Continued from p. 1...
Besides steady self and process awarenesses, another personal trait needed
for effective outcomes with trauma-survivors and low-nurturance family
clients is...
Trait 3: Special
Clinical Skills
Premise: a skill is a learned mental, emotional,
spiritual, and/or physical ability to achieve some specific effect on the
environment - like maintaining a high-nurturance family in a changing world. Some skills are
more impactful and difficult to achieve than others - e.g. effective brain
surgery vs. creating attractive Easter eggs. Some skills are innate
("Miko really knows how to tell a good story"), and others are
developed via
focused study, practice, and experience.
You may distinguish between a skill and an art, which adds personal creativity, intuition, and vision to
a skill. Some educators are skilled at transferring knowledge to others.
Others are
that inspire students to love learning and
applying knowledge to achieve their life purposes. Do you see systemic
clinical work as a skill, an art, or both?
Providing effective systemic therapy
is a set of learned and/or innate skills to (a) assess the functioning (nurturance level) of a
human
, and
(b) intervene strategically to promote lasting
(second-order)
Some people are naturally gifted with one or
both abilities, and the rest of us must develop them over time. These
skills are enhanced by didactic and experiential knowledge (requisite 1).
Because
typical divorcing families and stepfamilies are so
and different from intact biofamily systems,
human-service professionals need to develop special
skills to fill their and their clients'
effectively. As you know, being knowledgeable about a
skill differs from demonstrating it.
Basic
clinical skills required for effective
service to any client include...
Pause and
reflect - which of these skills do you feel competent-enough at now, and
which do you need to develop? Are you proactively doing so?
Effective work with
childhood-trauma
and divorcing families and stepfamilies requires developing extra
skills (a) in general, and (b) for each
of the work. Let's overview each of these. Option -
use this as a checklist for skills
you have and others you want to develop.
In General, develop competencies at...
-
applying
to each client case and session, including the metasystem of the clinician +
client family (+ clinical organization If any) + any active consultants
and/or organizations like schools, churches, and legal, medical, welfare,
and law-enforcement agencies;
-
building initial client trust in the
clinician's special knowledge and competence ("I'm very familiar with the
problems you're describing.");
-
discerning (a) the client
and
(b) the initial phase of the work, and
assessing accordingly;
-
assessing multi-home family-system
structures, teaching clients
about them when appropriate, and intervening where needed to improve the
structure;
-
assessing each client's inner and outer family
strengths, and
encouraging clients to identify, affirm, and enjoy them regularly;
-
client adults and kids for false-self
dominance and
and what to
about them;
-
developing and implement a healthy family
over time;
-
assessing client adults
and kids for (a) significant past and recent
(broken
bonds), grieving
and
and incomplete or
and (b) what to
about any problems with these;
-
alerting clients to the
difference between
and
needs, and why and how to
the latter in important and conflictual situations;
-
assessing for
communication and
problem-solving ignorance
and problems, and competence
at
helping to motivate clients to
and improve these. This includes competence at helping client adults understand, avoid, or
spot and resolve significant values
and
conflicts and persecutor-victim-rescuer (PVR) relationship
And effective clinicians will work at
developing special competence at...
-
strategically shifting
clinical modalities between individual, dyadic (marital or parent-child), and family
(group),
as the work progresses;
-
helping clients
learn to
manage personal and family change
effectively.
-
helping clients adults and kids understand the difference between
and why this is important to their family members;
-
educate clients as appropriate on the [wounds + unawareness]
cycle
-
(a) identify any excessive and/or unrealistic divorce-related
and (b)
reduce them to normal. This may require some form of i
-
engaging kids' "other
parents" (ex mates)
and/or their relatives in the work;
-
helping parents (a) understand, accept, and
evaluate the special family-adjustment
needs of each minor child, and (b) agree on how to help kids fill
these and concurrent developmental
needs cooperatively.
-
assessing and intervening
effectively with these presenting and underlying
problems;
-
using personal and client
spirituality
as a resource;
-
using
handouts and homework assignments to facilitate the work;
-
evaluating professional consultants
(e.g. a grief, wound-recovery, or child therapist), and (b) if, how, and when to use them in the
work;
-
advising local law,
school, welfare, and medical systems on the adjustment and long-term needs of these complex client families;
-
clarifying couples' current and long-term
-
motivating couples to maintain a stable, long-range viewpoint (e.g. 25-30 years),
-
motivating couples to rank-order their
current and long-term primary (vs. surface) needs;
-
assess the client-family's support system, and motivate clients to use
relevant resources (e.g. wound recovery,
divorce recovery,
and stepfamily education and
that other clients don't require;
and...
-
know how to spot and admit personal
burnout, and what
to do about it; and...
-
know how to judge and use effective
supervision and
peer support; and...
-
know if, how, and when to promote effective
clinical termination.
Pause
and reflect - what are you aware of as you read this summary of required general
clinical skills?
Recall
why you're reading this, and
continue with a summary of special clinical skills required for each
phase of the work with these clients. Do you need a break before continuing?
+ + +
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Web address of this two-page article is https://sfhelp.org/pro/req/intro.htm