As an activity in our Facilitator Accelerator Program we were required to complete an experiential task which we called an analogous or immersive experience. This required us to spend a half day in a non-work environment. My interpretation of the exercise was to provide us with clarity on our roles as facilitators by paralleling what we do with another industry. We were expected to share our insights within our group to learn from others' experiences.
My immersive
experience was an interview with Emma, a friend who is a Psychologist and a
fellow AFL mum. We catch up most Sundays on the sidelines but this Sunday I had
asked Emma if I could interview her. My aim was to gain an understanding of the
alignment between the support services offered and techniques used by a
Psychologist and what I do as a Facilitator, both in facilitation of learning
programs and also understand how the techniques might be similar to workplace
coaching.
I have broken the interview and my takeaways into 2 blog posts around
1. Goals & Motivation and 2. Questions.
..............................................................................
1. Goals & Motivation
My first question to Emma was;
What do you call a
session?
Emma confirmed that it
is most often referred to as a treatment or therapeutic session. We
discussed predominantly examples of individual one on one (therapist and
client) sessions, however throughout the interview we also talked about group
sessions which could include couples, families or groups (eg parenting classes
- where the group has a commonality).
I was keen to
understand how Emma approaches goal setting with clients.
Emma clarified that
every session has its own goals, she reiterated the importance of clearly
outlining the agenda at the commencement of a session, to ensure all parties
are in agreement about the flow of the session. Each session would have goals
to be achieved, and then there would be interim goals that the individual would
work on post session and bring outcomes to the next session. We discussed the
importance of making these interim goals achievable, particularly with
children, to ensure an ongoing commitment to the therapy. Each session runs approximately
50 minutes and a client supported by Medicare would be entitled to 6 sessions
however Emma pointed out that some clients require up to 10 or even 20
sessions.
Long term goals are
determined at an Initial assessment where it is important to gather an overall
understanding of the individual's situation such a their history. The client
must be actively involved in the formulation of where they are heading, what
are their long term goals. These goals can change, so it is important to allow
the goals to be really
flexible, however generally the long term goal is an overarching goal(s), which
will stay same as they are usually a life goal.
An important factor is
to provide the client with the power to negotiate the goal, by doing this the
therapist gets the client's buy in. During a session the therapist is reading body posture and tone
of voice and will guide the client by pointing out what sounds
important. If there is a key point that therapist sees as relevant they will
prepare the client to discuss that in the next session.
Emma raised my
awareness to the fact that there are many regulations determining the actions
of therapists not just ethically but also practically. Because the client is
not in a position of power or authority the therapist must empower the client
by gaining their agreement and empowering them to choose. Sometimes the
psychologist, who is the powerful expert, needs to point out the pros, not
cons, to engage the client therefore helping them understand the benefit of
dealing with the difficult or challenging topics. It is easy to presume people think
the same as you regarding the benefits of having therapy sessions. They may
have a commitment to therapy but it can be a real challenge for people to keep
putting themselves in a vulnerable position, they need to 'feel good' and
achieve some sort of incremental or achievable goal to see progress which is
the value for them. "The 'feeling good' is the motivator"
Interim goals must
hold true in case the ultimate goal is not achieved or achievable.
There is one exception
where the goal is not determined by the person receiving therapy and this is
EAP workplace therapy. The organisation or workplace sets the goal as they are
the paying client.
I questioned Emma
about commitment to the goals
Emma raised the
importance of understanding client motivation. Most of the time if the client
is paying for the therapy they don't want to waste their time and they want to
get value for the money that they have paid.
Emma gave the example
of working with kids, you set up with an initial learning phase to ensure
success. She used the example of a star chart for already successful
achievements. "Find out what they can do successfully and build on
this", which reminded me of what we would describe as strengths based
coaching.
Goal is something they
never do, something they are striving for, but the first goal is something that
they do 100% of time eg brushing their teeth in the morning when they have been
asked once. Then the next is 75% of time eg once you have brushed your teeth
you put your socks on. Emma pointed out that you can't have standard goals as
each person is different, the goal(s) need to be suited for the individual
client. It is important that the reward is set by the client. For adults the
reward is about feeling good or successful achievement.
Emma raised the point "Don't
set dead people goals"
I was fascinated by
this point and she elaborated but also indicated that there is plenty of info
online. An example of which is "I never want to feel threatened", "I
never want our family to fight again". It is important to recognise that
being human requires risk of feeling hurt or disappointed, part of therapy is
to assist people to manage these feelings and the risk of them happening again,
it is not realistic to expect that therapy will take away the problem or the
risk.
Posts
