A Team Approach To Dealing with an Irrational Client Trina A. Nudson, JD, LBSW Terri Clinton- Dichiser, MA, JD, LCPC, NCC Elizabeth Graham, MS, LCPC, NCC, BCC, CDTC •
Co-Parenting Therapy: The Best of Intentions • Professionals in the field saw the effects of conflict On the parent’s mental health • The children’s mental health • AND the legacy of further generations • Unresolved conflict (perpetual problems) left few • options for resolution, • New option to assist the family in resolving conflict
Therapist Goals • Learn to work together with the other parent with new skills in a constructive process versus destructive process
What we have learned • Cases are very complex • Typically not sent to co-parenting until relationship is high conflict • The most difficult clients are sent to co-parenting therapy
Challenges of Process to be Solved: Client’s Needs Client’s Agenda’s And Goals • The clients want to be understood and validated about • their pain. They want a place to say/direct their unresolved pain • at the co-parent and the therapist They want the therapist to protect them against the • person who harmed them (the monster) Have to because attorney or court requiring • Resistant reluctant clients and low motivation: • scheduling difficulties, financial stress, limited time to meet and implement a plan
Challenges Continued Unaddressed mental health needs: Depression, Anxiety, PTSD, alcohol, substance abuse, etc • Attachment styles • Unresolved grief • Major life stressor •
Challenges Continued • Therapist tries to calm client dysregulation prevent escalation and teach skills stop and others are applied. • Joint sessions Clients or in stress response • Therapists trying to manage two individual’s stress • response and the hidden dragon in the room
Fight, Flight, Freeze • Facing perceived threat our body responds quickly • Before this kept us alive and the human race evolving
Stress Response • The Stress Response
What happens to us and our clients? • Fight: bully, verbally attack, attack person’s reputation, physically attack, take them to court • Flight: deny it exists, run away or make all attempts to avoid • Freeze: disengage, quiet, might try to appease
The complexity of perceived danger: fight or flight, freeze or fold If you are frightened and unwanted: • brain specializes in managing feelings of fear and abandonment. • Mirror neurons are our “neural WiFi” about another person’s • movements, emotional states and intentions. It also makes people vulnerable to others’ negativity-hijacked by • other’s Often people who are upset say they are “losing their minds” and • in technical terms what they are communicating is a loss of executive functioning. The left brain is not working well and when this changes often • people look for someone or something to blame.
Assessment for Services Evaluate for Evaluate for Co-Parenting Individual Therapy or Therapy Divorce Coaching Co-Parenting: Divorce Coaching: Depression, when able to be in If associated with Anxiety, PTSD, room with Dysregulated and prior trauma Grief co-parent and need skills apply skills
• Continue to assess needs of client Address therapeutic needs • Address relationship needs • • Help them deal with the stress response • We need to help people learn to to safely mirror and be mirrored and how to resist being hijacked by other’s negative emotions
Similarities and Differences Between Counseling/ Therapy and Coaching
Definition of Therapy Professional help in handling and processes private problems such as behavior-related, • job-related, • marriage, • school, • rehabilitative, • school-based, • life-stage and • emotionally rooted problems •
Definition of Coaching • Coaching is partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential. • A professional coaching relationship exists when coaching includes a business agreement or contract that defines the responsibilities of each party.
Gorilla Experiment • https://youtu.be/nJyWIghprxI
Therapy Focus is on uncovering and recovering • Seeking an expert • Assumes a level of dysfunction in client’s ability to manage • life Past is important in seeking triggers, traumas, family • patterns Often painful and slow process, emotional • Diagnosis or label of problem •
Coaching: Focus is on Discovering Seeking a partnership • Client sets goals, actions, stays in client’s language • Assumes client has answers, wisdom and ability to reach goals with • stretch, not driven by emotions “What is wrong with you is beside the point. What is right with you • is the point.” Four areas of work – define goals, formulate plans, hold client • accountable, provide structure, support and encouragement.
Therapists, Psychologists, Counselors and other Mental Health Professionals: • Regulated by laws • HIPPA protects confidentiality • Established standards for education, internship and supervision • State boards monitor for assuring legal and ethical practice • Services may be reimbursed by insurance
Coaching Professionals • Inconsistent regulation • No consistent training requirements • No established minimal standards for practice • Is not typically covered by insurance • No standards for confidentiality
• A coach cannot do therapy with a coaching client. They must refer out to an appropriate mental health professional. • It is important to find coaches who have the experience of working with divorce issues.
Co-Parenting/ Divorce Coaching helps the client • self-discover, • explore other options AND • shift their perspective to consider other possible solutions.
The American Bar Association defines divorce coaching as “a flexible, goal-oriented process designed to support, motivate, and guide people going through divorce to help them make the best possible decisions for their future, based on their particular interests, needs, and concerns.” Co-Parenting/ Divorce Coaches work with clients in even the most conflictual circumstances, supporting them in their journey to be their best self, championing their strengths, and putting them back in touch with their values in order to help them make the best decisions.
Where Is Your Divorce Client On the Credibility Spectrum?
What Co-Parenting/Divorce Coaching Can Do For You? • Co-Parenting/Divorce Coaching can give you a client who… • Deals with the business of divorce rather than the story of divorce; • Asks relevant questions; • Possesses sound communication skills; and • Has reasonable expectations of the court system.
What Co-parenting/Divorce Coaching Can Do for You? • Co-Parenting/Divorce Coaching can give you a client who… • Deals with the business of divorce rather than the story of divorce; • Asks relevant questions; • Possesses sound communication skills; and • Has reasonable expectations of the court system
Divorce can make clients crazy….logic, rational thought and commons sense are often sacrificed, for bitterness and resentment of the past. Before a client moves so far into his/her story that therapy or medication is necessary…co-parenting coaching/divorce coaching can help.
How do you know a client is right for coaching? They are locked into one option and refuse to consider other • possible solutions; They refuse to examine any other perspective but their own; • They are either overly optimistic or overly pessimistic about how • things will turn out for them in Court; They seek relief from their highly emotional state and are willing • to pay any price for that relief- seeking revenge or complexly throwing in the towel; They lose sigh what is best for the children. •
A Co-Parenting/ Divorce Coach can help your client feel heard; get organized to work more effectively with you; and thereby enable you to focus more fully on the important legal aspects of their divorce.
Is It Confidential? • Yes and No. It is confidential to the extent that coaches do not share information with other, but it is discoverable and not protected by HIPPA as therapy is. • An attorney, however, can sponsor divorce coaching. Enter into a contract with the Co-Parenting/Divorce Coach and then it is subject to attorney client privilege.
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