Solution-Focused Therapy

I have been having some real trouble coping with stuff over the last year, or maybe longer. My dad died early last year at the age of 63 from a heart attack and that was a real shock. We had owned a sporting goods store as business partners. Now it’s all on me and while I had thought for a while that I wanted to run the show on my own, I never meant that I wanted my dad dead so I could do it and now that I am on my own, I am finding it very difficult and realize how much he brought to the table. Over the past year, for a lot of reasons I think, business has really slumped and I have also started having a lot of trouble with my 14 year old son, who is really rebelling now. I just feel like my life’s been knocked off kilter lately and I can’t seem to right it back to how it should be, no matter how I try.

My wife says I am depressed and she wants me to talk to a therapist. I do not believe that I am depressed but I do see that things are not as they should be and I would be truly grateful if I thought there was someone that could help me. The problem is I have a very hard time believing that just sitting on a couch and talking to someone about my problems is going to help me in any real way. It won’t exactly make my problems disappear, will it? I have been trying to get a straight answer on how a therapist would help me get my life back in order and I haven’t really been able to get a straight answer so far. So what I want to know is, what would a therapist do that would help me to get my life back on track? Most of the time people seem to say a therapist will help me to see the problem more clearly, but I already know what the problems are, I just don’t have the solutions I need.