Have You Heard the Latest Rumor About…? Solution‐Focused Therapy as a Rumor

Abstract

This essay treats solution-focused therapy as a rumor. Solution-focused therapy is a series of stories that members of diverse therapist communities tell one another. Our version of this rumor stresses how solution-focused therapy is a job involving language games, political relations, and ethical issues. We use this starting point to tell a story that links solution-focused therapy to Wittgenstein's philosophy of language, and to aspects of postmodernist social thought. We also discuss how solution-focused therapy is organized as a politics of possibilities.