Problem talk creates problems, solution talk creates solutions!

This famous quote by Steve de Shazer, one of the founders of systemic solution-oriented brief therapy, gains new weight against the backdrop of a study conducted this year.

Problem solvers who engage intensively with a problem pave their neural pathways in the brain by directing their attention to the problem. This is helpful as it supports our thinking in solving the problem. The fatal aspect is: Even the perception of the issue as a problem is paved. Even if the problem has already been fully or partially solved, the perception remains.

Now, researchers David Levrai and Daniel Gilbert from Harvard University found in an experiment that this is indeed a peculiarity of human perception. They exposed participants to a stimulus ("problem") coupled with a simple task:

The participants were asked to identify and count the blue dots in a set of points ranging from bright blue to bright purple.

This was repeated over a period of time. Then, the number of blue dots was reduced. Now, the participants increasingly included purple dots in their count. This occurred even when the participants were explicitly informed that there would be fewer blue dots. Even a promised monetary reward could not prevent this effect.

In a comparative experiment, instead of dots, participants were shown faces. They were asked to count angry faces. As there were fewer of them, they also identified neutral faces as angry.

They showed that participants respond to a decreasing stimulus ("problem") by expanding the definition of the "problem":

Even when things improve, when the problem occurs less frequently or to a lesser extent, this priming persists for the time being, and the problem is perceived with the same intensity. The antennas for perceiving the problem become more sensitive. Problem solvers broaden the definition of the problem without being aware of it and continue to feel compelled to work on the problem.

Similarly, the philosopher and psychotherapist Odo Marquard recognized this tendency of perception in the 1980s and called it "the law of increasing penetration of negative remnants." Essentially, he recognized something that was scientifically proven decades later in the experiment. He had sought the cause of the phenomenon more in moral misconduct, and his law was related to social progress.

This phenomenon has a variety of implications and may explain why people whose job it is to find and eliminate problems often cannot recognize when the work is done.

"Problems that we have already successfully fought against seem as if they never disappear." (Silke Jäger)

This was also recognized by the developers of systemic therapy in the 1970s. Instead of analyzing the problem, clients are invited to focus more on where they are already doing things in a way that works or where they have already solved the problem. It is also helpful to become aware of what has already been well managed in the partnership in the past and what is already working well in the present. "Problem talk creates problems, solution talk creates solutions." (Steve de Shazer)

Because - problem awareness helps to find a solution. However, it can also lead to chronic dissatisfaction through prolonged attachment.