The Web address of this
two-page article is
http://sfhelp.org/etx/intro.htm
Clicking any link in these pages will open an informational popup or
new window, so please turn off
your browser's popup blocker or accept popups from this non-profit Web
site.
This research-based, nonprofit Web site exists to...
provide clinical options to
break the unseen
[wounds and unawareness]
cycle
that is silently depleting our families, society, and environment;
This article introduces a series on
effective
professional counseling, coaching, and therapy with (a)
divorcing, step, and other low-nurturance ("dysfunctional")
client families; and with (b)
typical survivors of childhood
neglect
and trauma - "Grown Wounded Children (GWCs)."
In these articles, "co-parent" means any part-time or full-time
caregiving adult in a family. The "/" in re/marriage and re/divorce
notes it may be a stepparent's first union.
These articles for professionals
are under construction.
Before continuing, pause and reflect - why are you reading this article?
What do you
need?
+ + +
I am an ex-engineer, trainer,
educator, and a
veteran eclectic
family-systems therapist.
I've special-ized in working
with divorcing-family, stepfamily, and trauma-recovery
(wounded) clients since 1981.This
article introduces a modular series
of Web articles for
professional counselors and therapists and their trainers and supporters. It summarizes what I've learned about
providing effective help to these multi-prob-lem clients.
This series builds on an
extensive web of articles, worksheets,
and related guidebooks
for anyone interested in (a) personal wholistic health and inner-wound reduction; and
(b) effective thinking, communi-cating; grieving, and relationships.
The series melds and adapts the
ideas ofmany other theoreticians,
researchers, and veteran clinicians.
This series is written to typicalstudent and practicing clinicians and
their instructors, consultants, program designers and directors, employers, and evaluators. Most of the principles here apply to
working with any family and raising the harmony and productivity of
most human groups. Effective therapy with
persons, couples, and families is a complex, controversial subject
and process. Most of these articles are outlines, with links
to more detail.
You're welcome to download, link to, and/or cite any of these articles if you don't intend to profit financially. Please cite
me as the author (Peter K. Gerlach, MSW), and this Web site
(Break the Cycle! - www.sfhelp.org) as the source. If you wish to
profit from these articles or guidebooks, please see
this.
Terminology, Premises, and Assumptions
I suspect some of the ideas here are significantly different than what
you were taught. To get the most from reading these articles, I invite you to
choose the unbiased curiosity of a
student as you eval-uate this model.
Terminology
Review
these terms to better understand what I'm trying to express. Also scan this
lay
glossary as a potential
client resource.
Premises
See how you feel about these core premises
underlying this clinical model:.
All human behavior, including communication,
is caused by the ceaseless instinctual drive to reduce current
discomforts (needs). All
personal and social "problems" are unmet needs.
Typical troubled relationships and families of any sort are
stressed by five things, caused by an inherited [wounds +
unawareness]
cycle and a
society in protective denial:
up to six significant psychological
("false self")
wounds
promoted by a
low-nurturance childhood;
and...
adults' personal
unawareness of
their and others'
primary needs, and the
dynamic pro-cesses inside and between them; and adults'...
incomplete or
blocked grief in one or more family
members; and finally...
little informed community and media help with these family stressors.
Premise - These universal stressors will
continue to promote widespread American family
dys-function
and divorce until the public, legislators,
and human-service policy-makers understand and accept the [wounds
+ unawareness] cycle, and act
decisively to break it.
This non-profit Web site and clinical model are based on
other interrelated premises that stem from
those above. Compare them to
what you currently believe.
The extent to which our premises match will determine how useful you
find the ideas in these articles.
Assumptions About You
These clinical articles are based on some guesstimates about you. See how well they
fit...
you want to provide
effective professional
services
to your clients, patients, and students;
you have - or are absorbing - basic training
in human development, behavior,
systems; "pathology;" and some
version/s of the therapeutic
(change) process;
despite your training and clinical and
personal experience, many elements in this model will be new to
you, and/or will challenge your basic beliefs.
you probably have significant false-self
wounds that you may or may not (want to be) be aware of. If so,
your
false self will shape your reaction to this
clini-cal model.
A false self may cause you to doubt or reject the core
premise of normal
personality subselves and related psychological wounds.
If so, please
read this letter to you, try
this safe, interesting exercise, and read
this real-life example of subselves at work.
the
inevitable differences between our personal and
professional backgrounds and experience will cause some dissonance between us. You probably don't have
an equivalent to my training and 17-year experience in engineering
and business, or years of training and experience in clinical hypnosis,
com-munication, and internal family systems ("parts") work. I
surely lack some of your experience and expertise.
If you have worked at personal recovery from childhood
trauma as I have since 1987, your lear-nings and experiences will be unique in
important ways. We probably have different mentors and
clinical heroes, too. Finally...
Pause
and reflect - what are you aware of now? Can you tell if your
true Self is
guiding your person-ality
now? If not - who is?
What's Different About This Clinical Model?
This clinical
model is
based on 28 years' experience with over 1,000 Midwestern-US clients. It is the antithesis of short term, problem-focused therapy,
and is
a unique combination of these elements...
A strategic mix of couple + family + individual (intrapsychic) modalities.
The general process focuses first on...
personal, couple, or
family
presenting (superficial) problems, then on...
gradually discerning
and filling (a) unmet individual and couple
primary needs
and (b)
improving problem-solving strategies; and then if clients are
motivated, focusing on...
significant
losses (broken bonds)
and what they mean,
the effectiveness of their personal and family
grieving policies and
practices; and to...
evaluate personal progress on
grieving major losses
(broken bonds) on mental + emotional + spiritual levels;
and this clinical
model aims to raise client's and co-workers' awareness of ...
significant
adjustment tasks and stressors in typical divorcing families and
stepfamilies, how to patiently reduce
barriers to managing them effectively, and to patiently evolve a high-nurturance
family system as a
team.
This clinical model proposes that
all significant family
role and relationship problems are caused by adult unawareness of
the inherited cycle of psychological [
wounds + ignorance] of several key
topics. The model
emphasizes prevention
over stress-reduction.
Key Implications of these Premises
This clinical model adapts the
internal family systems
model
conceptualized by American psy-chologist Dr. Richard Schwartz and
colleagues in the 1980s. This scheme builds on earlier theo-rists
to propose that all normal child and adult
personalities are comprised of "subselves" - dis-crete semi-autonomous
entities with special talents and goals like the players in an
orchestra or sports team.
Implication - the
process between clinician and clients is inevitably shaped by the
dynamic subselves of each person involved.
If a clinician (a) is often
guided by a false self, and (b) doesn't want to including intrapsychic
work, effective clinical outcomes are unlikely.
This model is based on the premise that
all human behavior and "problems" are
caused by unfilled psychological + spiritual + physiological needs(discomforts). So typical clients need to learn
how to...
discern their and other people's current
primary (vs. surface) needs, and how to...
effectively fill their needs and resolve
need-conflictsinside and between them,
using
mutual-respect
attitudes and seven practical communication
skills.
Implication - to be
effective, clinicians must need to be (a) steadily
aware
of their own and their clients' current needs, and know how to balance,
prioritize, and satisfy them.
Clinicians ents' personal and family "problems" (unfilled
needs) can be avoided and resolved if client adults (a)
admit and want to
reduce their false-self wounds, and (b) become motivated to learn and apply these
key topics in their lives and homes; and...
If clinicians and case
managers don't flex strategically between
family, couple, dyadic, and intra-psychic modalities with typical
low-nurturance client systems, effective outcomes are less likely;.
This model proposes that
(a) all people and families experience significant losses (broken
bonds), and typial membes of low-nurturance families often are unable to
grieve well.
Implication -
clinicians must have a healthy personal grieving policy, and thorough
knowledge of (a) the three-level mourning process, and (b) how to assess
clients' ability to grieve well. Otherwise, their professional service
may be ineffective or even harmful.
Pause and reflect on what you just read. What are the main differences
between these ideas and your current clinical paradigm for permanently
improving clients' family-system functioning?
Main Clinical Topics
To help you find what you need quickly, the articles in this series
for professionals are modular rather than sequential. One inevitable tradeoff is some redundancy
among the articles. Key topical areas here include...
Key personal and organizational
requisites for effective clinical work
with complex, low-nurturance client systems;
Articles on the
therapeutic process with any
person, couple, or client family; and...
Next
- (a) how to best use these clinical articles, and (b) an overview of core
problems with typical divorcing-family, stepfamily, and childhood-trauma
survivors based on the [wounds + ignorance] cycle.
The Web address of this
two-page article is
http://sfhelp.org/etx/intro.htm 
Terminology, Premises, and Assumptions