we can , but just to realise that the real answer may lie closer to home.