A question that often arises for practitioners moving into groupwork is: if I am already trained in Solution Focused Brief Therapy, shouldn’t facilitating a Solution Focused group simply be a matter of applying the same skills with more people in the room?

The answer is both yes and no.

The principles remain the same: curiosity, attention to strengths and resources, preferred futures, what is already working, and small signs of progress. But the practice of groupwork introduces something fundamentally different. A Solution Focused group is not an individual conversation multiplied by the number of participants. It has its own architecture, its own possibilities, and its own challenges.

A 2024 meta-analysis* — one of the most comprehensive reviews of SFBT outcomes to date — examined 72 studies and 489 effect sizes and found an overall large effect of SFBT on psychosocial outcomes (g = 1.17). One particularly striking finding was that group therapy was associated with a larger effect size (g = 1.64) than individual therapy (g = 0.48). While moderator findings require thoughtful interpretation and do not by themselves establish causation, they raise an important question: what is it about SF groupwork that may create additional opportunities for change? This finding invites us to consider SF groupwork not simply as individual intervention delivered to more people, but as a distinct practice with its own mechanisms, dynamics and possibilities.

So what makes Solution Focused groupwork different?

The group itself becomes the resource

In individual SF work, the practitioner helps one person identify their own resources, strengths, hopes and possibilities. In groupwork, something additional becomes available: participants become resources for one another.

A participant’s description of a preferred future may unlock possibilities for someone else. A person noticing their own progress may help another recognise progress they had overlooked. A useful question from one group member can become a resource for the whole group.

This is one of the unique opportunities of SF groups: the conversation is not only between facilitator and participant. The group itself becomes part of the solution-building process.

Without specific groupwork skills, however, there is a risk that groups become a series of one-to-one conversations conducted in front of an audience — missing the very thing that makes groups powerful.

Facilitation is not the same as conversation

SF one-to-one work develops our ability to hold a conversation: to listen carefully, ask useful questions that follow people’s answers, notice resources and help people construct details of their preferred futures.

Group facilitation requires an additional layer of skill: holding a space where multiple conversations can develop simultaneously.

This means knowing when to open a question to the whole group rather than directing it to one person; how to use one person’s contribution as a stepping stone for others; how to create connection without forcing participation; and how to maintain an SF stance while responding to the complexity and unpredictability of a group.

These are facilitation skills — and, like any skill, they need to be learned and practised.

Holding multiple preferred futures at once

In individual work, we track one person’s hopes, resources and progress. In groups, the facilitator is holding multiple preferred futures, multiple journeys and multiple paces.

Someone may be exploring what they want more of in their life, while another is already noticing significant changes. Someone may need more time to reflect, while another is ready to contribute immediately.

The challenge is to weave these different threads together while maintaining the SF principle that people are experts of their own lives.

This requires a different kind of attention: not just listening to what one person is saying, but listening for signs, strengths, connections and opportunities across the whole group.

The power of witnessing

One of the most distinctive features of SF groups is the witness effect.

People experience transformation not only by talking about their own hopes and progress, but by hearing others do the same. Witnessing someone else describe their preferred future, notice their resources or take a small step forward can create possibilities that were not available through individual reflection alone.

The facilitator’s role is not simply to encourage this process, but to understand how to create the conditions where it can happen.

Why train specifically in SF groupwork?

General SF training gives practitioners a strong foundation: how to ask better questions, listen differently, and support conversations that lead to useful change.

But moving from individual work to groupwork requires another layer of practice. It requires understanding the architecture of SF groups: how to design them, how to harness participants as resources for one another, how to facilitate collective conversations and how to remain Solution Focused while holding a room rather than a single conversation.

Solution Focused Groupwork training at BRIEF with Biba Georgieva, 7th & 8th October 2026

This course explores the design, process and practical facilitation skills needed to create and run Solution Focused groups.

It is designed for practitioners who either already have some familiarity with Solution Focused practice and want to develop their ability to facilitate groups in a way that fully utilises the resources, knowledge and creativity of participants or for experienced group facilitators who are interested in incorporating Solution Focused practice to their groupwork.

More information about the course and booking

*Full reference: Vermeulen-Oskam, E., Franklin, C., Van’t Hof, L.P.M., Stams, G.J.J.M., van Vugt, E.S., Assink, M., Veltman, E.J., Froerer, A.S., Staaks, J.P.C., & Zhang, A. (2024). The current evidence of solution-focused brief therapy: A meta-analysis of psychosocial outcomes and moderating factors. Clinical Psychology Review, 114, 102512.