Overview

1. Allendale’s Counter-ResponseSM Modeland the Power of Looking Within : Application in School Environments 2007 Conference on Best Practices & Guidelines for Non-public Special Education Programs – Division of Special Education, ISBE November 30, 2007 Presenters: Dr. Pat Taglione, Mary Shahbazian, & Lisa West The Allendale Association

2. Overview • Introduction to Counter-ResponseSM and the LSCI principles of the Double Struggle, Conflict Cycle, and Timeline • QI Structure – Data Collection and Evidence-Based Practice • Implementation Model and Staff Training

3. Life Space Crisis Intervention Overview • LSCI: developed by Long and Wood, based on original work of Fritz Redl, for settings specific to specialized E/BD educational environments. • LSCI Institute founded in 1997, currently has 28 National Training sites as well as utilization in Europe and New Zealand; Allendale Association is a National Training Site.

4. LSCI Served as the Springboard for the Development of Allendale’s Counter-Response Training Program. The following concepts were expanded upon to create the CR model: • The Double Struggle • The Conflict Cycle • The Time-Line

5. “Double Struggle” LSCI Intervention • Double Struggle: adult takes the youth’s acting-out behavior personally, and ultimately reacts emotionally as well • May inadvertently escalate the youth’s behavior • Youth is no longer the central focus of the crisis • Resolve youth crisis while addressing the issue of adult behavior during a crisis (Long, 1990)

6. Counter-Aggression: • angry feelings generated in adults when confronted with aggressive or non-compliant behavior on the part of the youth • Counter-Indulgence: • fearful oroverly sympathetic feelingsgenerated in adults when confronted with aggressive behavior or pleas for indulgence on the part of the youth • LSCI emphasizes the concept of counter-aggression • Counter-ResponseSM Training includes the concepts of both counter-aggression and counter-indulgence Expansion of “Double Struggle” Concept in the Development of Counter-ResponseSM Training

7. Fight or Flight Response to Stress –one’s inherent physiological reaction to a crisis or unconditioned aversive stimulus Type of Counter-Response • Counter-Aggression = Fight Response • Counter-Indulgence = Flight Response

8. CHANGE UNDERSTAND COUNTER-AGGRESSION(Fight Syndrome) Lack of Balance

9. UNDERSTAND CHANGE COUNTER-INDULGENCE(Flight Syndrome) Lack of Balance

10. AND CHANGE UNDERSTAND THE KEY IS BALANCE…

11. Treatment Trap Counter - Indulgence Counter - Aggression Transfer/ Discharge COUNTER-RESPONSE TRAP

12. UNDERSTAND CHANGE Splitting SPLITTING

13. When people work together to manage their own counter-response and thereby eliminate splitting - the focus is back on the youth which provides the opportunity for change to occur CONSENSUS YOUTH

14. What is a Counter-Response? Response That Counters the Other Person’s Behavior Response Driven by our Emotions

15. Counter-Response • Other Person’s Behavior – acts as trigger (Stage 4 of the conflict cycle) B. Your Emotional Reaction • From the other person • From your past C. Your Counter-Response Behavior • To avoid feeling your emotional reaction

16. Projection Kids project their feelings onto the adults in an attempt to get rid of these feelings

17. Projective Identification Kids Get Us To Feel Their Feelings via nonverbal behaviors “Right Brain-to-Right Brain communication” “…People induce those closest to them to behave in prescribed ways. It is as if one individual forces another to play a role in the enactment of that person’s internal drama – one involving early object relationships… An individual unconsciously projects a part of the self into another human being as a means of converting an inner struggle…into an external one.”(Cashdan, 1988)

18. Our Own Projections We may project someone from our past onto the kids

19. Often we respond with some behavior as a way to try to manage these feelings We call this COUNTER-RESPONSE

20. Our Response to the Youth’s Behavior is the Only Thing We Have Control Over ~ Thus the Only Thing That We Can Change

21. We call this “The Power of Looking Within” versus “Fighting the Enemy Out There” (Senge, 1990)

22. “The Cure Lies in Your Relationship with Your ‘Enemy’” (Senge, 1990, p.67) Once You Have Identified and Managed Your Counter-Response

23. II. Conflict Cycle/Re-Enactment (Repetition Compulsion)

24. The Conflict Cycle Relational Trauma Re-Enactment Attachment Model View of Self & Others Trauma History meaning of behavior/ youth’s conflict 2 Stressful Event 3 Youth’s Feelings 5 Adult/Youth Reactions (Feelings Behavior) 4 Youth’s Behaviors (Wood & Long, 1991) Modified

25. Understanding Re-Enactment (Conflict Cycle) Explicit Memory (Semantic/Episodic) Implicit Memory (Procedural) Left Brain (Verbal) Right Brain (Nonverbal) (Siegel, 1999)

26. Implicit & Explicit Memory • If brain’s ability to translate an implicit memory into explicit memory (right brain to left brain) has been blocked • Memory is triggered in right brain (implicit memory) without any awareness (explicit memory) that a memory is being triggered • Instead of feeling like one is remembering a past event, the individual feels that he or she is actually in the event (Siegel, 1999)

27. Repetition Compulsion (Conflict Cycle) Client remembers nothing (at least not consciously), but expresses it in action “The compulsion to repeat…replaces the impulse to remember” The repetitive behavior will persist until the meaning of the behavior comes into consciousness Memories that have been denied and paradoxically preserved through acting-out symptoms need to be translated into conscious recollection ( i.e., explicit memory) (Freud 1914/2003) Aim of repetition compulsion – not to master conflict but to avoid painful memories and feelings (Masterson, 1981)

28. Kids & the Repetition Compulsion Why do kids do the same thing over and over again even if it doesn’t seem to work for them? • They don’t remember the conflict(s) they have repressed but instead keep repeating it in their behavior without being aware that they are doing this (Freud, 1914/2001) • The goal of this behavior (repeating a pattern of behavior over and over again) is to avoid memory and experience of painful feelings (Masterson, 1981)

29. Interrupting the Conflict Cycle (or the Repetition Compulsion) Cognitive-Behavioral - opportunity to learn new skills Neurobiology - opportunity to: integrate right brain with left brain (more integrated representations) make implicit memory explicit (bring those memories into awareness) create new neural pathways Psychodynamic – opportunity to : replace repeated acting-out by putting feelings into words create a “coherent narrative” (make sense of one’s experiences) Attachment – opportunity to: make sense of one’s experience within a secure attachment

30. Knowledge of the Youth’s Conflict Cycle and Awareness of Our Counter-Response (Double Struggle) • Enable adult to understand the source of the adult’s feelings that the youth has created or induced in the adult • Help adult not to automatically act on one’s own feelings • Enable adult to keep one’s feelings from dictating how one should behave and to make decisions on what one believes would be helpful to this youth at this time (Wood & Long, 1991)

31. Counter-Response Unpleasant Reality Sea of Feelings

32. Counter-Response Conflict Cycle Unpleasant Reality Sea of Feelings

33. Counter-Response Unpleasant Reality Sea of Feelings

34. Counter-Response Managing... Unpleasant Reality Sea of Feelings

35. III. Timeline/Coherent Narrative

36. Developing Coherent Narrative via the Time Line Discover, by listening and benign questioning, the youth’s perception of the situation (Understanding) Encourage youth to tell his/her story and feel understood and accepted (Understanding) Help youth learn to make sense of his/her experience in a way that integrates the reality of the situation (Change)

37. Decoding Coherent Narrative LSCICR Training Help youth connect a feeling to a Connect feelings to behavior as youthbehavior; then youth is less likely is actually experiencing the feeling asto act out this feeling in destructive a result of the interruption of his/her behavior conflict cycle Translate implicit memory (NV) into explicit memory (V) As youth is exposed to feelings and memories that the youth has been able to avoid by re-enacting his/her conflict cycle, the youth is able to face his/her unpleasant reality and make sense of one’s experience by verbalizing with a caring adult

38. LSCI Concepts of Double Struggle, Conflict Cycle, & Time Line • Double StruggleCounter-Response • Conflict CycleRelational Trauma Re-Enactment (Attachment Style) • Time Line Coherent Narrative

39. splitting CR INTERVENTIONS Counter-Response Be aware of it Don’t act on it Manage the feeling Identify hero/villain roles (Double Struggle) Re-Enactment Interrupt it Don’t re-enact it Face unpleasant reality Balance Und/Chg - Do something different (Conflict Cycle) Coherent Narrative Help youth make sense of one’s experience (Timeline)

40. Implementation and QI Structure Staff Training Data collection Feedback Loop

41. Allendale CR TrainingSM Implementation Model Didactic Presentation – School-wide Group Format (At all levels of the school, including administrative, supervisory, and pupil support services) Application and Follow-up Classroom Team-Based Individualized Treatment Planning Engagement through Parent Clinical Consultation Parent and Classroom Conflict Cycle-Focused Dialogue Meeting Individual Counter-Response Training for Professional Development Individual Counter-Response Training for Staff Corrective Action Community-Based Emergency Responders (Police, Paramedics); Public School Educational Staff; Clinical Supervisors; Psychologist, Social Workers, and Other Mental Health Professionals Dealing with Traumatized Youth; Conflictual Couples

42. QI Structure Data collection Identification of student’s conflict cycle and tracking of manifested behaviors (truancy, noncompliance, aggression, self-harm, etc.) – creates evidence for informed decision making. Level of positive engagement (attendance, interest in extracurricular activities, grades/credit earnings, etc.) Level of parent engagement Annual academic progress Feedback Loop Data collection continually informs treatment process and treatment goals, provides evidence of the effectiveness of interventions, or lack thereof to support the adults in determining what to do differently.