Contact Me: per@revstedt.com

Per Revstedt can teach and supervise both in English and in Danish.

En vigtig oplysning er at Per Revstedt har 20 års erfaring at undervise og supervisere i Danmark. Han er fra Skåne og underviser på en forståelig svensk.

Du finder en beskrivelse af motivationsarbejde på dansk her: saxenhoj.dk

P.S. You can get all four books on Motivational Work for free as an e-book if you apply for a Kindle unlimited membership at amazon.com. D.S

Introduction

Motivational work is an approach designed to help people who are considered to be unmotivated and hopeless. Most personnel contacts are based on the client/patient being motivated to some degree, i.e., wanting to cooperate constructively and accept help. When you expect constructive cooperation from clients/patients, you only reach a group that is relatively functional.

This leads to the motivation paradox: the clients/patients who have the greatest need of support receive the least. Motivational work tries to resolve this paradox so that those who are most in need actually receive help.

Seventeen Lessons

The crash course consists of 17 articles chosen from my blog to outline the method and theory and represent the crucial essence of motivational work. The course describes the values and theory and how they can be used as a protective suit to hinder being burnt out. The reader must bear in mind that the contents are extremely condensed from my book  Motivational Work, Part 1: Values and Theory, 689 pages long. It is just the core being displayed.

Disposition of Lessons

Most of the articles have the same disposition: first, a general introduction, then a case study illustrating the theory, a discussion summarising the subject, and last, discussion questions. In this way, the blog can be used to stimulate discourse in groups and inspire individual thinking.

Free Enlarged Course

To get a longer and more detailed version, you can go to a free enlarged course. There you will find 72 articles going into more depth with values and theory and the relationship to the client. It is an account of the whole book Motivational Work, Part 1: Values and Theory, and part of Motivational Work, Part 2: The Motivational Relationship.

Methods and Deepening of Theory

If you want to learn about method and techniques in Motivation Work you will have to read my book Motivational Work, Part 3: Method and Techniques.

Moreover, in my book Motivational Work, Part 4: Deepening the Theory, you can develop your comprehension of the method and be able to utilize motivational work even more efficiently with clients.

P.S. You can get all four books on Motivational Work for free as an e-book if you apply for a Kindle unlimited membership at amazon.com. D.S.

The Free Crash Course

Lesson 1. A Hopeless Case Is Never Hopeless (Blog 6)

The meaning of the positive core is that no one is hopeless. Everyone has a positive energy that can be strengthened. The difficult thing with believing in the positive core is that you don’t get any clear, positive confirmations from the start. You have to rely on yourself totally.

It becomes much easier to feel hope when you have seen someone considered hopeless change completely.  It happened to me when I met this client (see “Motivational Work, Part 1: Values and Theory, pages 28 – 29). The experience made a deep impression on me.

The Case Study

The client was around 40 and generally known as a violent troublemaker. His childhood was a sorry one, for he was abandoned by his parents at an early age and raised in several foster homes. He was sent to a correctional school on account of his criminal tendencies, which became more entrenched as he entered adulthood.

The client was also an alcoholic and a drug addict. He was “the bane of the social welfare office”. When he turned up to collect his money everyone locked themselves in their rooms except for the poor terrified official whose duty it was to serve him. The client often threatened the office staff, even at knifepoint. It was widely known that he had a string of convictions behind him for a violent assault on social workers.

He was a large brute of a man, and everyone was scared of him. He was considered a hopeless case. What is more, his hostile behavior had earned him special treatment; he never had to wait in the waiting room, for example and could talk in person with the senior management whenever he wished.

Decisions taken by social welfare secretaries were often changed to his advantage, and everyone bent over backward to please him while saying how much they pitied him. By way of incredible coincidence, this man was admitted to my institution.

I had actually worked at the same social welfare office for a short time and knew what he was capable of, unlike my colleagues at the center, who treated him as they would any other inmate. He had to clean and help out in the kitchen like all the others and eventually became part of a community in which he found himself confronted by people who sought to challenge and contain his behavior.

After a period of treatment, he connected with his emotional self and ended up crying incessantly for almost a fortnight. After that, he was a new man. The troublemaker in him had gone, allowing him to put his aggression to good use. One time, for instance, he managed to turn away an armed drug dealer from the center with just some well-chosen words and an immanent aggressiveness.

The client was generally a huge resource for the institution when it came to setting boundaries for other clients. After his treatment, he returned to his life of drugs, but took them less frequently and was less aggressive. He eventually received, at his own request, a new place to live far out in the countryside, where he met a socially balanced woman. They moved in together and he lived a drug and crime-free life until he died of ill health.

Discussion

This client was considered hopeless by everyone, with his destructive behavior and his background. He had traits that many said made it impossible for him to change. He was too old. His abuse of drugs and alcohol had been going on for many years and must have led to brain damage. Psychiatrists had diagnosed him as a psychopath, which means that he was almost incurable. His behavior was very destructive and hostile.

If, on the other hand, you believe that no one is hopeless, there is always the possibility that you may motivate the client, independently of his behavior, drug abuse, destructive behavior, and psychiatric diagnoses.

Discussion Questions

1. Have you ever met clients, whom you consider hopeless? On what grounds do you base your evaluation?
2. Do you believe that every human being has a positive core deep down in his soul? On the other hand, are there individuals, who already from birth lack this life energy? Do people, who lack the positive core have common characteristics?
3. Have you ever experienced that a hopeless client is not hopeless? In what way did you find it out?

Lesson 2. Give Hope to Staff (Blog 8)

This is a clinical example of how the humanistic approach can give hope to staff, even if the patient appears to give back only negative confirmations. The case is from “Motivational Work Part 1: Values and Theory” page 23.

The Case Study

The staff at a psychiatric unit have undergone several years of supervisory support and training in motivational work. The unit houses a young schizophrenic woman, Pat, who’s very aggressive and is known to have assaulted the staff on more than one occasion. Her attacks are impulsive and violently frenetic.

She has already tried to poke out a staff member’s eye, for instance, and has poured scalding hot coffee over another. She makes regular verbal threats and has repeatedly tried to take her own life. On one occasion she managed to come across some scissors in the kitchen with which she immediately tried to stab herself in the abdomen, and would have succeeded if she had not been restrained by a vigilant member of staff.

Despite all this, the personnel feels increasingly determined to help Pat, as they can see a point in still trying to motivate her. Pat is a common topic during supervision sessions, during which the staff gives vent to their feelings of hopelessness and despair. Nevertheless, they are always able to recover their humanistic approach to Pat and see purpose in continuing their efforts to help her.

Eventually, the supervisor no longer needs to raise the issue of humanism as the staff is able to deal with their feelings of hopelessness directly and unprompted. Their desire to see Pat transferred gradually subsides as their unwillingness to abandon her grows stronger. The hopelessness and despair do not disappear as such, they simply fade as their humanism shines brighter.

Discussion

As already mentioned, a humanistic approach is not enough on its own to motivate the motivators. What it does provide is a rock upon which to build a basic sense of optimism around Pat. The personnel must also be equipped with sound methods of handling Pat’s aggressive behavior so that they can help her boost her own motivation and quell her anti-social behavior.

Discussion Questions

1. All of us have encountered feelings of hopelessness. Do you recall any instances, either in your private or professional life where you have transformed from feeling hopeless to feeling hopeful? How did it happen?
2. The values we carry with us play a significant role in how hopeful we feel. Do you see yourself as an optimist or a pessimist?
3. What are the advantages and disadvantages of being an optimist or a pessimist?

Lesson 3. Motivation (Blog 9)

The objective of motivational work is to nourish the positive energy in the positive core. Such an approach also reduces the risk of burnout, as no external affirmation is needed in the client’s behavior to fulfill this objective. Instead, motivational work aims toward intrinsic change, which may only achieve expression in outward behavior after a long time. The more motivational work is tied to observable, distinct (and often immediate) changes in the client, the more likely it is that the worker will feel disappointed and redundant in his contact with the client.

The Case Study

Vivian is a 27-year-old woman with the occasional destructive drinking problem. She lives in a state of fear of other people and isolates herself from her neighbors. The only people she has any contact with are her mother and ex-husband. Her TV, oven, and telephone are all out of order. Vivian has been frequently abused by her ex and even raped.

A female social worker has been in sporadic contact with her for the past three years, while Vivian has spent days, even months, in seclusion. At these times the social worker tries making contact, and when they meet Vivian talks about the meaninglessness of life and her desire to end it all. A few months ago, she met a new man, who although an alcoholic treats her well, even tenderly (Motivational Work, Part 1: Values and Theory, page 65).

Discussion

The external social context for the client does not change very much during the first years of contact with the social worker. However, if one considers the intrinsic goal, her relationship with her social worker can have boosted her life force so much as to dispel her suicidal tendencies. In this sense, the encounter with the social is infused with a great purpose: it helps to maintain the will to live in Vivian, who carries within her a strong destructiveness as manifested in her thoughts and life.

She puts herself in situations in which she is repeatedly abused and she isolates herself from others. Her encounters with her social worker can have been particularly meaningful to her given that she has effectively no one else to turn to other than her mother and ex-husband. After two and a half years, Vivian’s external life also starts to show signs of improvement. She meets a new man, who, according to the social worker, treats her well and who lacks the destructiveness of the former men in her life.

This change can be seen as confirmation that her positive core has been strengthened and that she is enjoying a greater quality of life. The motivational worker has helped the client become less internally destructive, and has thus given a valuable gift to the client that enables him to live a more purposeful life.

Discussion Questions

1. What is most essential for you to in your life? Is it to ripe as a person: to have a deeper contact with yourself and others and have a profound meaning in your life or is it what you have accomplished in doing?
2. What is the goal of treatment for an alcoholic? Is it that he is sober, but nothing has changed with himself as a human being? Or instead, he is more and more self-confident, is more in contact with his feelings but, at the same time, he has not entirely stopped abusing alcohol?
3. In what way has the life of Vivian been improved? What brought about this positive change in her mood and ability to relate to others?

Lesson 4. Demotivation (Blog 10)

The destructive force is the antithesis of the constructive and may be termed demotivation. Motivation is analogous to constructive life energy, and demotivation with the destructive. Demotivation is a reflection of the substance of the positive core.

The person who becomes latently motivated does not have enough motivation to convert pain into energy for development and maturity; he does not have the strength to connect with his own anguish, which is a precondition of his being able to assimilate it. Instead, the life energy of the latently motivated is sufficient only to transmute the pain, so that it remains – but does so in such a distorted form that the individual no longer has any contact with it

Case Study

Andrew is a 55-year-old skilled worker. He has been married to the same woman for many years and has three adult children and four grandchildren. At the age of 53, Andrew becomes unemployed. He takes it hard and falls into a depression. His wife reaches her wits’ end and files for a divorce. At the same time, one of their daughters commits suicide.

Soon afterward, Andrew contacts the psychiatric services and is put on a course of antidepressants. He starts to drink and soon meets a woman in her twenties, with whom he moves in. She is an active substance abuser and offers him drugs. Andrew himself becomes a drug user, and soon he is mixing pretty much exclusively with other addicts. During rehabilitation, he denies or makes light of his substance abuse (Motivational Work, Part 1 Values and Theory, page 91).

Discussion

Andrew meets adversity in the form of unemployment. This, in turn, elicits a pain that he does not have the life energy to handle. A destructive life process is embarked upon, starting with a depression. His self-destructive behavior then accelerates through the drink and drugs, and his addiction gradually changes his life. Looking at the external phenomenon, we see the tragic downfall of a man. But this is his way of dealing with his pain; the “gain” for him is that he does not need to grapple with his real anguish. His self-destructive behavior serves as an emotional relief for him.

Discussion Questions

1. When you are in emotional pain, how do you deal with it? What are your options? Are there thoughts of destructive alternatives, even if you never will choose them? Do you have a hunch of how these destructive alternatives would function as a relief for you?
2. In the case study of Andrew, his demotivation is continuously augmented. How can his depression, which is painful for him, at the same time be an emotional relief? Do you have any idea of how his drinking, drug abuse and being an outcast from the society, in the same way, can mitigate his real anguish.

Lesson 5. Latently Motivated (Blog 11)

The term unmotivated is actually a misleading one. The “un” prefix implies the absence of motivation. However, the humanistic approach posits a motivation in everyone in the shape of the positive core. This means that the “unmotivated” client does have the motivation, but it is dormant and undetectable in his behavior.

An unmotivated person can, therefore, be called latently motivated, possessing as he does a motivation that is too weak to be expressed. Redefining the lack of motivation thus can help to instill in the motivational worker a more hopeful approach to his client (Motivational Work, Part 1: Values and Theory, page 79 – 83).

The motivational process is therefore directed at enhancing the life force in the latently motivated client so that it is made explicit in his behavior, at which point he becomes manifestly motivated.

Case Study

Karen is the daughter of a single mother. Because her mother feels unable to take care of her, Karen is sent to live with her maternal grandmother. Apart from when Karen goes to stay with her mother for brief periods, they only meet when the mother comes to visit the grandmother. When Karen is seven her mother dies. She is not allowed at the funeral as she’s considered too young to attend.

Karen is then moved to her great aunt, who is a nurse and who lives alone. She lives with her for the rest of her childhood. On leaving school at 16 she takes a job as a shop assistant. Then in her early twenties, she meets an older man, a famous poet, whom she soon marries. Karen leaves her job, becomes a housewife, and feels that her marriage to a well-known person boosts her self-esteem.

After a short while, she gives birth to a son. Her husband starts to drink heavily and suffers increasing bouts of DTs, during which he acts threateningly towards both Karen and their son. After 13 years of marriage, Karen files for divorce and returns to work as a shop assistant.

She enters a string of affairs with wealthy married men, who invariably end up abandoning her. Karen experiences increasing back pain and starts to lose contact with her son and grandchildren. She manages to procure painkillers to deal with her back pain and starts to abuse them.

Also, Karen ignores the directions she’s been given to prevent her back trouble from deteriorating and develops a range of symptoms, including asthma, which she is diagnosed as having in a mild form. This she uses to demand different kinds of support from those around her, and her friends and acquaintances start to avoid her.

Karen also sustains a number of injuries from a series of accidents, such as a serious concussion and a broken leg after having slipped on the ice. This means that she has to be hospitalized for lengthy periods. Her doctor, whom she has contacted because of her asthma, refers her to a psychotherapist, who concludes that her symptoms are largely psychosomatic.

On her first meeting with the psychotherapist, she appears open and receptive; however, the more the therapist talks to her, the more she feels an emptiness. Karen seems to be wearing a mask to conceal her “real” emotions and talks only about superficial, non-personal matters. When the therapist tries to raise the issue of her life situation, Karen does nothing but imply that she is a victim of circumstances.

Her problem is, she says, attributable solely to her different diseases, and it is those, and only those, that she needs help with. Karen is unable to give any personal explanation as to why she has been referred to psychotherapy and points her finger instead at the doctor who sent her there. The psychotherapist concludes that Karen is unmotivated towards psychotherapy.

Discussion

Karen’s destructiveness outweighs her constructiveness. She ruins her health, takes no constructive initiatives to deal with her problems, lacks feelings of existential responsibility for her situation, and cannot be bothered to connect with her own health. She withdraws further and further from social contact, seems to lack purpose in life, and has no interest in change. The conclusion is that Karen is latently motivated, her motivation not being explicit in her actions.

Moreover, Karen serves as an example that latent motivation is not synonymous with social maladjustment. Socially well-adjusted people can also be latently motivated.

Discussion Questions

1. How can you see the influence of demotivation in the case study of Karen? How has the separation from her mother and growing up with her great aunt affected her positive core? Has this childhood led to psychological pain and a low self-confidence? How does Karen’s demotivation influence her life as an adult?
2. Find a person like Karen from your own life experience or a well-known individual from the external world. Can you describe her or his destructive behavior?

Lesson 6. Manifestly Motivated (Blog 12)

A manifestly motivated person is someone who decides to do something constructive about his problem. Granted, he may find it equally as difficult as the latently motivated, but he does have a securely rooted constructive will on which to build his choices.

Usually, however, the life context of the latently motivated client is much more destructive since his life force is weaker than in his manifested counterpart (Motivational Work, Part 1: Values and Theory, pages 79 – 83).

The manifestly motivated client has the capacity to do something constructive about his life. This does not mean that he has achieved self-actualization; he also has harmful destructive urges but is able to deploy greater forces to counter them.

The Case Study

Laura has been raised by both her parents and is an only child. They live in a village, and Laura finds the strict, overbearing atmosphere of their home oppressive. She, therefore, spends a great deal of time with friends and obtains by default a number of surrogate parents. When Laura is ten, the family moves to another town, and she finds herself separated from her friends and their parents.

Two years later, her mother and father get divorced, and she spends the remainder of her childhood in the custody of her mother. She leaves school at 16 and gets a job in a shop. In her early twenties, she meets an older man and they get married. The man is an established and renowned scientist.

Laura feels inferior to him and is intimidated by his intellect. She quits her job in the shop to become a housewife. Laura and her husband have three children, to whom she is devoted. However, her marital problems increase. Her husband has drink problems and acts in a threatening way at times towards Laura and the children. Laura refuses to become financially dependent on her husband and enters teacher training.

The husband’s drinking grows worse, and after ten years of marriage, Laura divorces him. She wins custody of the children, completes her training, and gets a job. Shortly afterward she realizes that she needs some sort of help, as she has started to feel increasingly remote and unable to be a proper parent to her children. Eventually, she contacts a psychotherapist.

Laura initially talks calmly and sensibly about her problems, but the psychotherapist notices that she seems to disengage her emotional responses to her life situation. Despite this mask that she appears to hide behind, the therapist still connects with her client. Laura gradually begins to open up about her remoteness, and when the therapist asks about her children, Laura starts to cry in despair at being a bad mother.

She is extremely worried about her remoteness, which is alien to her as a person; yet she is also aware that there is no one else to blame, and that if something has to change, it’s something within her. Laura is desperate for help and is prepared to undergo psychotherapy regardless of how severely it will strain her finances. The psychotherapist concludes that Laura is motivated towards psychotherapy and accepts her as a client.

Discussion

Laura’s motivation is explicit in her actions: she takes constructive initiatives to seek help and cares about herself and her children. She has an existential awareness that she is partly responsible for her problems, and she has the energy to connect with her suffering. She seeks to change. All in all, Laura is manifestly motivated, her motivation being explicit in her actions.

Discussion Questions

1. When you consider the actions of a manifest motivated individual, you can clearly see how the positive core is the guideline. Can you demonstrate in detail how Lauraʼs life is influenced by her motivation?
2. Find a person like Laura from your own life or a well-known individual from the external world. Can you describe her or his constructive behavior?
3. Both Karen and Laura have similar childhood experiences. Are there, at the same time, divergences, which can explain Karen’s demotivation and Laura’s motivation?

The solution of the rebus: eye=I, A + door=adore, ewe=you  “I adore you”

Lesson 7. Contact rebus: Aggression (Blog 13)

One of the typical features of the latently motivated is his resistance to change; he shuns contact with the motivational worker and defends himself against the forces of development. His resistance appears strong and able to negate all attempts at treatment, cooperation, and constructive influence.

From an emotional perspective, the client’s defensiveness is the most difficult thing for the motivational worker to deal with, as his unreceptiveness and emotional distance convey a powerful negative confirmation of the motivational worker’s efforts. It is therefore of critical importance how the latter views defence and resistance, as it is also his primary working material.

The fundamental tenet of the theory that will now be expounded upon is that the prime purpose of all forms of defense and resistance is as an indirect means of making contact. Henceforth, such an indirect communication strategy will be termed a “contact rebus”, a rebus meaning a puzzle comprising pictures, words, and letters that together can be decoded into a particular word or phrase (Motivational Work, Part 1: Values and Theory page 94 – 159).

The Case Study

The following story was related to the author upon meeting one of his students: a female social worker and contact person for a 36-year-old male client, Erik.

Erik, the client, has a long history of alcohol and drug abuse and is an imposing figure of a man, well-known for his violent tendencies. The social worker has been in contact with Erik for a while but has sensed there is a great emotional distance between them.

One day, when they are walking across the town square together (the social worker is helping Erik with some task) he suddenly lifts her in the air and holds her there with his arms outstretched. Being petite, the social worker dangles freely without touching the ground. Erik starts shouting at the social worker, criticizing her with very offensive language, and a crowd of people soon gathers around them.

The social worker understands that the onlookers interpret what they see as a lover’s quarrel and not as a dispute between a social worker and her client. Accordingly, she cannot count on receiving any help from them. At that moment, the social worker recalls the course in motivational work that she attended: what did Revstedt say about this? Yes, contact rebuses, she thinks to herself.

Then, she looks at Erik and says to him: “You aren’t angry, are you?” “No,” he replies, setting her down. It seems that Erik’s attack of rage has disappeared as quickly as it appeared and they leave the town square together. The social worker feels that something has changed in their interaction: they have established contact with one another. After this incident, her client has the courage to draw closer to her and demonstrates greater confidence in her than before. He does not act in a threatening way towards her again.

Discussion

The interaction between Erik and his social worker can be seen as an example of how the latter successfully responds to his aggressive, threatening, and distancing behavior. His testing requires the social worker to understand that Erik does in fact want to establish contact and receive help. He is subconsciously investigating whether, despite his threatening behavior, the social worker will still feel concerned for him.

This means Erik is looking for someone he has the confidence to lean on and open up to – a refuge in the storm. If the social worker consistently shows positive commitment and does not become afraid when distancing occurs in the relationship, this is a sign she is someone he can trust.

Discussion Questions

1. What are the signs in Erikʼs aggression, which show that he is communicating a contact rebus?
2. Have you ever met someone, who was very aggressive towards you? Similarly, you sensed that the person actually wanted to connect to you like the client, Erik. How did you notice the hidden attempt of contacting you?
3. And on the contrary, if you experienced that the other person was just angry and did not wish to bond with you, how did you find that out?

Lesson 8. Contact Rebus: Compliance (Blog 14)

The Case Study

Twenty-seven-year-old Naemi is a drug addict and has now been taken into custody on suspicion of dealing. A non-institutional care assistant is assigned to visit Naemi at the police station, and she reads her client’s file before meeting her. Naemi has grown up in a socially functional family and she has a brother who is well-adjusted.

As for Naemi, she had no problems at school and later began working as an elderly care assistant. Shortly after finishing school, Naemi met an older man who used to be a serious addict. They moved in together and had a child but separated after two years, upon which Naemi attempted suicide and started to use drugs. This led to her losing the custody of her child to her former boyfriend. Naemi then moved in with another older drug addict and started using drugs with him.

According to the journal, she also got into prostitution. Equipped with this brief, the assistant now goes to police custody, where she is met by an apparently lively, bubbly Naemi who says it feels good to use drugs and that she misses her boyfriend.

Generally, life is a ‘blast’ and she likes it when things happen. Her suicide attempt and drug addiction are temporary glitches with no special reason behind them. This admission confuses the assistant, as her impression of Naemi during their conversation is completely different from that based on the information in her journal. Naemi is very convincing in the way she speaks and the assistant believes what she says.

Discussion

Naemi appears to be positive in her contact. Although there is no open destructiveness, we catch a glimpse of it in Naemi’s denial of her problems while she is sitting in custody awaiting trial. This in itself is a destructive situation that Naemi refuses to acknowledge. By trivializing her addiction and suicide attempt, she avoids having to deal with her problems.

One feature of conciliatory attitudes is clearly demonstrated: the care assistant finds Naemi to be convincing in what she says. If she is to solve her client’s contact rebus, she must understand the whole situation (i.e. she is sitting in police custody with a client who has a destructive life situation) and she must consider this in relation to what her client says.

Naemi has grown up in an environment in which she has learned how to conduct herself socially. This increases her ability to sound convincing. Naemi adopts the role of victim by not taking advantage of the help that is offered in this situation. The social worker is tested whether she will adopt the role of indirect aggressor by failing to see her client’s problems.

If she does this and accepts Naemi’s attitude towards herself, she will harm her. Superficially, the contact rebus appears to be positive. As previously mentioned, we see dissonance in the client’s test: her vivaciousness and contentment are incongruous with her life situation. She has a serious drug addiction, has attempted suicide, and taken to prostitution, most definitely has a destructive relationship with her partner, and is now in custody under suspicion of criminality.

A compliance contact rebus turns its destructiveness inwards on the client so that she fails to take care of herself in a constructive way, meaning she is in self-denial. Naemi, for example, demonstrates this by not taking advantage of the treatment that would be made available to her if he more openly demonstrated who he was and what help he needed.

Instead, she creates a false image of herself through self-denial. The inwardly-directed demotivation occurring with a compliance contact rebus may, in a more active stage, increase the risk of a client openly turning it on themselves through acts such as self-mutilation or suicide. That said, the destructiveness of the compliance contact rebus may also be directed outwardly at others. (Motivational Work, Part 1: Values and theory, pages 313 – 319)

In common with other latently motivated individuals, Naemi is looking for the parental figures she was lacking as a child. She is longing to be accepted and liked for who he is and is looking for a person who values her despite her conciliatory attitude and who is concerned about her excessive compliance.

Naemi achieves this by behaving like a well-adjusted individual, and she is looking for the person who can question her compliance and see through it, thus providing her with a positive affirmation for the woman she is. Naemi will feel confident in someone who can question and break down her façade in a kind-hearted way. Hence, Naemi’s compliance is an indirect plea for help: in other words, her contact rebus. Her well-adjusted behavior is her way of seeking out honest and open communication.

Discussion Questions

1. In what way can you detect the indirect cry for help in the compliance of Naemi?
2. Have you experienced, that you at first have believed what an individual has said? And later, you discovered, that everything he told you was incorrect. In a situation like this, have you sensed that it was a concealed way of bonding with you?
3. When someone is telling you honestly how he feels, how can you be sure of that?

Lesson 9. Contact Rebus: Withdrawing (Blog 15)

Case Study

Twenty-four-year-old Max gets his mother’s assistance in seeking non-institutional psychiatric care. He has been quiet and withdrawn of late and no longer wants to go to work. In the discussion with the psychologist it is revealed that Max’s family was of a non-conformist faith and at the age of 22, he moved in with his cousin and adopted a different lifestyle.

Although he acts responsibly in going to work at the mechanical workshop where he is employed, Max is also out partying a lot, drinking and experimenting with drugs, and having numerous short-term relationships with women.

Max’s new lifestyle also involves him going to the gym, and he takes anabolic steroids for a while to improve his results. On several occasions, he has been questioned as to how his lifestyle and faith go together, something that angers him so much at times that he might take a swing at his critic.

Eventually, Max confesses that the contrast between his religious values and his lifestyle is too great and that is why he has been so withdrawn. The psychologist is finding it difficult to help Max with his religious dilemma because he is not a man of faith himself, but he feels he understands that Max’s religious beliefs are important to him.

The psychologist’s uncertainty leads to his raising the subject of his failings in a supervision group. There he learns that Max’s religious dilemma is a contact rebus and that other things are much more difficult for the patient to solve, namely his drug abuse and destructive behavior towards others.

When the psychologist returns to his patient, he questions the religious dilemma. Max then starts to talk about his fear of meeting people and his anxiety over being unable to control his anger and the possibility of him being violent again.

Moreover, he is very worried about telling his friends about these problems because he thinks they will laugh at him and he has been avoiding them for this reason. After talking to the psychologist about his troubles, Max has the courage to tell his friends.

Instantly, he feels they respond positively and demonstrate great understanding. After a further two meetings with the psychologist, Max stops contacting him. The psychologist then calls him to ask how things are and Max is relieved that the psychologist isn’t angry with him but wants to continue helping him. He turns up for his next appointment.

Discussion

The patient first employs a contact rebus which invites the psychologist to concentrate on the religious dilemma created by his current lifestyle. It is a verbal test that would involve lengthy discussions about theology. It is known territory for the patient where he tests if the psychologist stops at this verbal level or understands that there are emotional problems behind the religious dilemma.

With the help of his supervision group, the psychologist is able to solve this contact rebus so that Max has more courage to get in touch with his anxiety and pain. His next contact rebus arrives in the guise of his absence from appointments and failure to cancel: Max is withdrawing from the psychologist. It is the same test that Max employed on his mother and friends.

In this case, destructiveness is openly enacted, not concealed. Max starts to get to grips with his problems and has a positive experience in so doing. He then interrupts this positive development and bars progression, seemingly wanting to destroy the relationship he has with the psychologist. Max’s contact rebus contains both aggressor and victim elements.

Hence, he is an aggressor towards the psychologist in the way he gives negative feedback for the help he receives, but he harms himself by ruining his opportunity to receive further help. In turn, the psychologist is invited to feel offended and maltreated, which may lead to his reluctance to initiate renewed contact or work with Max altogether.

The role of the victim is also offered to him in that he will feel he has done something wrong and is a failure. This role also involves his not contacting the patient, but in this case, it is because he has nothing to give him. Dissonance is seen in the amount of energy Max expends on staying away. Had he been more apathetic from the start, he might not have gone ahead with the liaison or not made an effort.

Since Max is committed to it, his absence is not a question of apathy. The psychologist seems to have passed the test by not adopting the role of aggressor or victim and by maintaining a positive commitment to Max. When he calls Max, he receives positive affirmation from the client that his absence has to do with his commitment. The psychologist solves the contact rebus by contacting Max and showing that he is still concerned about him, upon which Max employs a compliance contact rebus by resuming discussions with him.

Discussion Questions

1. When Max is withdrawing from the psychologist, how can you see that it is a contact rebus?
2. In your private or professional life, have you ever met someone who is withdrawing from you but, at the same time, is crying for help? How can you be sure of it?
3. How do you know, when a person genuinely wants to withdraw from you?

Lesson 10. Untransmuted and Transmuted Contact Rebus (Blog 30)

Untransmuted Contact Rebus

Parents have a relatively unmodified contact rebus, the function of which is to first and foremost provide maximum life force. By not modifying the contact rebus, parents do not need to expend energy on such a modification. Lifeforce can be tapped at source, i.e. from the parents’ positive core. Energy is also saved because the teenager does not need to expend his own life force in interpreting the contact rebus.

So in this type of situation, the person in love or the teenager employs another form of contact rebus. Although the term is an approximation, we can for the sake of simplicity call this category of contact rebus the untransmuted contact rebus. Here the aim of the contact rebus is to provide life energy. The fact that it is untransmuted is an approximation because a contact rebus always involves some transmutation; for example, parents always have certain personal emotional needs (Motivational Work, Part 1: Values and Theory, pages 184 – 190).

During the teenager’s adolescence, parents, as well as their teenager, experience change. The family’s life situation may have altered, resulting in new personal needs affecting the parents’ relationship with their teenager. For this reason, parents are constantly faced with situations where their resolve to maintain an untransmuted contact rebus is challenged, as they must prevent their personal needs from infringing on their parental contact rebus as far as possible.

Transmuted Contact Rebus

The transmuted contact rebus appears to be more useful when an individual is in need of a great deal of life force, such as a teenager. When the parents’ untransmuted contact rebus provides a response to the transmuted contact rebus of the teenager, the latter can derive more life force than if he had himself employed an untransmuted one. The parents’ life force takes on greater value if it addresses a teenager’s contact rebus for which effort is required on the part of the parents in order to reciprocate with an untransmuted contact rebus.

In the case of a person in love, the transmuted contact rebus partly fills another function. Here it is important to receive life force from the partner whilst giving back as much as possible. Like the teenage contact rebus, the aim of the romantic contact rebus is to elicit a strong response from the target. However, the desired effect of reciprocity is to build a close, intense and egalitarian relationship and not to one-sidedly rake in as much life force as possible.

Neither is this feasible, as the person in love will receive a different transmuted contact rebus in response. For this reason, teenagers have a greater opportunity to receive life force through a transmuted contact rebus than a person in love. The parent-teenager relationship is already in place and they will receive a response in the form of an untransmuted contact rebus.

In a romantic situation, the partners must first build up a relationship with one another through transmuted contact rebuses that may afterward be replaced by more untransmuted ones. Only then can the person in love receive the same amount of energy as the teenager. However, unlike the latter, there is an interchange of life force through the untransmuted contact rebus.

The transmuted contact rebus is focused on elicitation whilst the untransmuted contact rebus is focused on communication. In this way, transmuted and untransmuted contact rebus are two different strategies for relating to other people, both creating relationships, but in different ways.

Discussion

The untransmuted and transmuted contact rebus make possible different kinds of relationships. Every human being has these two contact rebuses in his relationships. In this way, different kinds of relationships are created from this dichotomy between the two rebuses.

Discussion Questions

1. Can you recognize transmuted and untransmuted contact rebuses in your private and professional life? Here you have some clues: people in love with each other and teenagers to parents use transmuted contact rebuses. On the other hand, parents to children and many kinds of professionals to clients (for example physicians, priests, teachers) as well as managers to personnel apply untransmuted contact rebuses.

Lesson 11. The Main Function of the Contact Rebus (Blog 28)

To sum up, we can find one general principle that holds true for all contact rebus functions (Motivational Work: Motivational Work, Part 1: Values and Theory, page 158) :

 All functions of the contact rebus serve to ensure the optimum maintenance and reinforcement of a person’s life force so that he or she may live and develop along both the intra- and interpsychic dimensions.

The contact rebus exists in all kinds of relationships, not just those that exist between lovers. The contact rebus theory is, therefore, a general theory of how people bond and how they deal with the life force inherent to their positive cores.

The contact rebus is not a “thing” in the human psyche; rather it is a term for a complex and vital function in the psyche’s way of responding. The building blocks of the contact rebus can, therefore, comprise all the different parts of a human mind. Intrinsically, this could be thoughts and feelings; extrinsically, words and deeds.

Discussion

The term contact rebus is a pan conception. In this way, it can be applied in all human interaction without exception. The latently motivated individual uses it all the time in all life situations. It is happening right now in the group you are in. If you are alone they are in your head as thoughts about your relationships.

Discussion Questions

1. Do you agree that you use contact rebuses in your relationships and that others send rebuses to you? Can you give an example from your own life or literature, films, and TV series?

Blog 12. Motivational Process in Motivational Work (Blog 48)

The motivational worker’s contact rebus towards the client is thus an untransmuted constructive contact rebus. This is the most powerful response to a transmuted destructive contact rebus. The values and theories described in this part of the book are intended to make the detransmutation of the client’s contact rebus by the motivational worker as untransmuted (i.e. as conscious) as possible.

This means that conscious detransmutation has an important part to play even if the intuitive part of the process is also present. An important aspect of the conscious decipherment of the client’s transmuted contact rebus is the knowledge of how the transmuted contact rebus and the motivational process work (Motivational Work, Part 1: Values and Theory, page 456 – 492).

The latently motivated client’s transmuted destructive temporal contact rebus is, in principle, no different from other transmuted contact rebuses. Because of the client’s low degree of motivation, his temporal contact rebus will be highly transmuted, and the more transmuted it is the more energy it can acquire.

Moreover, the neutral principles of transmutation are reinforced by destructivity. This means that there is a considerable difference in the temporal contact rebus between the positive and negative rebounds. Both these contact rebuses will also be highly transmuted and destructive, and the polarity shifts between them very abruptly. The degree of transmutation of the contact rebuses also makes them very aggressive and destructive.

The greater share of the motivational worker’s temporal contact rebus is untransmuted constructive, which means that it has a low degree of transmutation and facilitates a direct channeling of life force. Unlike the transmuted contact rebus, the untransmuted temporal contact rebus is constant and permanent, and, although it is not due to transmutation, its emotional and cognitive content can shift. The basic attitude is the same at all times.

Case Study

Elsa, 29, has been a heavy drug user for many years. The general opinion of her held by the social services is that she is a hopeless case. However, a female social worker finds herself wanting to help her and, in consultation with the client, plans a stay in a treatment center. Elsa approves of the idea but insists on having her dog with her as she cannot bear to be parted from it during her treatment.

This excludes most treatment centers. The social worker is convinced that Elsa is becoming motivated, despite the opposition of her colleagues and bosses, who say that Elsa is deluding her, as she is using her dog as an excuse not to have to go away for treatment, her demand making it difficult to find a center prepared to take them both.

After six months of searching, the social worker finally finds a family home willing to accept Elsa and her dog. Elsa visits the home with the social worker and both give their approval. The social worker then has to spend a great deal of time convincing her bosses to accept the visit and that Elsa is motivated and serious about wanting to stay there. Her organization gives the go-ahead but with considerable reservations, and the following week the social worker drives Elsa and her dog to the home.

On the way back to work, the social worker feels happy that her client is finally in care, as she is likely to benefit from that experience, especially as she is able to have her beloved dog with her. The social worker is also pleased that she has continued to believe in the client and been able to ignore the skepticism of her colleagues.

Two days later, the family home calls to inform her that Elsa is no longer there. The day after her arrival, they explain, a man, obviously on drugs, turned up in a car to collect her, and Elsa left with him immediately, abandoning her dog and the home.

This makes the social worker feel like a professional failure and she refuses to have any further contact with the client, as there seems to be no point in it. She also starts to doubt her own ability to help people. She is also plagued by misgivings about Elsa’s motivation and feels that she’s been conned. Her colleagues, she decides, were right in writing off Elsa as a hopeless case.

Discussion

The client steps up the pressure of her testing and the bonding with the motivational worker through the temporal contact rebus. In the negative rebound, the client learns how much she is worth if she does not ‘behave herself’, in that she leaves the home. She tests whether the social worker cares about her and continues to believe in the possibility of a change for the better. Her hasty exit gives the impression that she is not motivated, and the abandonment of her dog tests how credible the social worker thinks she is.

First, Elsa tells her how much the dog means to her and then acts in a way that expresses the opposite. The boyfriend’s appearance further reinforces the negative rebound, as it enables Elsa to demonstrate that she has chosen a destructive drug abuser over the commitment of her social worker and her proposed treatment.

This aspect of the contact rebus is reminiscent of the teenage girl’s testing of her parents when she comes home with a new boyfriend whom she knows they will find hard to accept. Just like the teenager, Elsa examines if her ‘parent’ (read social worker) still cares about her even though she has an unacceptable boyfriend. If they fail to respond favorably to her choice, it means they do not respect her. Elsa’s testing is both destructive and dynamic, which increases the weight of the contact rebus.

Instead of notifying anyone of her decision to leave the home or warning them of her craving, she immediately acts out her contact rebus, and in a very destructively demonstrative way at that. She abuses drugs and enters a very destructive relationship with another drug addict, which places her in a very dangerous situation. Added to this is the fact that her destructive behavior is also very obvious negative feedback to the social worker’s commitment.

After all the work she has put into her client, this is what she gets. The contact rebus also contains another test. Elsa is intuitively aware that her social worker’s faith in her is not accepted by her colleagues. When the client acts out her negative rebound, she justifies their opinions of her. At the same time, Elsa seems to give her own social worker negative feedback, and thus tests whether she is able to keep up her commitment, even when she breaks her trust in front of her colleagues.

The social worker is thus beset by the client’s tests. In this situation, she chooses to see the client as manifestly motivated and concentrates on the visible component of her client’s contact rebus. This makes her feel as though she has received powerful negative feedback. Her strong emotional reaction to her client is a result of this attitude, and the social worker ignores the opportunity to do some conscious detransmutation.

Continuation of the case: The Significance of Supervision

A short while after the incident with the client, the social worker takes up her emotional reaction in a supervisory session, which allows her to see her client’s negative feedback as a concealed indirect contact gambit.

The contact rebus then becomes a strong indirect affirmation of her work. The negative rebound is clear evidence that the client is undergoing change, and Elsa’s acting out is down to her growing closer to the motivational worker, a ‘rebound’ that the social worker’s commitment elicits.

Discussion

By seeing her client’s demonstrative behavior in this way, the social worker recovers her sense of commitment to her client, in the realization that Elsa is seeking affirmation. After the session, the social worker manages to make contact with Elsa again and continue her work.

A year later, Elsa has quit the drugs, found a job, and started to live an ordered life. She is also taking care of her dog, which she has collected from the home where she had abandoned it. All this happens despite her taking no alternative course of therapy; the change has come about solely through her relationship with her social worker.

When the social worker sees the concealed functions of the negative rebound, she gives herself powerful affirmation of her work. Conscious detransmutation allows her to give herself positive feedback and break her own demotivational process so that she enters a motivational process. This enables her to start transmitting an untransmuted constructive temporal contact rebus to her client again.

Discussion Questions

1. Have you ever encountered clients, who have acted out this negative rebound just after a positive change? How did it affect you? Were you able to still maintain a professional distance or did you experience a strong personal emotional reaction?
2. Have you ever lived through a rebound, for example, if you have tried to quit smoking or some other habit? Just after you have made significant progress, there comes a negative rebound.

Blog 13. Motivational  Process – Two Steps Forward One Step Back (Blog 49)

In the negative rebound the pain that the motivational worker experiences parallels the client’s own. The motivational worker feels a sense of hopelessness and of being a worthless failure and wants to end the relationship. If he could multiply his feelings by a factor of 10,000 he would be able to empathize with the client’s own pain in this respect and his fear of being abandoned.

Because the motivational worker is manifestly motivated, he can receive his client’s pain and reduce its destructiveness through intuitive detransmutation. If this form of detransmutation does not help the motivational worker to avoid energy depletion, he will also have to use conscious detransmutation.

This is done by seeing the negative rebound as something positive, which provides a counterweight to the pain and helps the motivational worker see a sense of purpose in the situation. A rule of thumb for him is, therefore: WHEN YOU MOST WANT TO GIVE UP, THAT’S WHEN IT’S MOST IMPORTANT TO KEEP ON TRYING TO MOTIVATE THE CLIENT.

This attitude is part of the conscious detransmutation of the client’s negative rebound and gives the motivational worker affirmation, understanding, and a sense of purpose in keeping up this painful contact. In this way, the motivational worker meets the client’s pain within himself. Processing with his own emotions and cognitions allows the motivational worker to complete the detransmutation that the client seeks but has insufficient life energy to do himself.

The motivational process, with respect to the positive-negative rebound interaction in the client, can be summarised, experientially, for the motivational worker as follows:

TWO STEPS FORWARD, ONE STEP BACK.

It is, however, difficult to keep a cool head when a negative rebound occurs. The author himself has experienced, as a supervisor, how hard it is for the motivational worker to escape feelings of hopelessness and of being a failure. Regardless of how much he might know about rebounds intellectually, once the negative rebound happens the emotions are so dominant that it is easy for him to lose his sense of distance.

There is also the risk that the motivational worker loses perspective when the positive rebound returns and becomes unrealistically optimistic, seeing only the visible content and not what is concealed in the client’s transmuted destructive contact rebus. Added to this is then the greater risk that the motivational worker will be unprepared for the successive negative rebound when it happens (Motivational Work, Part 1, Values and Theory, page 456 – 492)

Case Study 1

When the social worker begins his motivational work with Elsa (blog no. 48.), her client is in a negative rebound. Elsa leads a life of active abuse and is dismissive in her contact with the social services. The social worker is surprised that her client seems to want to cooperate and believes that she has turned her back on her destructive lifestyle. This is bewildering for the social worker, and she fails to detransmute the compliance contact rebus. She is consequently unprepared for the negative rebound that occurs as Elsa runs away from the center.

Discussion

Often, motivational work is terminated just when the negative rebound occurs. The client is then left without help and the motivational worker, with severely dented self-confidence, feels a failure.

At the same time, the negative rebound demonstrates the incredible power inherent to the temporal contact rebus, which it has for the very reason that it follows on from a positive rebound (preferably when the client really does seem to have changed for the better) and because it occurs so suddenly. If the client had only a negative rebound from the beginning the same effect would not be achieved.

Case Study 2

A psychiatric ward decides to try to motivate one of its patients, Helge (25), in consultation with the ward psychologist. At the start of the process, Helge is very hostile and aggressive. For a year he shifts between this negative rebound and a positive rebound in the form of a compliance contact rebus, which many members of staff find hard to deal with. The patient is then very ingratiating towards the staff and puts them on a pedestal.

Throughout the motivational work, the psychologist has regular supervisory sessions with the staff, during which they talk about the motivational process and positive and negative rebounds. After a while, the staff doesn’t find it hard to see that the negative rebound (i.e. the aggressiveness) is indirect confirmation that a motivational process is underway, and this helps them to deal with the patient’s threatening and aggressive behavior.

They are also able to recognize that the positive rebound is an attitude of conciliation on the part of Helge. The staff’s commitment to Helge increases and they become more hopeful about being able to motivate him. The psychologist grows increasingly satisfied with how the motivational worker is progressing.

But then the negative rebound occurs. Helge lies in bed all day and refuses to take part in the scheduled activities. He has been thinking about his life and finds it hard to find any meaning in carrying on. The psychologist looks favorably upon this negative rebound and tries to impress upon the staff that the patient has come into closer contact with his pain and started to see his life situation more clearly. He points out the indirect affirmation inherent to the negative feedback: the motivational process is continuing.

At the same time, the patient also seems to have a more untransmuted contact with his pain, although the staff finds it difficult to detransmute this negative rebound, as they are missing the aggressive destructiveness, through which they knew how to handle the patient.

The staff are worried about Helge’s inactivity and are unsure what to do. Time and again they try to get Helge out of bed and activate him, but in vain. A growing sense of failure descends on the staff, who start to find it difficult to see any sense of purpose to their work. The staff become extremely concerned, and some of them claim that they have done what they could for Helge and it would be good for him to transfer to another unit, where he might become more active.

However, the psychologist refers constantly to the motivational process and the negative rebound, but the staff is no longer able to detransmute Helge’s withdrawal contact rebus. They question the psychologist’s reasoning and tell him that his theories could be wrong. The indisposition of the staff increases until the patient is discharged and transferred to another unit.

Discussion

When the negative rebound goes from an aggressive to a withdrawal contact rebus, the staff are no longer able to detransmute it. (The same shift, although in reverse order, has already been described in connection with Amy’s relationship with Andy). The staff enters a demotivational process, which escalates as their emotional experiences reflect their patient’s views of the world.

Thus, the staff and Helge share the same thoughts and feelings, which are, of course, stronger in the patient. Helge feels worried, insecure, and a failure, and finds it hard to see any meaning in his life. His trust for the staff wanes, which leaves him filled with worry about being abandoned; he would also feel relieved to be able to leave the ward.

There is, therefore, a danger of not being able to solve the temporal contact rebus if the negative rebound shifts from one principle of transmutation to another. The motivational worker must also be prepared for this change. In the above context, the psychologist sees that the shift in principle is per se indirect confirmation of the motivational process’s continuation, although he could have perhaps prepared the staff more for this change.

On the other hand, the psychologist was unprepared for the staff’s inability to solve the contact rebus. Yet he is always able to detransmute the client’s rebounds and is thus in a motivational process or equilibrium process with the client himself. He finds it purposeful to help Helge from the start, and this supplies him with additional life energy.

Discussion Questions

1. What sort of attitude change makes it possible that the social worker (case study 1) and the staff (case study 2) in the two examples lose their hopefulness? Do they still see the contact rebus or do they think and feel that the client is hopeless?
2. Can you tell what kind of process made it likely that the social worker and the staff lost their professional focus on the contact rebus?

Lesson 14. Demotivational Process in Motivational Work (Blog 52)

Another form of consolidation takes place in the demotivational process. As the negative contact rebus becomes increasingly demonstrative and destructive, a withdrawal between the motivational worker and the client becomes increasingly obvious.

The positive contact rebus can likewise be seen as a visible consolidation of the ending of the relationship. This process is seen most clearly in the latently motivated client since the rebounds here have a high degree of transmutation, both in terms of destructiveness and the neutral principles of transmutation (Motivational Work. Part 1: Values and Theory, page 492 – 516).

Case Study

Valentin, 29, is a long-standing drug user, having started sniffing solvents at the age of eleven. His father, who has been dead for many years, was an alcoholic and used to abuse Valentin, while his mother did nothing to intervene. The social authorities were called in and Valentin was placed temporarily in a foster home.

His substance abuse became worse and worse during his early years so that by the time he reached adulthood he had taken everything, including heroin. He finances his addiction through crime and has been frequently imprisoned for theft and burglary. He has also badly assaulted other drug addicts, but his victims never press charges, or if they do, soon withdraw them. He also hits his mother when he visits her.

However, there are periods in which Valentin’s habit becomes less intense and he considers treatment. Twice he’s been to a treatment center, both times for almost a year. Valentin’s life shifts between the two states – serious drug abuse and violence versus less drug abuse, restraint and introversion, and active participation in rehab programs.

In the past year, his demonstrative period has been unusually destructive; he has abused substances, whatever he can get his hands-on, with abandon, seriously beaten his mother up, and started more frequent fights with other addicts.

His mother calls the social welfare office and tells them that she is in fear of her life. On several occasions, Valentin has received medical care, through the agency of a social worker, for the injuries he has been caused by others. At the end of his periods of abuse, he enters a state of despair and cries in front of his social worker, at which time he normally accepts being admitted to a detox center.

Then, he goes along with their after-care regime for a month or so and then abandons it completely. After such a period of detoxification, the social worker loses contact with his client and pays a visit to him at home. He finds Valentin lying on his bed, dead from a lethal cocktail of different narcotics.

Discussion

In this example, we can see clearly how the negative rebound becomes increasingly negatively demonstrative. Valentin’s substance abuse increases both in frequency and scope, and his violence becomes even more accentuated. He physically assaults his mother more and gets into increasingly violent situations in which he is in very real danger of doing himself serious harm.

Towards the end, Valentin withdraws from contact with his social worker, while his positive rebound becomes even more transmuted. Looking only at his behavior, it seems as if he is more motivated than before and in more emotional contact with himself (i.e. he cries and agrees to undergo detoxification).

Discussion Questions

1. Have you met clients like Valentin, who are in this destructive process? Are they hopeless or do you still have the possibility to motivate them?
2. Imagine that you meet a client who is in a very destructive stage in his demotivational process. Should you refrain from trying to motivate him because he is too fragile and hopeless? On the contrary, should you strive to intensify your motivational work, because the client is nearing his death? It may be your last chance to strengthen his positive core, and you do not have any reason to hold back. If you do not do anything, he will die shortly.

Lesson 15. Motivational and Demotivational Process Summary (Blog53)

We can summarise the differences between the two processes in a latently motivated client through the change in contact rebuses (Motivational Work, Part 1: Values and Theory, pages 516 – 532) thus:

DIFFERENT TYPES OF CONTACT REBUS WITH RESPECT TO PROCESS

THE DEMOTIVATIONAL PROCESS	THE MOTIVATIONAL PROCESS
POSITIVE REBOUND     More transformed pain = more destructive less genuinely constructive	POSITIVE REBOUND     Less transformed pain = less destructive more genuinely constructive
NEGATIVE REBOUND     More transformed pain = more destructive, less genuine conflict	NEGATIVE REBOUND     Less transformed pain = less destructive, More genuine conflict

One problem is to differentiate between the two processes through the contact rebuses that the client employs. If destructive demonstrativeness is part of a motivational process, it means that a positive change is underway and the client will become more motivated if the motivational work continues. If, however, the client acts out in a demotivational process, it means that the client is still in a downward trend and has not entered a positive process of change.

In practice, it is of little consequence to the motivational worker which type of contact rebus it is, as the method will be basically the same. In both cases, the contact rebus is destructively demonstrative with a puzzle that must be solved.

The following reasoning applies on the condition that a program of motivational work has already begun. The destructive behavior that succeeds the motivational work can be a sign that a positive change is happening (motivational process) or that the client is continuing on his downward life-cycle (demotivational process).

If the motivational worker establishes that the client’s destructive behavior is not a rebound to the motivational work but is actually an even more desperate appeal for help, this gives him some important information, as it confirms that the attitude towards his client that he has so far adopted has not hit home fully. He must thus modify his approach, evaluate his work and think about how to continue.

On the other hand, if the motivational worker has it confirmed that the client’s destructive behavior is a rebound to the motivational work and that a motivational process is underway, he also receives feedback on his efforts. He has managed to reach the client emotionally enough to set in motion a process of change. He thus receives confirmation that he is on the right path.

A similar issue faces the motivational worker when it comes to distinguishing between superficial compliance and constructive behavior. When the client’s conduct is more constructive, part of it can be genuine and a reaction to the motivational work. The alternative is that the client is continuing on his demotivational process, which means that the positive contact rebus is even more transmuted and destructive.

Both processes embody the same challenge: not to end up in a prestige and performance mindset. The motivational worker can do no more than his best, and sometimes a motivational process will commence, sometimes not. We have already looked at this way of thinking in connection with the humanistic approach and the primary responsibilities of the motivational worker.

If the client continues on a demotivational process, it does not, however, mean that the motivational worker has not affected his client. He might have transferred enough life energy to the client to make the demotivational process gradient shallower. From the client’s perspective, this can mean a major change and the difference between life and death. So even if a motivational worker does not set a motivational process in motion, he has still saved a life and enabled the motivational work to continue.

Case Study

Moses, 53, has been using drugs since his early thirties. For ten years his problem was alcohol but then he started to take pills. For the past decade, he has been out of work and on different kinds of benefits, which he can only receive by paying regular visits to the social welfare office. Usually, he’s cooperative and in a good mood.

Sometimes he turns up drunk and is aggressive, even threatening, toward desk staff. However, he is always cooperative and compliant with the social workers he meets. However, he refuses to look at different therapeutic alternatives. On one occasion, he smashes up the reception. Moses has been married and still has contact with his ex-wife. With her too, he can shift between compliance and aggression. He’s never assaulted her, but has, for instance, smashed a window when she didn’t open the door to him.

Discussion

This client’s motivational process has not changed much in 20 years. The only deterioration was the abuse of pills; otherwise, the degree of destruction in his negative and positive rebounds has remained effectively the same.

In the negative rebound, he takes drugs, is aggressive, and demolishes inanimate objects. In his positive rebounds, he is in a good mood and cooperative. He clearly obtains enough life energy from the social welfare office and his ex-wife to greatly reduce the pace of the demotivational process.

Discussion Questions

1. Do you see any meaning in continuing a motivational work with a client, if he continues to be in a demotivational process? Maybe you think that your efforts have not succeeded in strengthening his positive core?
2. Nevertheless, do you persist to focus on the client’s contact rebus and believe that neither you nor the client is hopeless? Do you proceed with your work and alter your approach according to the experiences you make in your motivational work? And do you also consider it substantial that the client, at any rate, has a reduced pace of the demotivational process like the client Moses?

Lesson 16. Appraising Level of Motivation 1 (Blog 59)

To be able to apply the methodology derived from the contact rebus theory, a motivational worker must be convinced that his client is latently motivated and has a destructive, concealed contact rebus, and thus has a different, cloaked message behind what he appears to be communicating to others. This distinguishes him from the manifestly motivated client, who does not hide in the same way despite using transmuted contact rebuses.

The latently motivated person’s destructiveness gives him an even higher degree of transmutation, and recognizing his latent motivation is the most important aspect of the motivational worker’s work, as it decides his whole approach to his client (Motivational Work, Part 1: Values and Theory, page 626 -669).

Appraising a client’s degree of motivation is done on the basis of the following characteristics:

* The destructive degree of transmutation of the client’s emotional experiences

* The destructive degree of transmutation of the client’s cognition

* The destructive degree of transmutation of the client’s actions

* The destructive degree of transmutation of the client’s temporal contact rebus

* The degree of congruence between emotions, cognitions, actions, and life situations.

Case Study

Sigfrid, 40, is homeless and a frequent visitor to a shelter, which is open all during the day and offers beds for the night. Sigfrid attends daytime activities and sometimes stays the night. His health is failing since he has diabetes and has twice been operated on for cancer.

On several occasions, Sigfrid has been banned from the shelter’s activities after having threatened and even attacked other clients and members of staff. He has formerly done time for assault and attempted murder. He is a drug user, but not as much as he used to be owing to his diabetes. The shelter offers the homeless a chance to see a doctor once a week.

At one such time, Sigfrid attacks another homeless person and is banned from the doctor’s surgery for a month. Despite this, he turns up a week later wishing to talk about his being banned. The female deputy manager of the day center agrees to see him, and he explains to her that he hit the other homeless person because the latter had said that people like him shouldn’t get to see a doctor.

As Sigfrid talks, he struggles with his tears and rushes out of the room, returning red-eyed a short while later. He says that he is a fool and that he’s done wrong and he deserved to be hit. In the end, he gives the deputy manager a hug. She is given the impression of someone who is being genuinely honest and who has made a confession.

She reverses the decision to ban him there and then and he gets a chance to see the doctor straight away. Afterward, she feels as if she has witnessed something big and has connected in a very intimate way with a fellow human being.

Discussion

As a positive rebound, the patient has a compliance contact rebus, and as a negative rebound physical violence. As mentioned above, one difficulty with the compliance contact rebus is that it makes the motivational worker experience in the here-and-now that his client is being emotionally open and confiding, and genuinely means what he says.

However, there is an inherent incongruence: how can Sigfrid be so well-integrated and open and yet so destructively demonstrative?

There are also signs in the transmutation of the compliance contact rebus, which shows that his emotions are transmuted. His reaction is simplistic: Sigfrid is devastated and considers himself the sole source of blame, yet he is not troubled by the fact that he cannot control himself and can become so violent, and therefore feels he needs no help preventing it from reoccurring.

He should however be worried about it after all his previous assaults; instead, he acts so as to erase the event and the responsibility he has for it. Another sign is the rapid switch between assault and compliance (i.e. a high degree of transmutation of the temporal contact rebus).

It is not reasonable for such a destructively demonstrative person to have worked through his situation and changed his ways so quickly. On the other hand, this does fit into the picture of the assailant’s positive rebound, in which they take all the blame and apparently want to put everything right. Only his destructive physical violence is actually enough to establish that he is latently motivated. Unfortunately, the staff is unable to solve the contact rebus.

This can be because it contains a combination of flattery and intimidation, which is a difficult transmutation to deal with. In one way, he is saying to the deputy manager that it is thanks to her skillful actions that he confesses.

At the same time, she knows how uncontrollably destructive Sigfrid can be and therefore does not want to see the transmutation, since the situation could then become threatening. To summarize the appraisal of Sigfrid’s motivation, we can say that the truth lies more in his actions than in his words.

Discussion Questions

1. How much do you solely let your emotional reaction decide if the clientʼs verbal and physical behavior is honest or transmuted, like the deputy manager? Or instead, do you consider the client’s whole life situation and evaluate if he is capable of opening up as a well-functioning person does? Particularly, if the client has a very destructive behavior just before the alteration to being constructive?
2. How do you recognize that the client, Sigfrid, has a compliance contact rebus? Which are the most important clues for you? Is it his swift transformation from aggressiveness to compliance? r that the contents are without nuances – everything is positive? Instead, is it your here-and-and experience that Sigfrid is utterly open with himself, compared to you a week ago conceived him as dangerous, impulsive, and has a heavy lid on his true emotions?
3. In his talk, Sigfrid is unwilling to address his aggressive and abusive behavior. How important is this sign for you?

 

Lesson 17. Summary of Part 1: Commitment and the Protection Suit (Blog 61)

The active element of motivational work is the dynamic between the motivational worker and his client. It is vital that the motivational worker does not hide behind a mask or a role, for the more he is himself, the more he can take advantage of the opportunities the therapeutic situation presents.

The personal inventory that he takes to the meeting with his client includes his values and opinions, and it is this aspect of his work that we have been exploring (Motivational Work, Part 1: Values and Theory, pages 679-680).

Commitment and Protection Suit

From the perspective of motivational work, most will be gained from the encounter if the motivational worker has with him the following values and opinions, which also form part of his constructive ascribed untransmuted contact rebus. In that way the list is also the motivational worker’s protection suit, which makes it possible to stay committed and to not be burnt out:

* All clients have potential: there are no hopeless cases.

* All situations have potential: there are no hopeless situations.

* The motivational worker has the primary responsibility for the motivational work.

* The motivational worker must be fully conversant with the signs of latent motivation.

* The latently motivated client always appeals for help via his contact rebuses (the theory of contact rebuses).

* Emotional change always involves two steps forward and one step back (the theory of life-energy processes).

* The client changes through encounters in the here-and-now and through the relationship.

Discussion Questions

1. Do you think that is enough to learn these seven points by heart?
2. On the other hand, are you convinced that you have to work hard with yourself through experience, discussions, supervision, and lessons to integrate the method into your mind?
3. Are you convinced that you need to be genuine when you meet a latently motivated client?