I am fascinated by the perseverance of old ideas. In particular, I will focus on treatment methods in psychology and social work. All of them are built on the psychotherapeutic model, which demands that the client needs to be reasonably well-functioning. In other words, he must be able to come to sessions all by himself, … [Read more…]
Each fall I go down to the cemetery, in the center of the city. There, I pick up horse chestnuts, which have come down from the trees. It is a peaceful and meditative exercise, done in the golden sunshine, so typical for this season. Later on, I put these chestnuts in the pocket of … [Read more…]
When I supervised motivation workers this week, I was once again reminded of the risk of being burnt out, especially when you are afraid of your client. This situation reasonably often appears in my supervision groups. The staff is all the time confronted with very destructive and out-going behavior. If you do not have control … [Read more…]
Applying the metaphor of the preceding blog, the rock starts to crack when the motivational worker enters a demotivational process. He does not have enough life energy to detransmute his client’s contact rebus. He has to make increasing use of the more ‘economical’ way of handling pain – transmuting it into detransmutation. He gives less … [Read more…]
The motivational worker and the client encounter each other through their contact rebuses, and if a complete motivational relationship is to form, there has to be mutual bonding between them. It is, in effect, a relationship between a contracting party (the motivational worker), with a well-developed capacity for bonding to other people, and the client, … [Read more…]
