Relationship at the Centre: The Heart of Support Work

1. Relationship at the Centre: The Heart of Support Work Paul McGahey, Counselling Service and Jacqueline Szumko, English Language Study Unit, Loughborough University

2. Questions to keep in mind during the Workshop: • Are we comfortable with the term “support”? • Is the implication that the person who offers support is stronger, more able, better? • Do we think we are? • How could our attitudes be affecting our students and the way we approach our work?

3. What’s happening during a meeting with a student?

4. Relationship at the Centre: The Heart of Support Work The Practice of Humanity and Humility in in Neurodiverse “Support”

5. Humanity and Humility • Fundamental assumption = each person’s experience is unique (each person is unique), we don’t know what each person will talk about, each is a new and different person • Consequently we need to listen with fresh ears and eyes – falling into the trap of “we’ve heard it all before” does not respect the student and even makes the student an “object” of our beneficence – a charity case (disempowering)

6. “Exploratory partnerships” (Herrington, 2001) • Exploratory because we don’t presume to have all the answers – we’re working it out together (the student is the one with the best knowledge of his/her profile, albeit implicit) • Partnership because the tutor and student are equal agents in the relationship (our aim is empower the student).

7. In an exploratory partnership, the tutor • Understands the power of teacher expectation in relation to student learning • Has strong expectations that student will achieve more control • Expects individuals to change over time • “They [tutors] must work to re-connect learners with their own resourcefulness and to develop their own ‘voices’.” (Herrington, 2001:175)

8. The student as an agent of his/her own change/progress The client operates on a therapist’s procedures by: • Investing life in them • Thinking about the process • Extracting meaning • Creatively using procedures • Translating therapy experiences into everyday life – to create change. (Bohart, 1999) Sounds familiar?

9. In an “exploratory partnership” • Students synthesise knowledge and experience and so begin to feel more comfortable in their own skin • Students doing it their way – putting their own spin on strategies presented (which we can use with other students – validation, power sharing) • Students develop their own voices for self advocacy

10. The Paradoxical Theory of Change “.. . change occurs when one becomes what he is, not when he tries to become what he is not.” (Beisser, 1970:1) (So it’s very important to listen!)

11. (More) Humility • To listen with fresh ears, we have to continually reassess our practice. • This involves self-examination of our attitudes and intentions (Moon, 2006:1; Bozarth, 2000:5). • We need to “Promote a receptive, listening, open exploratory mindset in contrast to a defensive, overly deliberative, analytic mindset.” (Bohart, 2005:4). • “…I am learning not to be right, but to be better; not to do things for the praise (a predatory attitude), but to value work when it only matters to my horse (patient) and me…” Beutler, p.215 in Bohart)

12. Collaborative Relationship • “…Therapy is a collaborative relationship between two intelligent agents… Therapy can be seen as facilitating and/or freeing clients’ intrinsic generative self-righting tendencies.” Bohart (2005:1) • Does a similar principle apply in neurodiverse “support” work?