If you’re reading this then there’s a good chance that you or a loved one is struggling with a significant problem right now. Your particular issue may be taking up a lot of your time in the form of worry or excessive focus on the problem. However, the tendency for people to focus on the negative is quite normal. It’s certainly not that you or I enjoy thinking about our problems, rather the mind is designed to detect potential threats. When you stay focused on problems it is just your brains way of trying to prevent something bad from happening.
The issue with this human tendency, of course, is that being problem focused takes us away from potential solutions. We often end up absorbed by our problems and don’t give half as much energy to improving our situation. That’s why my counseling style is solution focused and person centered. It’s true that when we start the problem solving process we will have to detail the problem, understand when it started, and even what it looks like from day to day, but after that process is complete it is time to move forward and maintain our focus on removing obstacles that stand between you and improvement.