Product reviews for The Miracle Question – Paperback Edition

The recent Crown House publication The Miracle Question: Answer It and Change Your Life aims to demonstrate that miracles aren't required for people to make profound changes in their lives. Although the concept of the miracle question can be found in a range of therapeutic approaches and spiritual teachings, it was formalised and dubbed “The Miracle Question” by the pioneers of “SolutionFocussed” therapy. It can be thought of as a “what if?” therapeutic approach combined with a forward-looking resource building and enhancement and changing unhelpful perspectives into positive ones.

Will answering the Question really change your life as the title promises? As this is marketed as a self-help book, it could provide a helpful method for readers to start identifying the changes they can make in their lives now. “The Miracle Question” starts with an undertaking to give readers “hope and direction no matter what the issue or situation. ” The book, says the author, “will give you a chance to begin achieving what you want and provide new options for living your life. “

The Miracle Question, or more accurately, the Miracle Question Process drives: the reader to examine which aspects of life would change should a miracle occur. The first question the author poses is this: “Suppose tonight while you sleep, a miracle happens. When you awake tomorrow morning, what will you see yourself doing, thinking, or believing about yourself that will tell you a miracle has happened in your life?” To those who have used this kind of solution or future focussed questioning, the approach will seem familiar. But the author offers a set of useful tools to elaborate and break down the seemingly straightforward answers to this question.

The Miracle Question is divided into ten chapters, each expanding on the main question above. The first chapters describe various ways to break down the answers to The Question. This process, says the author, shows how “the goals go from impossible to possible.” The final chapters focus on the use of The Miracle Question in relationships (“Give your marriage a miracle”), children and family life (“Parenting your small miracle”), drinking, drugs, and weight disorders (“Take over harmful habits”) and on moving on after painful experiences (“Rewrite your life after trauma.”)

So what are principles behind the Miracle Question? The author guides readers through the process of discovering what the answer to the Miracle Question will do for them. After answering the Miracle Question, the reader examines the actions contained in the answer and translates them into “miracle goals.” Those “miracle goals” are then transformed into more achievable goals which are more specific, realistic and action oriented. If readers have difficulty getting this far, they are advised to start to note times when things are better in their daily lives. These times, the author labels as “exceptions” and it is these “exceptions” that people can use as their tools for personal growth. In a therapeutic setting, the therapist and patient/client go on to draw up an action plan developed from examining the goals and -˜*exceptions.'

The author has taken care to provide examples or guidelines for those who have difficulty responding to the questions as presented. Sections such as *-˜by the way-¦ It's okay to struggle the Question” and “The client who couldn't answer the Miracle Question” lead readers to an exercise entitled “An alternative Miracle Question exercise.” The focus of these and nearly all the exercises and techniques described in this book is to discover what would change in a person's life if their miracle happened, and to then work toward making those changes.

The author has brought together aspects of different therapeutic techniques, favouring those which are forwardlooking and solution-oriented rather than analytical or regressive. The past, she says, is discussed briefly “only as a way to understand the person's abilities and resiliencies.” This type of solution focus relies on looking more at times when things worked well, rather than concentrating on what causes problems. “It is easier to describe what went wrong with our day than what went right,” she writes.

The author continually promotes looking at the positive in a person's life, and this can take many forms. For example it can be looking at what worked for that person previously or it can be using personal resources in a new way. She draws heavily on the technique of “reframing” and changing labels. As an illustration, the chapter entitled “take over harmful habits” contains an example of a patient with anorexia. The author writes that she “doesn't use the word anorexia to refer to the person as having an eating disorder, as the connotation of -˜disorder' means the person needs to be repaired. 1 want the person to feel in control, able to repair herself.” She prefers the word “habit,” which implies something which can be repaired.

With marriages, one technique the author describes is to imagine the couple's story as a book, living in chapter one. She asks them to delete sections that don't work, choose how they want the story to be, and together, to write and live a new chapter two. In a nod to timeline therapy, she asks the couple when they look back at that chapter 50 years from now, what would they see?

The author acknowledges the work of Steve deShazer for first coining The Miracle Question and Insoo Kim Berg of “solution-focussed” therapy. But other practitioners basing their therapies on other models will recognise the techniques. There is a notable use of NLP-style linguistic patterns, for example in the question: “What will you do someday soon when the habit is no longer interfering with your health and others in your life?” As well, the emphasis is always on what resources that people have already, highlighting ways they have successfully coped with challenges in other areas of their lives and applying them to their problem situation.



The book is well structured and stocked with relevant case studies, mostly clients of the author, with some borrowed from her previous publication. There are several practical exercises in each chapter which build upon the information provided both by the author and by the reader. The style is familiar and the explanations are measured and methodical. The book begins in a somewhat hyperactively optimistic tone which becomes more measured as the book progresses. Should the reader find that it's a bit sweet on top, envisage blowing off the top layer of icing sugar to reveal an interesting work. “The Miracle Question” is a good read and a useful companion for the general public and therapists alike.