8 Stage 3- Action Plan Stage 4 - Implementation Stage 5 - Follow-up The first stage involved meeting the patient, and explaining that the therapy method would require working on the problems chosen by the patient. The information to be shared with the patient was derived from the initial assessment, and included details from the SRQ-20, the Structured Assessment Form, the Genogram, and the referral source. However, the main point behind Problem Identification was to encourage patients to tell their personal stories, and the assumption was that the telling of the personal story would reveal the current problem or problems12. During the second stage, the therapist attempted to understand the story and change unfamiliar or vague concepts into more specific concrete terms so that the problem could be more accurately defined. The aim was to avoid dealing with biased or distorted perceptions of the problem. There was use of open, closed and leading questions such as: Why the situation is seen as a problem? Who else is affected by the problem and how? What has been done about the problem or what could have been done? The aim of the third stage was to derive concrete problems amenable to concrete solutions, and to help the patient decide upon the priority problem. The action plan involved the identification of solutions to the problem and assisting the patient to prioritise them. Sometimes, there was the need to look at what new skills would be required by the patient to achieve the required goal. The therapist assisted the patient to look at the following: What does the patient want to do? How is it going to be done? Who is going to be involved? What agencies can provide help or useful information? Some patients may have needed help to bring the plan into action, while others may have decided to implement the plan without assistance. Any of the following could have been necessary during the fourth, or the implementation stage: Information giving; Referral to appropriate agencies and sources; Changing the patient`s view; Motivation; Homework; Support. It was obviously difficult to be prescriptive about implementation, since the problems could vary so widely: problem-solving is very different to many other therapy approaches where a diagnosis, say of depression, is followed by a prescribed treatment, say cognitive behaviour therapy. The final stage involved reviewing the patient`s progress on achievement of goals. New problems were noted and new solutions were also generated. If more than one problem had been identified the patient was assisted to move on to the next problem and new solutions for the problem were devised. The follow up interviews were done at 1, 3, and 6 month intervals. 12 Here see Reeler AP (1993), Psychotherapy as story telling: A Popperian conjecture, CHANGES, 11, 205 215. AMANI TRUST: Psycho-Social assistance to Survivors of the Liberation War. A report on Mashonaland Central Province, Zimbabwe.