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Solution focused therapists have been using the "miracle question" intervention since first proposed by Steve de Shazer in 1985. However, it remains an issue for clinicians as well as for supervisors and trainers as to when the appropriate time is for delivering or offering the question to an individual, couple, or family. This paper proposes to discover, through thematic analysis, if a correct time exists and what criteria need to be in place before delivering the miracle question. The authors studied videotapes of four recognized and experienced solution focused therapists in a therapy session. An examination of these therapy session transcripts revealed criteria that may be important clues for making the miracle question an effective intervention.
Since its first use in the therapy room, the miracle question, as defined by de Shazer (1988), has been used to transform the traditional problem-oriented style of therapy toward a style focused more on the present and future. Clients were encouraged to envision futures in which the problems that brought them into therapy no longer existed. Such a state of existence was, for most clients and families, a new and exciting possibility.
The concept of the miracle question as an intervention was most fully discussed by de Shazer (1988) in his book Clues: Investigating Solutions in Brief Therapy. In that work, de Shazer explained what he looked for in the first therapy session and how he led up to delivering the miracle question. He stated:
The therapist begins constructing a solution by initiating a search for exceptions, i.e., a therapist explores in as much detail as possible times when the complaint did not happen. No matter how much the client tells the therapist about the complaint, the conversation will be brought back to when it is that the complaint does not happen. Then the therapist will switch to working with the client to describe a vision of the future when the complaint is resolved. (p. 51)
It was during the switch to looking at a time when the problem was resolved that de Shazer recommended the delivery of the miracle question. He described the question as follows (de Shazer, 1988):
Suppose that one night, while you were asleep there was a miracle and this problem was solved. How...