Break the [wounds + unawareness] cycle and guard your descendents

How Mental Health Professionals
Can Help
Prevent Family
Stress and Divorce

By Peter K. Gerlach, MSW

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        This article is one of a series on how concerned lay people and human-service professionals can help to prevent common symptoms of the toxic [wounds + unawareness] cycle. You'll get the most from reading this if you review this four-page introduction first.

        Premise - once professionals like you are aware of the causes and effects of the [wounds + unawareness] cycle, they have a moral obligation to alert other people to them, and work to prevent family stress, wounding, and divorce. Do you agree with this?

        This article offers perspective on...

  • how the cycle may affect you and the people you work with and for, and it...

  • summarizes cycle-prevention options in your profession.

Pause, breathe, and say out loud why you're reading this article. What do you need?

Get to Know Yourself

        To judge whether this article is worth reading, assess three things about yourself:

        Rank yourself on a scale from one (I spend little or no time working to prevent individual, marital, or family dysfunction and stress now) to 5 (my overarching professional goal is to help persons, couples, and families avoid significant dysfunction and distress): ___. If you work in a group setting, rank the central purpose of your group or organization on the same 1 to 5 scale: ___.

        If you rank yourself under 4, you may be unaware of some practical ways you can significantly expand your professional effectiveness. If you're a 4 or 5, you may expand your clinical satisfaction by weaving any or all of the five prevention topics below into your work. If you train, supervise, or consult with other clinicians and human-service professionals, your opportunity is even greater.

        Next, rank your level of current clinical knowledge in these topics from one (I'm a novice) to five (I'm a seasoned expert). Beware: even well-educated people don't know what they don't know about  how to...

  • (a) interest clients in learning about normal personality subselves and recovering from false-self wounds, and (b) facilitate such recovery (1  2  3  4  5)

  • (a) motivate clients to improve their communication effectiveness, and (b) teach clients to use the seven effective-communication skills (1  2  3  4  5)

  • (a) motivate clients to learn healthy-grieving basics, and (b) teach them to apply these basics to their lives  (1  2  3  4  5)

  • (a) motivate clients to learn how to identify primary needs and solve relationship-problems effectively, and (b) coach them to apply this knowledge in their key relationships  (1  2  3  4  5) 

  • (a) motivating divorced-family or stepfamily clients to learn stepfamily basics, and (b) facilitating clients' applying such basics to their current and long-term lives  (1  2  3  4  5)

        Finally - if you aren't at least a 4 in all five topics, assess your motivation to learn more about one or more topics now. One = "I'm not at all motivated," and five = "I'm extremely motivated." My motivation to learn more is now a ___  

        As a student of human nature, relations, and health, you are in a unique position to help others learn to apply these vital topics to their lives before they become clients! If you're not at least moderately interested in learning more about these topics and how to use them to prevent personal and family stress, I suspect this article will be of little value to you.
 


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Updated  October 17, 2008