“I think you’re going to make a wonderful policewoman,” I said. “If you keep your training go-
ing like this, the only other thing you need to do is learn how to make a horse stop and go in the di-
rection you want it to.”
STORY 80
CREATING A WISHTherapeutic Characteristics
Problems Addressed
■ Parental conflicts
■ Feeling sad
■ Being absorbed in negative thoughts
■ Feeling unloved and unwanted
■ Wishing for something you cannot haveResources Developed
■ Learning to ask for what you canattain
■ Showing kind-heartedness
■ Making goals positive
■ Making goals specific
■ Taking responsibility for attaining goals
■ Learning to work for what you want
■ Learning to ask solution-focused questionsOutcomes Offered
■ Personal responsibility for attaining goals
■ Personal empowerment
■ Solution-focused strategies
■ Happiness
Once there was a girl. Shall we give her a name? What would you like to call her?
One day she was taking a walk along a beach. Do you live near a beach or go for summer vaca-
tion to a beach? Would you like to set this story on that beach?
This girl was walking along that beach one day, sadly, not feeling very happy. She’d left home to
go for a walk because her mom and dad were fighting—again—and she felt she needed to get out.
She walked along, her head down, thinking about her troubles, not hearing the call of the seagulls,
or swish of the waves lapping the sand. She didn’t feel the pleasant warmth of the sun on her skin, or
the damp sand under her feet.
As she kicked her way along the beach, her toes suddenly hit something solid. She stopped, bent
down, and started to dig the sand away with her hands. What she found was an old lamp, just like
those you read about in storybooks—the ones where, if you rub them, a genie pops out and grants
PROBLEM-SOLVINGBuilding Problem-Solving Skills 189