About Solution Ways and SFBT

A very warm welcome and thanks for visiting my website.

My name is Claudia van Zuiden.  I am the founder and Director of Solution Ways: ‘A Holistic Solution Focused Therapy/ Coaching/ Consulting/ Wellbeing and Performance Training Practice’.  

I believe that in order to be able to live a healthy and to live a meaningful life, we have to include and look after, all the aspects of who we are. To remain as healthy and well as possible, I have been practising Yoga and Meditation for over 35 years and have been teaching Yoga for over 15 years. More information about my classes and workshops are available on the Yoga page. The effect of being healthy and feeling well, will greatly influence how we go through our daily lives and how we perform in the workplace.

To address all aspects mentioned, I offer:

• Solution Focused Based Therapy, Coaching and Mentoring
• Yoga and Meditation
• Team and Progress Building Workshops

I facilitate workshops in the UK and abroad in:

• Ethical Solution Focused Based Practice
• Solution Focused Wellness Plans
• Mindful Leadership Training 
• 16 Guidelines for Life ( I am a accredited Worldwide Facilitator of the Foundation for Developing Wisdom and Compassion, FDCW) 

I work across business, not-for-profit organisations, community-based organisations, NHS and the education sector.

Individual Solution Focused Therapy/ Coaching/ Mentoring Sessions:

The support I give in the Solution Focused based sessions with clients, focuses on the client’s strengths and skills that they have already and explores in detail, how the client can apply more of these strengths and skills  into their personal and/or professional  life to reach their desired goal(s).

Solution Focused Progress Process at workplaces:

The same solution focused process applies to workplaces and in work performances/supervision/ management settings. We will explore what is working already in the team or workplace and we will explore how we can apply more of these personal- and/or team-skills into the workplace. This is positive, solution focused team-management which is highly motivational and inspiring. The progress of the preferred future can be measured in Solution Focused Practice, which is extremely effective.

More information about Individual Therapy and Team Building Workshops is available at the following pages:

• Individual Therapy
• Team Building Workshops

A bit more about Claudia van Zuiden:

Claudia was born in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In 1991, Claudia moved to Scotland where she dedicated time to bringing up her two children. Her background is in being the director of Prima Donna, a retail business in the Netherlands (5 years), in professional photography (5 years) and in mental health nursing( 14 years) . Claudia has practised yoga and meditation since the age of 15 and became a qualified Hatha Yoga teacher in 2001 and 5 Tibetan Yoga teacher in 2008. Claudia has studied Buddhism for over 20 years and teaches meditation techniques to beginners and advanced meditation practitioners alike.

Naturally Claudia seems to look at solutions in challenging situations, so it is no surprise that she was attracted to the Solution Focused Brief Therapy technique and trained as a  SFBT therapist at Robert Gordon’s University, Aberdeen, Scotland,UK.

Claudia has an entrepreneurial background and is the founder of ‘The Hive’ Group (started in 2013) . Claudia prefers the word ‘entre-doneur’, which refers to ‘giver’ or ‘who works between or with others’. This reflects in several community projects of which she is the founder.  The Hive is a support network and platform for business women, women entrepreneurs, women in leadership roles, women who are looking for inspiration to continue their creative and productive ideas and/or any other women who feel that they might benefit of actively participating in this group. For more information about other community projects you can follow this link: Solution Ways Community Projects

What is Solution Focused Brief Therapy?

Solution Focused Brief Therapy or SFBT, is a form of talking therapy that looks at solutions rather than problems. The emphasis will be on the preferred future (goal setting) or on times when the problem is not happening. In this way, clients can find out about their own strengths and skills and investigate how they applied or apply some of these skills in previous and/ or other situations. These findings are used to work towards finding solutions, whether this involves personal or professional life matters.

Claudia found many similarities in the Buddhist philosophy and in Solution Focused Brief Therapy and introduced Solution Focused Interventions in Nepal in 2011, where she was invited by the Department of Psychology to teach at Tribhuvan University,  Kathmandu.

As part of her philosophy in ‘Paying-it-forward’ she has trained students, counselors and mental health workers in Nepal in Solution Focused Interventions Skills for free. She has been raising money to be able to train for free. She also gave training in the solution focused interventions in November 2012 at the Nepal Mental Health Foundation and had delivered post trauma solution focused supervision training in June 2015 in Nepal.  Her aim is to bring this technique more to the awareness in professional and volunteer institutions in developing countries, where there is very little mental health support.

Claudia has been working as therapist, life-coach and workshop facilitator in the Solution Focused Approach since 2002. She has given training in this technique in her own motivational, inspiring way in the UK and internationally.

Claudia’s work in Solution Focused Practice in Nepal

For information on consultations or workshops or speaking seminars, please contact :