Integrating Wang Yangming’s Philosophy of Innate Knowledge into Solution-Focused Brief Therapy: Toward a Relational-Ethical Framework

This study addresses longstanding critiques of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT), particularly its tendencies toward value neutrality and excessive positivism, which may limit its ethical depth and cultural adaptability. Drawing on Wang Yangming’s Neo-Confucian philosophy of liangzhi (innate knowledge), the paper proposes a Relational-Ethical SFBT Framework that integrates clients’ self-evident moral awareness into therapeutic dialogue. The findings suggest that reinterpreting core SFBT techniques through the lens of relational ethics enables therapy not only to co-construct solutions but also to evoke clients’ conscience as an intrinsic guide for meaningful change. This framework mitigates critiques of ethical relativism, enhances cultural resonance in Eastern contexts, and deepens the clinical significance of solution-focused conversations. The study concludes that integrating liangzhi into SFBT preserves its constructionist strengths while embedding an explicit ethical orientation, offering a culturally grounded and ethically enriched model of psychotherapy suitable for global application.