What is Strength-Based Therapy?

Strength-based Therapy is a form of positive therapy that helps the client focus on internal strengths and resourcefulness, rather than on weaknesses. This focus sets up a positive mindset that helps the client build on strengths, improve resilience and develop a more positive view of life. Strength-based therapy can assist people with serious mental health issues such as depression, anxiety and low self-esteem who can use strength-based therapy to build confidence and reduce the stresses of day-to-day living. Strength-based therapy can be used as an intervention for individuals of all ages, couples, and families.

Strength-based therapy guides the client toward a retelling of their personal history of trauma, stressors, and pain with emphasis on their role as a survivor rather than as a victim, and more emphasis on strengths and survival skills than on weakness. The goal of this therapy is to have the client recognize that they already have the skills and strength to survive and can use those same strengths to deal with difficult situations in other areas of life.

How It Works

The theory behind Strength-based Therapy is that through facing difficult challenges, people discover their inner strengths. How people deal with life’s challenges depends on whether they feel they are operating from a position of strength or a position of deficit. Those with a strong mindset focus on their positive qualities, while those with a deficit mindset focus on weaknesses and flaws, both in themselves and others. Each mindset influences future thinking and behavior in a different way. Strength-based therapy emphasizes the positive thinking patterns and circumstances in a person’s life, rather than the negatives. It helps determine what works for each people by seeing people for who they are
as individuals, not who they are by their diagnosis.