My main objective is to find ways to hear from you what you are finding is useful in your work and building on those experiences. My experiences are useless unless they are built on what you bring to these workshops. To accomplish that, I will utilize discussion, exercises, role-play, video clips, and things you find useful in your learning experience. My main concern is that I move at a pace that maximizes learning instead of trying so hard that I find myself pursuing my own objectives and ignoring yours. One way I monitor myself when working with a client is to constantly be aware of when I am working harder than the client is.

This is not easy in some cases and it takes skill to constantly be listening to the client for clues that I should slow down, ask more questions that allow me to listen more effectively – so I can ask better questions – and so on. I will do my best, with your help, to stay true to this process in these workshops.

About Dan Gallagher

Having participated in the development and spread of SFBT applications in a wide variety of settings as a practitioner and as a member of Brief Family Therapy Center’s core team for the past 22 years.

Dan states he learned early how to walk a thin line between the therapeutic community philosophy where the program has all the answers and the SFBT philosophy where the clients and people in their own lives build their own solutions.  Even though the line might have been thin, Dan was able to be an effective advocate for new ways of working more effectively with clients in drug-alcohol programs and in the mental health field.  It was his belief (and experience) that clients could and would build their own solutions once they began to notice and base their work on existing skills and successes rather than depending on programs and therapists to provide their expertise for them.

Dan’s unique career has included working in numerous drug and alcohol treatment programs across New York State, and in the private sector as a mental health therapist, program director, and clinical director.  He is also a member of the Episcopal priesthood, as well as an educator.

He developed a course in solution-focused pastoral counseling for international students in Fordham University’s graduate program in the Bronx and has been training staff in SFBT in an HIV/AIDS project at Jacobi Hospital in the Bronx as one of the members of BFTC’s trainers-at-large.  Dan also traveled to Singapore to train and consult with staff at a new SFBT training institute there.

Instrumental in the founding the Solution-Focused Brief Therapy Association, Dan has been on the Board of Directors and the Executive Board since it began in 2003.

See previous Solution-Focused Workshops & Instructors

About the Institute

The SUNY Oswego Institute for Professional and Organizational Development is dedicated to partnering with business, government and non-profit organizations to develop and deliver customized employee training based on current and future business needs. Its mission, "Your Success Is Our Business," focuses on bottom-line results.

For questions and registration information about how we can help you succeed, call us: 312-6430 or email phoenix@oswego.edu