About this course

Learning Objectives

• Describe the core components of evocative questioning in solution-focused practice, including questions about the client's current thinking, feeling, values, needs, wants, beliefs, and behaviors.
• Differentiate evocative questioning from leading questions and from interpretive depth-therapy work, identifying the clinical purpose of each.
• Apply the architecture of a "good question" — purposeful, customized to the client, and inviting exploration beyond current thinking — within solution-focused therapeutic conversations.
• Demonstrate the use of silence, pause, metaphor, and analogy as therapeutic tools that create space for the client to arrive at their own awareness.
• Analyze common pitfalls in evocative questioning, including the tendency to lead clients toward the therapist's hypothesis, and identify clinical strategies for preserving client autonomy.

Learning Levels

• All

Course Instructor(s)

• 

  Dr. Liz Lasky, PhD, LCSW, ACC

  Dr. Liz Lasky, PhD, LCSW, is the founder of The Coach Training Program For Helping Professionals™ and lizlasky.com. She is passionate about teaching therapists how to coach ethically and well. Dr. Liz Lasky is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (NY State, MSW from Yeshiva University). She holds a PhD from Yeshiva University in Social Welfare. She is also a New York University Certified Coach and holds the International Coach Federation credential of Associate Certified Coach (ACC). She is an adjunct professor at Fordham University. She is a published author (both in peer reviewed academic journals and her own book), a professional expert for Bravo TV, and presents her research on coaching single women internationally, most notably at Harvard University. She is also a proud Fellow of The Institute of Coaching at McLean Hospital, Harvard University.

Disclosure

References

• American Psychological Association. (2017, August). Multicultural guidelines: An ecological approach to context, identity, and intersectionality.
• Franklin, C., Ding, X., Kim, J., Zhang, A., Hai, A. H., Jones, K., Nachbaur, M., & O'Connor, A. (2024). Solution-focused brief therapy in community-based services: A meta-analysis of randomized controlled studies. Research on Social Work Practice, 34(2), 165–180. https://doi.org/10.1177/10497315231162611
• Hill, C. E. (2020). Helping skills: Facilitating exploration, insight, and action (5th ed.). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000147-000
• Miller, W. R., & Rollnick, S. (2012). Motivational interviewing: Helping people change. Guilford press.
• Neipp, M. C., & Beyebach, M. (2024). The global outcomes of solution-focused brief therapy: A revision. The American Journal of Family Therapy, 52(1), 110-127. https://doi.org/10.1080/01926187.2022.2069175
• Esposito, G., Cuomo, F., Di Maro, A., & Passeggia, R. (2024). The assessment of therapist responsiveness in psychotherapy research: A systematic review. Research in Psychotherapy: Psychopathology, Process and Outcome, 27(2), 751. https://doi.org/10.4081/ripppo.2024.751