How to "Hear," and "See" From Don D. Jackson's
Interactional Therapy Perspective
The
therapeutic skill of Don Jackson is legendary. His approach to
understanding human behavior derives from a unique personal genius
for the incorporation, synthesis and operationalization of complex
relational concepts. Early on during their research, when Gregory
Bateson's team began to study the communication patterns of
schizophrenic patients, Jackson was brought into the project as a
full time consultant largely because of his reputation for success in
the therapy of schizophrenics. This fortuitous event led to Jackson
becoming the clinical supervisor for Gregory Bateson, Jay Haley, John
Weakland, and William Fry and later for Richard Fisch and Paul
Watzlawick, Antonio Ferreria, and Irving Yalom. Remembered as an
incredibly gifted therapist, with only a few exceptions (Haley &
Hoffman, 1967; Ray, 1995) his therapeutic technique has not been
described in any detail. An unfortunate result of this dearth
of detailed evaluation of Jackson's actual clinical work is that his
brilliant clinical abilities have become the stuff of myth and legend
rather than the subject of close study and learning.
Nonetheless,
the esteem with which so many others who, themselves, are considered
brilliant founders of family and brief therapy hold Jackson's
clinical abilities is impressive. Thanks to the foresight of
John H. Weakland, 92 audio and eight film recordings of Jackson, most
of which are recordings of individual, and conjoint marital and
family interviews made between June 1955 and November 1967, survive.
Based upon the study of these actual recordings, a few general
aspects of Jackson's clinical approach have been reported elsewhere
(Ray, 1995), but it has taken the author eighteen years and countless
hours spent listening to recordings of Jackson's therapy, and
studying the writings of Jackson, and those with which he was most
closely associated (H.S. Sullivan, Bateson, Haley, Weakland, and
Milton Erickson) to reach a point where I feel familiar enough with
his work to report on what I believe to be one of the central aspects
of his assessment and treatment method.
A
key to understanding Jackson's approach is realization that he was
heavily influenced by four years of training with Harry Stack
Sullivan. Jay Haley, Robert Cohen and others have commented on
Sullivan's influence on Jackson. Scrutiny of Jackson's actual
clinical work reveals that he adopted wholeheartedly a core aspect of
Sullivan's interviewing technique. Sullivan, however, only saw
patients individually and never interviewed members of a patient's
family. Part of, and it is emphasized only a part of, Jackson's
brilliance derived from adopting Sullivan's basic interviewing
technique and then extending it's use to understanding the nature of
couple and family interaction in the present moment. In doing
so Jackson can legitimately be seen as one of, if not the principal
creator of systemically oriented family and brief therapy (Bateson,
1970; Jackson, 1954, 1957). The technique pioneered by Jackson allows
the therapist to "hear," and "see" dyadic and
triadic processes of interaction in the present moment of the
interview. This article will describe this assessment and
intervention technique.
In
the introduction to Sullivan’s The Interpersonal Theory of
Psychiatry (1953), Mabel Blake Cohen writes
Harry
Stack Sullivan always listened to the data with this question in
mind, "Where is the flow of communication being interfered with
by the threat of anxiety?" Such a point can be identified
by noting where the patient shifted from a presumably significant
subject, where the security operations of the subject began to
intensify, or where the various somatic accompaniments of anxiety
began to appear. Having identified such a point of change, a
therapist is then in a position to recall, or inquire about, what was
going on just prior to the shift. This technique, when grasped
and correctly used, gives a precise and reliable method for
identifying and investigating patterns of difficulty in living (p. xvii).
According
to Sullivan's Interpersonal Theory, "a personality can never be
isolated from the complex of interpersonal relations in which the
person lives and has his being (1953, pp. 10)." From
Sullivan's perspective, anxiety is a singularly distressing felt
experience which is a product of intense, denied, rejection by
significant others in an ongoing important relationship ( significant
others on whom persons depend for their very survival. Prestige
in the eyes of important others is vital. Anxiety is
experienced whenever a person has acted in a way that is not
acceptable to his or her significant others, (particularly the
parenting ones), and can be so debilitating that a person will do
just about anything to avoid or reduce the experience (Ray, 1998, p xxi-wwii).
Jackson’s
grasp of the implications of Sullivan’s conception of anxiety
was one of his major contributions to the Bateson Projects, and can
be understood as a major forerunner to the concept of the double-bind
(Bateson, Jackson, Haley & Weakland, 1956). Jackson was a master
of being able, in the immediate clinical moment, to pick up on
"where the flow of communication is being interfered with by the
threat of anxiety." Watching films, and especially by
listening to audio recordings of Jackson, it is clear that he was
extremely adept at noticing and being able to immediately and
directly address "such a point by noticing where the patient
shifted from a presumably significant subject, where the security
operations of the subject began to intensify, or where the various
somatic accompaniments of anxiety began to appear."
As
remarkable as this skill is when working with an individual, what is
truly impressive is to experience Jackson extend the technique to
track interaction between two spouses in marital therapy, or, as can
be seen in the following brief example, between a
"psychotic" teenage daughter and her mother and father in
the real time transactions of a family interview:
Jill:
I don't mean to hurt her feelings.
Jackson:
I wonder if she was crying because she was hurt? Has that been established?
Mother:
Me you mean?
Jackson:
Yeah. This would be an easy assumption, but I don't know if it's so.
Do you have any idea?
Mother:
A good deal of the time it is. You mean now?
Jackson:
But I mean right now. Were you crying because you were hurt,
you think?
Mother:
What do you mean? (Crying) Because I'm sad?
Jackson:
Yeah, because you responded to your daughter with, I think, a rather
touching closeness. I don't think it was just hurt
Jill:
Well I supported her and it was upsetting
Mother:
No that is not what upset me. Something that you have never
understood is the relationship between dad and me
Jill:
Yes I've understood it, better than you think.
Mother:
I don't think it's possible for a person your age to understand it
Jill:
Oh, what's my age? I have an awful lot of insight and I've been told
by other people that I have a great deal more insight than most
people my age.
Jackson:
but you haven't been married for a long time. It makes a difference.
Father:
You can never understand.
Jill:
I've seen you two more objectively than you think I do.
Jackson:
I would buy that, but you still have something to learn here.
Jill:
Oh, sure
Mother:
I think you underestimate the feelings daddy and I have for each other
Jill:
No. I think that you have a deep, deep, and unusual love that not
very many people find. And I wouldn't ruin it for the
world. And I don't want to hurt either of you, and I don't mean
to hurt either of you by anything that I say in here.
Mother:
(In a wounded voice) We don't take it that way.
Jackson:
We are off on this hurt kick now, and I don't think this is what was
important. Your mother was responding out of passion, not out
of being hurt by you, because there is something touching about what
you have been through, as you know only too well.
Mother:
I think you have put your finger on a very important thing Doctor,
because that is exactly my feeling.
Jill:
But it is an issue of why I went through this. I had to sleep with
people around me screaming. Everything locked, no one trusting
you. People really crazy around you, really bad, permanent
cases. (Crying uncontrollably) You just don't know, you just
have no idea. When the only thing that was wrong with me was emotional.
Jackson:
Now all of a sudden you get on the bandwagon and bail your mother
out. Your mother stops crying and you start. Now, I think
this is one of the&ldots;
Jill:
I know. I still need to release a lot of emotion over that.
Jackson:
You have had some chance to release some emotion in the last&ldots;
Jill:
No I haven't.
Jackson:
I think you have. I don't mean that you still don't have a lot
still in you about this. You will never forget this experience,
but I think it is important for you to realize that just when I was
talking to your mother, you stepped in with your problem.
Jill:
Right.
Jackson:
And this may be part of the eternal triangle that we've been talking
about. That it has got three sides, and that each person is&ldots;
Jill:
But&ldots;
Jackson:
in his own way keeps boosting it along.
Jill:
How is this part of that?
Jackson:
Well, I think I understood your mother a little better, and just at
that moment is when you started on the business about the horrors of
the mental hospital. Now I agree with you about that.
Mother:
We all do.
Jackson:
But I think we also have to understand that there are an interplay
of forces here.
Jill:
I don't see how the forced work.
Jackson:
That's right, and I don't see it too clearly either, except when I
see shifts like this it alerts me to them.
This
technique for tracking interactional process represents one of the
cornerstone principal for what later became known as systemic or
interactionally focused family and brief therapy. The essence
of the technique permeates Haley's strategic approach; Weakland,
Watzlawick, and Fisch's Brief Therapy approach; the Milan Systemic
family Therapy model. These models, in turn, have influenced
most current brief and family therapy approaches.
As
foundational as this technique is, of equal importance is the
incredible array of behaviors Jackson manifests while managing a
therapeutic conversation. Verbatim transcripts of an interview
are invaluable for making detailed study of therapeutic process and
clinical technique. Most of the nuances of Jackson’s technique
of conversing with a client, however, cannot be adequately
appreciated without hearing the incredible range and variation of
inflection, tone, and control over his presentation of self –
i.e. the countless aspects of communication that do not evidence
themselves in mere words. Jackson’s ability to manage a
complex interaction with a couple or family, his shift from no
nonsense refusal to allow the client to wander off into tangential
issues at one moment in an interview, only to be followed by gentle,
empathic understanding at another point in a conversation is uncanny
- and essential to his successful management of complex cases.
Jackson
once wrote that the task of therapy is for the therapist to
comprehend the pattern of interaction in which the symptom is
embedded, then to behave in such a way with the client (s) that the
pattern must change, making the symptom no longer necessary (Jackson,
1967). Listening to or watching a recording of Jackson in action with
a family, the viewer becomes aware that this statement was not merely
armchair philosophy.
References:
Bateson,
G. (1970). Audio recording of the 1st Don D. Jackson Memorial
Address, Palo Alto, CA.
Bateson,
G., Jackson, D., Haley, J., & Weakland, J. (1956). Toward
a theory of schizophrenia, Behavioral Science.
Cohen,
M. (1953). Introduction. In H. S. Sullivan, H. S. (Author), The
Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry, NY: WW Norton, (p. xvii).
_______
, & Hoffman, L. (1967). The eternal triangle. In J. Haley
& L Hoffman, Techniques of Family Therapy, NY: Basic.
Jackson,
D. (1954). Some factors influencing the Oedipus complex.
Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 23, 566-581.
_______.
(1957). The question of family homeostasis. The Psychiatric
Quarterly Supplement, 31 (part 1), 79-90.
_______.
(1967). The individual and the larger contexts. Family Process, 6
(2), September, 139-147.
Ray,
W. Introduction – The relevance of brief therapy in the current
managed care environment. In W. Ray & S. de Shazer (Eds.),
(1998). Evolving Brief Therapies: In Honor of John H. Weakland. Iowa
City, IA: Geist & Russell, Ltd.
______.
(1995). The interactional therapy of Don D. Jackson. In J. Weakland
& W. Ray (Eds.), Propagations: Thirty Years of Influence
from the Mental Research Institute, pp. 37-70. NY: Haworth.
Sullivan,
H. S. (1953). Conceptions of Modern Psychiatry, NY: WW Norton, p.
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When Is Change Really Real
-AN EXCERPT OF A CONVERSATION I HAD ON THE INTERNET.
-By: Nick Triantafillou
From Nick:
As I had mentioned in my intro one of my interest over the past few
years has been in applying SFT approaches in my work with children
and their families served by residential treatment. The agency
that I work for is one of a few agency that still provides long term
care for these often displaced children. As you may imagine
introducing a SFT/Brief Therapy framework into this type of social
context has proven challenging but also very rewarding.
I have found that by the time these children reach our agency there
has been a lot invested by the larger system (ie. legal system, child
welfare system, family) in viewing the child as the problem. It
is as if the child just becomes suspended in time and the only time
the larger system pays and real attention to their behaviour is when
the child screws up thereby confirming everyone's invested beliefs
that the child is the problem.
Our introduction of SFT approaches have proven useful in shaking up
this type of marginalization. It has helped both workers and
families become involved in noticing differences and become more
active in co-creating solutions. One of the difficulties that I
still struggle with is helping larger systems believe that the
changes they are noticing in the children are
"real". Even after children have made gains in
their social, academic and family relations goal areas that adults in
their lives can acknowledge as significant, at times it seems they
remain in a state of disbelief...waiting for the child to make a
mistake so their "real colours" can show themselves.
I have come to appreciate how difficult it is for adults in these
children's lives to break out of the box/category they have used for
such a long time to understand the child and his/her behaviour.
I have found noticing tasks, exceptions and practice areas useful in
allowing both adults and the child to give themselves permission to
think, talk and experience their relationships differently. Yet
the child's past difficulties continue to haunt their relationship
with the adults in their life...and often seem to leave children
further disheartened that they can never be good enough for the
adults in their life in particular around the issue of going home.
Child social service workers in particular have great difficulty
"legally acknowledging" any progress as being substantial
since it goes against their legal arguments for keeping the child in care.
Having said all this, I was hoping to spur some discussion around
some of these issues in particular how do we help people recognize
that changes they are noticing are substantial? When is real
really real? How can one avoid the dilemma of the larger system
viewing SFT approaches as just being a polite way to "notice the
positives" and waiting on edge for the 'bad' behaviour to
reappear and reconfirm previously held views about the child?
Anyone have any similar experiences?
From Keren Suberri:
I work with Residential Tx for adolescents and much of your post
resonates with me.
You asked:
<snip>How do we help people recognize that changes they
are noticing are substantial? When is real, really real?
How can one avoid the dilemma of the larger system viewing SFT
approaches as just being a polite way to "notice the
positives" and waiting on edge for the 'bad' behaviour to
reappear and reconfirm previously held views about the child? <end snip>
With regards to the staff who work with youths on a day-to-day basis
and with regard to the families of the kids, I have found the
combination of a few things at once has been helpful in addressing
the concerns that you have raised. One involves taking a step
back and letting people do more of their own discovering about the
changes kids are making. Talking about the positive changes in
a very 'tentative' way, can open up some more space for other folks
to do their own highlighting and 'cheerleading'. Asking lots of
questions of others about kids' progress is also helpful.
Along with that, introducing the concept of 'setback' and being very
persistent in my conversations with staff, in reframing others'
descriptions of 'kids showing their "real colours" again'
as: kids experiencing a(notheir) *setback*, has made a
difference. Once it caught on, it became very been freeing for
staff in some way.
<snip> <When is real, really real>
This is a great question to ask those who are having the most
difficulty letting go of the 'child is the problem"
perception. Asking them, "How long would Johnny have to
maintain these desired behaviours, in order for you to be convinced
that he has indeed changed and is ready to go back home?" can be helpful.
<snip>How can one avoid the dilemma of the larger system
viewing SFT approaches as just being a polite way to "notice the
positives" and waiting on edge for the 'bad' behaviour to
reappear and reconfirm previously held views about the child?
I am confused about what you mean by the "larger
system". Who in the larger system is of most concern to
you regarding this dilemma?As an aside, although I have had my share
of frustrations with bureaucrats, paper-pushers and folks sitting and
waiting for their retirement, I wanted to share with you one thing
that has really made a difference for me in Residential Tx.
That is, noticing the incredibly good-hearts of the people who work
day-to-day with the kids. I am simply in awe of many of
them. These folks put up with so much physical injury and
emotional insults by the adolescents, when they (kids) take temporary
leave of their sense or lose control of their impulses (experience
setbacks) and yet they still come back to work day in and day out and
regularly show incredible acts of loving-kindness, caring and
generosity to kids who others have long given up on. I have
discovered that some of those staff who can talk the most negative
and pessimistic stance are also those who care the deepest for the
kid, are the most giving and they are simply hurting along with
him/her because they do care so much. I don't know that I would
have the personal fortitude to do what they do, but I do feel that my
life is richer for having rubbed shoulders with them.
To Keren From Nick:
Hi Keran,
Thanks for your input...if I understand you correctly you're saying
it may be most helpful for those involved with the child's treatment
to take a step back and allow others such as the parents and social
workers (the larger system) a more active role in discovering some of
the child's positive changes for themselves. In a fundamental
way, it may be just as important for those of us in residential
treatment to include as many 'influential' people in the child's life
as possible to co-create/co-discover positive changes that the child
is making.
I guess the persons that I am concerned most about are those parents
and social workers that when you ask them the question, "How
long will Johnny need to maintain these behaviour changes in order
for you to feel that they are indeed substantial?", they become
vague in their answers or simply reply that the child will always
have these previous problems for life.
Let me give you an example. We have been taking care of a
teenage girl for about a year. She came for a single parent
home. The parent had increasingly concerned about the
daughter's levels of self-isolation, non-attendance to school and
also unpredictable episodes of violent behaviour in the home.
The family had sought various levels of service without success.
Since she has been in our treatment program she has made great
gains...including moving into a less intrusive setting within our own
system, as well as graduating from our contained classroom to a
regular highschool setting. There have been no serious episodes
of violent behaviour anywhere, including on home visits. This
young lady is also developed a good peer group while at the same
time, pulling off straight A's in an advanced program at school.
Everyone in the child's life (parent, social worker, group home
staff) as well as the child, agree that there has been remarkable
gains made. Yet when the question is asked to the dad and
social worker when will they know that the changes the child has made
will be enough to go back home...the response they give back is that
this child "is and always will be a time bomb ready to
explode...the boy may not presently show it or may not show it for
years but he will explode as he did before and there will be hell to
pay". Therefore it seems unlikely that he will go home or
ever be "good enough" or the dad and social worker to agree
to take risk needed to agree to allow the child to return home.
The dilemma that this child and other displaced children face is
sooner or later they figure out that it may not matter how enormously
they change the "influential adults' in their life may continue
to make decisions based on who they were and not on who they know
they are now. On top of that, they usually being to view
residential treatment as a form of parental punishment or societal
control. At this stage there always exists the potential for
the child to fulfill the doom and gloom prophecies rather than to
continue to prove his level of genuine change.
Thus the question...When is real really real?
Has anyone had similar experiences and how have you used SFT
approaches to deal with them?
P.S. Keran:I too remain in awe of the level of commitment and
perseverance residential workers continue to show in their work.
From Insoo Kim Berg to Nick:
Dear Nick;
I fully support Keran's comment about working with the parents and
the social services about improvements about the children.
One thing you might want to think about is the rule I learned in the
early '80's form John Burnham of Birmingham, England. Rather
than the institutions or therapy taking the credit for the
improvements of the child, you may think about how many people have
tried to help this child, in their own ways, most of all, the parents
and social workers. I think we need to have some humility to
recognize that we did not do it all and therapy or placement in a
setting is only a small part of the child's life. The parent's
nurturing, love and many years of hard work is just bearing fruit and
we just provided an environment in which these good influence and
learning will have a chance to show how much hard they have
worked. Same with the teachers, social workers, judges,
probation officers, etc., who have touched the child's life.
I hear from many kids that having been placed on probation was
helpful, (not always, not fully helpful), having the social worker do
this and that, such as placing the child in the institution, her kind
voice, kind look, etc., all have helped, even a little. And
they did! I think they need to know that what they have done
all contributed to the child doing better now because they have.
All we have done is to give the child an opportunity and setting to
try and use of these things that they have taught, instilled and have influenced.
Not only is this a respectful way to work with those other
professionals, but they also need to know that what they have done
have some part in the child's success now. This is generally a
very collaborative stance with everybody in the child's life and also
in an indirect way, advocating for the child so that their
relationship with these people will remain positive long after we are
out of their lives. I hope this helps.
From Ben Furman to Nick:
Dear Nick
You raise the issue which is bugging many people working in the
helping profession - and driving them nuts. That is the
question, how to convince others of the progress made. We have
discussed this issue in our book Solution Talk, we devoted a whole
chapter to this question. What are the conditions that allow
people to acknowledge progress?
Our suggestion is that the key to the solution of this question is
sharing credit. There is a saying and I don't know who said it
but it goes something like 'your success is forgiven only if you are
generous enough to let others to share it'. That's
perhaps my version of this wisdom but think about it. You have
to buy the acknowledging the contribution of that person.
So basically what I am saying is that the human being is very simple
here. The parent is skeptical about the son's progress to the
point that he appears absurd. This is not absurd. It is a
fact of life. People do not accept progress unless it is made
clear to them that they have been influential in making it
happen. Why? Because people are so vain?
No. Not because they are vain but because they are clever.
If they are not credited for the progress they may feel they are
blamed for the problem in the first place. It becomes possible
to believe in progress only after you have received absolution from
having contributed to the problem and the best way to give that
absolution is to claim that the person has contributed to the
solution. Does this make sense to you? I wish it does
because I think it is a powerful and very useful idea.
From Keren to Nick:
You wrote:
<snip>If I understand you correctly, your saying it may be most
helpful for those involved with the child's treatment to take a step
back and allow others such as the parents and social workers (the
larger system) a more active role in discovering some of the child's
positive changes for themselves.<end snip>
Yes, I believe that you understood me correctly here. I guess
the 'step back' involves being quite tentative when highlighting
exceptions and 'cheerleading' and in addition, asking parents and
social workers, in many different ways and on many different
occasions, what they themselves have noticed about differences in the youth.
<snip>In a fundamental way, it may be just as important for
those of us in residential treatment to include as many 'influential'
people in the child's life as possible to co-create/co-discover
positive changes that the child is making.<end snip>
Yes I agree here too.
I guess the persons that I am concerned most about are those parents
and social workers that when you ask them the question, How long will
Johnny need to maintain these behaviours in order for you to feel
that they are indeed substantial? Become vague in their answers or
simply reply that the child will always have these previous problems
for life.
Do you see this statement that they have made (that 'the child will
always have these problems') do you see this statement of theirs as
their "final" statement or their "current" statement?
As for the vague answers on the part of these folks, I would say this
vagueness belies some ambivalence - which is what I would expect them
to experience, given the youth's history and their own personal
experiences with the youth. They have probably been on the
route of hoping that now the youth has 'really' changed - many, many
times before they meet us at Residential Tx. Now they may be
protecting themselves form further disappointments, by being more
cautious. After all if they expect too much from the youth,
that is not going to be healthy for him/her either.
Expectations which are too high, can set everyone involved up for
more disappointments and for everyone feeling like they have
failed. Could they be letting you know what their pacing is in
this situation? It sounds like it is much slower than what you
were hoping for...
<snip>Yet when the question is asked to the parent and social
worker when will they know that the changes the child has made will
be enough to go back home... the response they give back is that this
child 'is and always will be a time bomb ready to explode...the boy
may not presently show it or may not show it for years but he will
explode as he did before and there will be hell to pay'.
Therefore it seems unlikely that he will go home or ever be 'good
enough' or the parent and social worker to agree to take the risk
needed to agree to allow the child to return home.<end snip>
By the way, is this staff's conclusion: "it seems unlikely that
he will go home" or has this been explicitly stated by dad and
social worker? What you quoted is that they explicitly stated that
the boy 'is and always will be a bomb ready to explode'. And
well, I guess in some way this fear of the unknown of what lies
ahead, does need to be acknowledged. We don't really have any
guarantees about these things.Would they be interested in being part
of the team that is working on dismantling the time bomb, or would
they rather sit back and watch, supportively while others (including
and especially the boy himself) work on the dismantling?
I have been working with a now 16 year old girl in a situation which
bears some similarity to the one you described. In her case,
her mother - adoptive mother - would adamantly state that she was
rescinding all her parental rights and wants nothing to do with the
child, only to change her mind minutes or days or weeks or months
later and then back and forth over and over again. The youth
was on a very painful roller coaster ride with her Mom. The
youth eventually came to the conclusion that going home to the Mom
would not be helpful to maintain her progress and to move forward
toward the goals she had set out for herself (to graduate High
School, go to college, start her own business), and instead she
decided to go to a 'supervised independent living arrangement' (two
girls in an apartment, with a social worker supervising and giving
supportive counseling and help) instead of trying to convince her
mother that she was ready now to go home. She has decided to be
satisfied with this step forward, for now, and will continue to
remain in contact with her mother by phone and for day visits on the
weekends. For her, I think this was a very realistic, practical
step. Maybe someday in the future, her mother will become more
assured that the girl has changed and they will slowly build more
trust of each other and a different living arrangement may be
possible then.
Hope something here was helpful.
From Nick to Keren, Insoo and Ben:
Perhaps a step in this direction may be in our monthly case
conference review instead of starting the meetings by having the
child and youth workers present a report that outlines the progress
the child has made in the group home and then asking parents, social
workers, teachers, etc., if they have noticed these or other changes,
we might want to change things around. By having the parents,
child and other persons not directly affiliated with the group home
initiate a dialogue about the occasions during the past month where
they themselves have noticed differences in the youth and their
relationship with the youth. The residential staff/program can
at that point, provide supporting evidence of the changes they have
noticed in the group home in their own experiences with the
child. I am thinking, by having the parents, child and others
take the lead in identifying change the residential staff can avoid
the position of identifying or overselling change that the parent or
others have not had an experience of helping create and thus feel
skeptical about. This may also help to correctly pace the
client's change in people's perception. I too have found that
client change can happen rapidly and when those involved in the
child's life feel that they have not had agency in this process they
may feel left behind.
In simpler terms, I am suggesting that the residential program take
on a more balanced approach. A stronger emphasis may need to be
placed on having the residential staff/program be the audience for
change with those individuals involved in the child's life outside
the group home. This of course compliments having parents and
others acting as an audience for the child's change within the group
home. This may represent another way that we can continue to
co-create/co-discover opportunities in which everyone's labor bears
fruit and is acknowledged accordingly.
Our discussion has left me thinking about the values of listening,
acknowledgment, collaboration and humility and how they impact
everything we try to do in our service to families...still thinking. END
To join the ongoing discussion on the Solution Focused Therapy
List you can register at their webpage http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/CGI/wa.exe?SUBED1=sft-l&A=1
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The Brief & Narrative Therapy Network