Integrating Adventure Education to Spice Up Training Sessions and Augment Change Talk MINT Forum

1. Integrating Adventure Education to Spice Up Training Sessions and Augment Change TalkMINT Forum Richard Rutschman, Ed. D. Chicago Teachers’ Center Northeastern Illinois University

2. Today’s Session WHAT? • Activities Useful for Training Sessions – Increase interaction, emotional safety & energize participants – Insight on mind-brain • Activities To Reinforce MI Spirit & the Nuanced Skills of MI – Verbal & Non-Verbal Communication – Empathy (emotional attunement, mirror neurons) • Activities to Review Concepts Learned • Way to Support/Guide Clients Through Change Process HOW? • Large Circles, Small Circles, Pairs, Pop-Corn Discussion OUTCOME: Build “integrative neural fibers” as a result of our multi-modal interaction.

3. The Brain Simulation • 50 or more Neurotransmitters • Balanced levels in accordance with what is going on in the environment is critical • Stress neuro-chemicals important but need to be balanced and over abundant long term

4. Social exclusion [emotional threats] makes the same part of the brain light up as pain.Praise [affirmations] makes the same part of the brain light up as winning a prize. Affirmations?

5. FEAR, RAGE or PANIC

6. Look at the words below, say out loud the COLOR not the word from left to right:

7. Face and eye contact are hard wired into our neural circuits… Right brain perceives and sends messages through facial expressions, left brain through words.* *Seigel, 2012. The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are (2nd Ed); Guilford Press: NY, p. 176-177

8. Activities to Enhance Learning • Finger Catch (hemispheres) • Challenge by Choice (autonomy) • Zones (self-determination/self-efficacy) • Brain Simulation (environment affects mental process, change) • Webbing Circle Activities (overcoming fear, relying on others for support) • Finger Trust Walk (trust & rapport building for therapeutic alliance)

9. Processingthe Experience • Guiding Skills: a) head & heart/reflecting experience, b) generalizing/making meaning/evoking change talk, c) application/evoking commitment language)

10. Activities to Understand & Reinforce MI Spirit & the Nuanced Skills of MI

11. Attunement of mental states through nonverbal connection is a collaborative communication that is needed on the part of therapists, parents and really in all human relationships.* *Seigel, 2012. The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are (2nd Ed); Guilford Press: NY, p. 94-95.

12. Emotions • Emotions serve to connect one mind to another. • Emotional processing prepares the brain and the rest of the body for action, to “evoke motion.” • Emotions are critical to memory, learning and decisionmaking • Non-verbal communication conveys emotions (facial expression, tone, posture, gestures) • The circuits that connect emotions include the Prefrontal Cortex with the Amygdala (tend to be on the right side of that vertical connection)

13. Empathy • Empathy provides the attunement to help a person organize their mind.* • “Mirror properties in our brain enable us to imagine empathically what is going on inside another person.”^ • Mirror Neurons involve cells that are both motor and perceptually activated. *Seigel, 2012, p. 175 ^Ibid, p. 165.

14. Mirror Neurons • Empathy involves Mirroring • Subconscious Mirroring • Synchronic Integration

15. Activities to Understand & Reinforce MI Spirit & the Nuanced Skills of MI • Traps (Avoiding the Righting Reflex and other traps) • Verbal Communication/Reflection Activities • Chiji Cards (Practice Affirmations and Reflective Listening) • Non-Verbal Communication— • Meeting Eyes (Energizer, Non-verbal communication) • Screaming Toes “ “ • Whose Go My Money? (Energizer, Non-verbal communication) • Space Counting (reflective listening, collaborative communication) • Lean Walk (Collaborative Communication, Guiding) • Exploration of Empathy • Collaborative-Integrative Conversation to Resolve Ambivalence (connecting neural circuits)

16. The Importance of Neural Integration Interpersonal Relationships/Communication are Essential to Neural Integration

17. Collaborative Communication • Collaborative Communication is Integrative, promoting growth of integrative fibers in the brain (Seigel, 2012) • Imagining change begins the process of rewiring the brain.

18. The Benefits of Neural Integration • Improves memory • Makes relationships stronger • Increases creativity and efficiency • Increases resiliency and flexibility • Improves problem-solving skills • Helps a person create the life they want

19. Ways to Promote Neural Integration = MI • Balance nurturance and optimal stress (guide) • Empathic attunement (empathy, affirmations, reflection) • Involvement of both affect and cognition (reflective listening) • Simultaneous activation of neural networks (OARS/DARN CAT) • Affect regulation (change steps/process) • Co-construction of narratives (Reflective Listening) Cozolino, L. (2011). The Neuroscience of Psychotherapy, 2nd ed. NY: W.W. Norton & Co., Inc.

20. Activities to Review MI Concepts • Smith Circles • All My Friends • Face-Off

21. Activity Descriptions/Contact Information To obtain a copy of the activities: Go to Greenhandouts@gmail.com (as if it was your own account) password: greenhand forward the message to yourself. Contact me at r-rutschman@neiu.edu and request a copy or other request.

22. Bibliography Adventure Education/Therapy: Cavert, Chris & Steven Simpson (2010). The Chiji Guidebook. Wood ‘n’ Barnes Publishing, Bethany, OK. Cavert, Chris & L. Frank (1999). Games for Teachers. Wood ‘n’ Barnes Publishing, Bethany, OK. Frank, Laurie (2004). Journey Toward the Caring Classroom. Wood ‘n’ Barnes Publishing, Bethany, OK. Frank, L. .Carlin & J. Christ (2008). Leading Together. Wood ‘n’ Barnes Publishing, Bethany, OK. Lung, Maurie, Gary Stauffer and Tony Alvarez (2008). The Power of One (Adventure with one on one counseling). Wood ‘n’ Barnes Publishing, Bethany, OK. Gass, Michael (1993). Adventure Therapy. Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, Dubuque, IO. Rohnke, Karl & Steve Butler (1995). Quicksilver: Adventure Games, Initiative Problems, Trust Activities. Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, Dubuque, IO. Rohnke, (1989)Cowstails & Cobras II. Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, Dubuque, IO.

23. Bibliography Brain-Mind/Neuroscience: Amen, Daniel (1998). Change Your Brain Change Your Life; Three Rivers Press: NY. Boleyn-Fitzgerald, Miriam (2010). Pictures of the Mind: What the new Neuroscience Tells Us About Who We Are; Pearson Education: NJ. Caine, Geoggrey and Renate N. Caine (2001). The Brain, Education, and the Competitive Edge; Scarecrow Press: Lanham, Maryland. Caine, Renate N. and G. Caine, C. McClintic and K. Klimek (2009). 12 Brain/Mind Learning Principles in Action: Developing Executive Functions of the Human Brain; Corwin Press: Thousand Oaks, CA. Cozolino, Louis (2010). The Neuroscience of Psychotherapy: Healing the Social Brain; Norton: NY. Handson, Rick (2009). Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of happiness, love and Wisdom; New Harbinger Publications: Oakland, CA.

24. Bibliography Jensen, Eric (19998). Teaching with the Brain in Mind, ASCD, Alexandria, VA. Horstman, Judith (2009). The Scientific American Day in the Life of Your Brain: A 24 Hour Journal of What’s Happening in Your Brain; Jossey-Bass: San Francisco. Pink, Daniel (2006). A Whole New Mind; Riverhead Books: NY. Restak, Richard (2006). The Naked Brain: How the Emerging Neuroscience is Changing How We Live, Work and Love; Three Rivers Press: NY. Schwartz, Jeffery and Sharon Begley (2003). The Mind & The Brain: Neoplasticity and the Power of Mental Force; HarperCollins: NY. Seigel, Daniel (2012). The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are (2nd Ed); Guilford Press: NY. Seigel, Daniel (2011). Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation; Bantom Books: NY. Strauch, Barbara (2003). The Primal Teen: What the New Discoveries About the Teenage Brain Tell Us about Our Kids; Anchor Books: NY.