Books / Systemic & family
Keys to Solution in Brief Therapy
Written at the Brief Family Therapy Center (BFTC) in Milwaukee, Steve de Shazer’s Keys to Solution in Brief Therapy (1985) marks the pivotal transition from MRI problem-focused brief therapy to Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT), arguing that solutions do not need to match the complexity or history of the complaint, that "resistance" is obsolete when therapists cooperate with client patterns, and that standardized "skeleton key" interventions (such as the Formula First Session Task) can unlock a wide array of problems.
Book details
Author of listed edition: Steve de Shazer
Edition: 1st edition (1985)
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Edition year: 1985
Language and origin: English (United States)
ISBN: 9780393700046
Form and genre: Clinical & Theoretical Monograph
Level: Intermediate
Historical era: 1980–2009 · Evidence-Based, Trauma & Integrative Era
Covers: Shift from analysing complaints to constructing solutions ("The Lock vs. The Key"); Universal "Skeleton Key" interventions (e.g., the Formula First Session Task); The Death of Resistance: cooperating with the client’s unique way of cooperating; Polyocular view (Bateson): therapy team behind the one-way mirror offering compliments and tasks; Small change ripples into systemic change ("you only need a small difference")
APA 7th reference: de Shazer, S. (1985). Keys to solution in brief therapy. W. W. Norton & Company.
What it is & historical context
Mentored by John Weakland of the Palo Alto MRI Brief Therapy Center, Steve de Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg co-founded the Brief Family Therapy Center (BFTC) in Milwaukee in 1978 with Elam Nunnally, Marilyn LaCourt, and Eve Lipchik. Observing hundreds of sessions behind a one-way mirror, the Milwaukee team realized that clients did not need to spend hours analysing how their problem was maintained in order to construct a solution, publishing Keys to Solution in Brief Therapy in 1985.
Core clinical themes & arguments
De Shazer introduces the famous metaphor of the lock and the key: traditional psychotherapies assume you must painstakingly x-ray and dissect the "lock" (the etiology and structure of the problem) in order to fashion a custom key. In reality, all a locked person needs is a "key", and better yet, a "skeleton key" (a universal intervention that opens many different locks without needing to know how the lock was broken). Building on his seminal 1984 paper "The Death of Resistance," de Shazer argues that there is no such thing as client "resistance": every client cooperates in their own way (analogous to playing tennis with the therapist on the same side of the net against the complaint), and if a client does not do a homework task, that is simply useful feedback about how the client cooperates. Following Gregory Bateson, he emphasizes the "polyocular view" generated when the therapist in the room and the consulting team behind the mirror combine their observations into a structured end-of-session message starting with genuine "compliments" (validating what the client is already doing that works).
Clinical practice, reception & legacy
Chapter 8 introduces the most famous skeleton key in brief therapy: the "Formula First Session Task" (FFST), "Between now and next time we meet, we (I) would like you to observe, so that you can describe to us (me) next time, what happens in your (family, life, marriage, relationship) that you want to continue to have happen." In empirical tracking at BFTC, the vast majority of clients returned in Session 2 reporting concrete positive occurrences and improvements.
Reader level & educational scope
Catalogued at an intermediate reading level within systemic & family (clinical & theoretical monograph). This entry summarises published bibliographic, historical, and peer-reviewed records for educational orientation; it does not provide personal clinical advice, diagnosis, or treatment recommendations.
Paired academic and clinical scholarship
Paired work: The Death of Resistance (Steve de Shazer, 1984)
Reference: de Shazer, S. (1984). The death of resistance. Family Process, 23(1), 11–17.
Landmark paper in Family Process (incorporated into Keys to Solution in Brief Therapy) retiring the concept of client resistance in favour of radical cooperation.
Source-mapped claims and evidence notes
Claim 1: Using the metaphor of "skeleton keys," de Shazer argues that the structure of an effective therapeutic solution does not need to resemble or diagnose the historical structure of the presenting complaint. (Formulated in the Preface and Chapter 7 ("Keys to Brief Therapy") of Keys to Solution in Brief Therapy (1985).) [Source 1: de Shazer, S. (1985). Keys to solution in brief therapy. W. W. Norton & Company.]
Claim 2: The "Formula First Session Task" (asking clients at the end of the first session to observe what happens in their life or relationship that they want to continue to have happen) shifts attention immediately from problem-maintenance to existing exceptions and strengths. (Introduced in Chapter 8 ("Some Skeleton Keys," p. 137) of Keys to Solution in Brief Therapy.) [Source 1: de Shazer, S. (1985). Keys to solution in brief therapy. W. W. Norton & Company.]
Sources and inspection notes
de Shazer, S. (1985). Keys to solution in brief therapy. W. W. Norton & Company.
Supports: Pending verification: All descriptions of the lock vs. skeleton key metaphor, the death of resistance, polyocular team compliments, and the Formula First Session Task.
de Shazer, S. (1984). The death of resistance. Family Process, 23(1), 11–17.
Supports: Pending verification: Foundational 1984 article replacing resistance with therapist-client cooperation.