Exit Through the Gift Shop

Remember the last time you visited a museum? You walked in, bought a ticket (perhaps grumbling about the price of admission) and, ticket in hand, you checked out the various galleries. You may have strolled around, lingering on this or that painting, perhaps emitting a few appreciative “hmmms” to seem sophisticated. Later, after you’d had enough, you “exited through the gift shop” (as the artist Banksy put it). 

Now suppose this visit to the museum was, well, surprisingly good. As you walk back to your car you feel different. You feel newfound possibilities, like your world has been “stretched.” It's a good feeling. 

The psychologist Mark McKergow, in his book The Next Generation of Solution Focused Practice, compares the stages of a Solution Focused Therapy session to visiting an art gallery and moving from room to room. It’s an interesting concept. Here's the main idea:

“Ticket Office” 

Here's how Mark puts it: “We start by trying to get a ‘ticket’ – to see if we can find a project where the client wishes to change some aspect of their life” (McKergow). The ticket office is where you and your therapist identify your best hopes from doing therapy. The main point of this is the importance of establishing your best hopes first before going forward, just as a ticket-taker at a museum would check your ticket first before you entered.

“Future Gallery”

This is the first room you'll enter. The paintings in this room depict your preferred future, that is, the differences you'd like to see in your life as a result of doing therapy. These pictures emerge through your descriptions of what your life might be like when your best hopes are realized. 

“Instances Gallery” 

Here the images on the walls visualize your memories of times when your preferred future was already happening. We call these moments "instances." Inside this room, you and your therapist might discuss how you made those instances come true, what you were doing differently at those times and how hopeful you are to recreate those instances of success in the future. 

“Gift Shop”

This is the final room. Picture a museum gift shop with racks of postcards of paintings from the museum’s collection. The postcards, in this case, depict those instances of your progress discussed above, as well as posters of those beautiful paintings of you immersed in your preferred future. I like to encourage clients to loot the gift shop and grab as many of these postcards as you like to keep for yourself. 

I appreciate the way that Mark McKergow proposed such an elegant visualization of the process of great psychotherapy. I especially like the implication that the client is an artist and creator of the images on display.

I would love to hear your feedback on this post as well as your descriptions of the pictures in your own future gallery. Please share your thoughts with me at jeremyfaintherapy@gmail.com