Conventional therapy consists usually of schedule an appointment, arrival of the applicant to the meeting, gathering historical- etiological information and creating general guidelines for treatment. The focused problem-solving brief therapy makes an additional step that is an important part of creating the basis for the treatment involvement: the first therapeutic step happens with the applicant’s first phone conversation. The second meeting, the face to face meeting, is the continuance of the first call conversation
The intervening premise of the therapist is, that not everyone who comes to therapy has an interest, from the beginning, in working on the problem. The causes of applying for therapy can be varied; sometimes people come under duress to get treatment, like the offender who is referred to treatment by the court; or the husband that comes because of duress from his wife; or a child and his parents who are referred by the school counselor. Therefore, the most important thing at the beginning of treatment is to make a contact with those who want to treat their problem, and to check if the applicant is a potential customer
Identifying who is interested and ready to commit to the process of treatment can be done by identifying those most concerned about the problem. The most concerned about the problem will cooperate and provide the relevant data and treatment plans. In general, there are three situations that should determine who is most interested in therapeutic process
When a third party is calling to make an appointment for someone else-
When the subject of the difficulty is calling by himself to set up the meeting, but tells that he is calling under duress-
When the caller asks for “family meeting” without specifically point out the rationale of the meeting-