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Forum Counselor: Michal Herbsman
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Total messages: 7
NVR as a therapist?
ulla
18:32 05.15.2011
I was wondering...
How is it to combine: beeing a psychologist, doing therapy with our youngster... and at the same time showing resistance by doing announcements and sit ins

In our setting, I find it not to be such an easy match. During a sit in the youngsters sometimes express that they don't know any solution, that they don't know how to manage their agressivity for example
Our therapist is trained to answer that question, to look together with the youngster for a way to deal with this... But as part of the resistance she must keep her mouth shut... While playing a totaly other part next week in her individual session with this kid.
On the other hand it's much more easy for us, educators/opvoeders to show resistance: we have much more time to make a connection with these kids, to do 'verzoeningsgebaren'... For a therapist, who has only her sessions, it's much more difficult to make a positive connection and much more dangerous to disturb this connection by doing a sit in for example, because there is not that much time to reïnforce it.


What our the experiences here?

Thanks again!
Ulla
therapist as NVR activist
michal1
20:36 05.16.2011
I think you raise an interesting issue and i'm curious to hear what others think about it too. On the one hand the therapist in the theraputic context does not have a disciplinarian role and offers the youth a safe place, one without judgement or an educational agenda. She/He is not there to correct or demand but rather to reflect and accept. But the therpaist also may repesent boundaries (such as setting) or may insist on such things as saftey and obviously would not accept violence, etc..
In my mind it may be too problematic to have the therapist involved in acts such as a sit-in, espcially if the child has regular sessions with the therpaist. I fear it might "pollute" the theraputic context to have therapist involved in direct NVR actions, but again I'm curious to hear what others have to say.
no annoucements and sit-ins
Annelies
10:44 05.17.2011
I am working as a psychotherapists and I choose not to participate to the announcement and the sit in or w-sms.
I already wrote a support letter and I feel that this is an appropriate action. I also noticed that because of the NVR training, the way I wrote it, is more of NVR compared to how I wrote letters before. I put more attention to the fact that I work in a team and that I support my team members and that I cannot accept violence, but then I also offer my help and support to find a way out.
I already did phone calls to the network as well and this also feels right towards my therapeutic role. I expressed my worries and my good intentions towards the youngster.
An I-SMS is also possible within my role where you use the silence and at the same time you show your presence and support.
This is my experience, and as Michal wrote, I am also interested in more idea’s of other colleagues!
Annelies
NVR as a therapist
Frank Van Holen
22:05 05.30.2011
Dear Ulla,

A first question to my point of view is: "Are you the therapist of the child or one of the educators from whom we expect to enter an educational relationship with the child?" If you are the individual child-therapist, I would do everything to keep your position clear, which doesn't mean that you cannot be supportive. Talk with the child about the bizarre things the educators, parents started doing, ...
I agree with Michal and Annelies and I would carefully consider the desirability of the presence of the individual child-therapist during the sit-in/the announcement. Not only would he/she put at risk his individual therapeutic relationship, he/she would also risk that everybody will be looking at the therapist during the sit-in/announcement with lots of expectations, maybe without anything happening. Not being present and discussing the sit-in / announcement afterwards during the individual therapy with the child could be much more helpfull in my point of view.
Concerning the 'pressure' on the child during the sit-in: Uri Weinblatt did an interesting workshop during the NVR-conference in London (april 2011) and presented some variations on the sit-in for children with specific problems (e.g. internalising problem behavior,...). I have some notes in Dutch ... just let me know if you are interzested...
Frank
Interested
ulla
16:10 05.31.2011
Hello Frank!

Welcome at this forum. As you can see I try to work on my presence here, so I'm glad to see some others present : ) The more presence, the more we can learn.
I'm an educator who felt the tension created by the fact that the therapist all of the sudden had to choose a different role. I discussed it during the teammeating, and we decided to experiment doing it without her.
Another thing we felt was indeed the pressure on this kid. One specific sit-in he entered the room, together with us, willing to coöperate, willing to accept our authority, and came out of the room angry, with distance... because of this tension built up by the use of silence. The first suggestion he made was 'I can stay up in my room all evening, so I don't get mad (so I don't use violence)'. We asked if he sees that as a realistic option, he said maybe not. But than he didn't know, and the fact that we kept quit made him angry. While we felt like he really wanted to look for solutions. We did our 15 minutes and stopped. But afterwards we had mixed feelings: is this the goal? What if we feel that the kid really wants to look together with us, that he needs our help?
I would be very interested in some more information about that tension, if you want to share this...

Thank you,
Ulla
variations on the sit-in
Frank Van Holen
 
21:38 06.02.2011
Dear Ulla,

Maybe I didn't get the whole picture but I was wondering: why would you choose for a unilateral action like the sit-in if you an open constructive conversation without escalation and with positive outcome is possible ?

I added some notes from the workshop by Uri Weinblatt I attended at the London-conference. It are personal notes.They are incomplete but, in my point of view, the essential ideas are displayed.

Yours,
Frank
sit ins
Alex9
18:33 06.12.2011
thanks for sharing this Frank
i was at the workshop but didn't get as thorough notes as you
Alex
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