If you are interested in working with Process Oriented Psychology with Children and Families in Extreme States you may find my interview with Gary of interest. Gary Reiss PhD PW Dipl has applied Process Oriented and earth-based methods in the field of child and family therapy for many years. He is a regular visitor around this theme to the UK, as well as to many other parts of the world.

This video was done over Skype towards giving a flavour of some of the areas which Gary will be teaching during his next visit to the UK -- 6th&7th July 2012 ‘Process Oriented facilitation for young people and parents where extreme states and mental health difficulties disrupt family relationships’ w/ Gary Reiss PhD

Gary Reiss -- Child & Family work with Extreme States -- Process Oriented Psychology

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmkp0lNBYFc

Gary Reiss PhD will teach, demonstrate and help us to develop awareness-based skills to work and flow with difficult or challenging states experienced by young people in family relationships. How can we approach such situations as when parents are feeling overwhelmed with life; with symtpoms of abuse, trauma, high anxiety, or severe depression for example? Process work by definition is interested in helping us to unfold experiences in which we feel stuck or blocked, with an understanding that the states and labels we give to mental, social, behavioural and emotional difficulties are only momentary static pictures ascribed to experience. The belief that these states are the only reality limits our range of options, experiences, and our ability to deepen experiences and create change.

Gary Reiss PhD is an experienced Process Oriented Psychologist and International Worldwork Facilitator also with a background in Social Work and Family Therapy. He has worked for many years with young people and families, and facilitates large-scale tensions in such places as Palestine/Israel. Gary has written books on Process Oriented Child and Family Work, and has developed inspiring methods of working with children and family with an earth-based connection and within the context of surrounding community members who can support the sustainability of the approach.

This moving piece can be found on Arnold and Amy Mindell’s website, and demonstrates how carefully following a child’s signals after the tragic loss of his mother, helped to move a cycling process move on, leading to the child moving from an experience of helplessness to experiencing his strength.

Perhaps the example of a child who witnessed the death of his mother in an avalanche in the French Alps will be of help. Several weeks after the tragic accident, the young child continuously stuttered “Oh Mama, Mama,” looking up towards the sky. He was not catatonic, but was apparently in some form of shock. The father did not know what to do. We asked the child to say “Mama” and look up. “Tell us what you see.”

The little boy said he saw a “white wall coming down”. Apparently he meant the dreaded avalanche. While the father shouted no! to the “white wall” from the corner of our office, the child just continued to stare upwards towards the ceiling. As we began gently acting like the “white wall,” the child began to put up his own hand ever so slightly in the beginning of a “stop”-like gesture. While slowly moving towards him as “the white wall”, we encouraged him to put his hand up more forcefully. Suddenly we were involved in a “pushing” struggle. He was pushing up against the wall as we, playing the wall, pushed against him.

A few minutes later he was smiling. Now he said, “I am “strong” like the avalanche”. Apparently such signs of strength were very new for him. In any case, for the first time, the child seemed happier and was no longer repeatedly crying for his mama.

Charleen and I had a great discussion recently during which we shared our experience and learning as Process Workers over many years. What had we learnt?  what hadn’t we learnt? and when are we learning? I think we are talking about a different kind of learning than the accumulation of information or knowledge (though that can be fun at times), but rather we explored how a fluidity of awareness can lead to a deeper sense of resilience and ability to interact with challenging situations.

I suggested the acronym OCA-Y for Open Channel Awareness – Yes!!, as a fluidity of awareness that we can discover to meet different situations (Dr Arnold Mindell described this with Shamanistic terminology as First and Second Attention, and then with his later concept of Process Mind. Ram Dass speaks of being able to exist in several different realities/worlds at the same time)

We were speaking about how easy it is to get caught in states of mind or states of being. Such as when we are with a respected teacher, how easy it is to feel that they have all the experience and knowing, and that we don’t, we are the ‘learner’ they are the ‘teacher’ and we are wanting. Do you recognise situations in which you react within the blink of an eye, polarising with another person or even reacting from a triggered memory such as a tone of voice, a smell, or a particular kind of room (I notice a tendency to feel ill when I’m in a hospital for example.. was i feeling so unwell when i came in?).

Open Channel Awareness is having your awareness open outside the event while you are within it. It involves being practically involved with a situation, while noticing the feelings, the level of dreaming, and the essence or genius of the situation. Open Channel Awareness also involves noticing that you are reacting or polarising and at the same time having access to other levels or other worlds. I often can’t do this. It’s fascinating to notice how often I/you exist in a habitual or fixed pattern of response to life. I spend alot of my life half asleep, and not placing much value on other levels of experience in that moment.

So the OCA-Y anocronym came about as a little reminder to myself when faced with anything or anybody. A little ‘OCA-Y’ beneath my breath to remind myself of all the other levels of awareness. It’s OK with a hippy ‘C’ soft and fluid, rather than the harsher ‘K’.

OCA-Y?

Being held in someone’s mind is no small thing. It is known to be a huge factor in child development whereby the child experiencing  themself to be held in the mind of their parent becomes increasingly self-aware or self-conscious, learns about the separation and connection of self and the other. When children deal with separation from their parent it seems to be immensely helpful for them to have a sense that their parent is aware of their whereabouts and that they are in good hands. Children who are anxious about separating from their carer may need to know that you are thinking of them even when they are across the room or in another space. Children also benefit from feeling held positively in their parents minds and later in the minds of others.

From my experience of the more attachment-based therapies i have come to understand the value for both children but parents too, to be held in mind. It’s a great contribution to a parent’s resilience to feel they are held in the mind of therapists, but better still in the minds of their families and community. I wonder if this has both local and non-local aspects. A non-local connection may exist between people who are somehow entangled (as Dr Arnold Mindell calls it when he relates this connection to quantum entanglement).

We have found in the Child and Adolescent Service (CAMHS) i work within that very vulnerable parents seem to find it easier to sustain the parenting of their child or children when they know they will attend a therapeutic support group over time, and that there is a group of therapists thinking about them even during the long-gaps between contact.

I had the great pleasure to work with one young man and his mother at one point in my career whereby the boy was increasingly being excluded from school and had the label of being one of the most difficult students some of the teachers had ever taught in their long career. This pre-adolescent boy was in the last year of his primary school and he had a tendency to become very frustrated in lessons sometimes leading to him lashing out at others. When i met him, i was struck by a lovely young and childlike quality in him. He was constantly being cheeky and was wanting to play. There was something very intuitive about his thoughts and ideas, and at the same time i could see that he would suffer in a mainstream education environment where he would be expected to knuckle down to the learning task with the rest of his peers. The boy had an estranged father and his mother was struggling with him at home also. The minds of most of the adults around him seemed to struggle to see him in an appreciative light.

Over time we used sessions to work with reframing his behaviours and spending great amounts of time following his interests and his urges to play. His mother seemed terrified by the irrational nature of play, and thus was somewhat terrified of him, but over time she seemed to see him in a different light and began to explore and enjoy his nature to a greater degree. What became particularly fascinating to me was that really it was the mother who was supporting the greatest changes in this young man’s life, she seemed to relax and celebrate who he was. I, with another therapist began to see mother and son with increasingly lengthening spans of time. I felt the sense that our holding the pair in our minds somehow also contributed to the Mother’s ability to deal with some further very challenging moments.

I believe that the therapeutic relationship takes place not only during the framework of sessions given, but also in the spaces between, the entanglements and mind-holdings that take place over time. I am personally also grateful for some of the minds in which i myself feel held.

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A youngish teenage boy came to see me each week in his secondary school. He sloped into the room for his session and lolloped onto his chair. People were concerned about this young man’s low mood and that he had a tendency to being bullied and then not attending particular lessons. I was quite unsure how to approach the situation with him, mainly because he was fairly unresponsive to most of what i would say to him.

At some point i began to notice that his eyes seemed to fix me with quite an intensity. I commented on his intense blue eyes which i experienced as something of a bright light or ‘glint’. He seemed to stare at me even more intently. At this point i dropped all my previous theories and plans of how to intervene with him, and just began to stare into his eyes while telling him what i was noticing. It wasn’t long before we both began to giggle which then developed into hilarious and joyful laughter….

Each week would involve more moments of catching one another’s eyes and then descending into raucous laughter. I was struck by the similarity slots of this eye contact as when an infant has an attuned relationship with their parent. This was a boy whom i felt hadn’t experienced enough enjoyment and appreciation of his nature, his essence. Just noticing the glint in his eyes seemed to ignite humour and a joy for life. I discovered that he lived in very stressed family environment with a brother with debilitating symptoms and thus he received very little attention indeed.

One day he told me that he had run away from home. When i asked about the story I discovered that he had had an argument with his parent, and this had felt the end of their relationship. Together we rang his mother who was quite shocked that he felt this way, and we were able to discuss his need for her love and attention.

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A three day seminar using a Process Work approach to movement.
Conor McKenna & Clare Hill
7 -9 October 2011 Moscow

In our day-to-day world, movement is usually just an aid to living and getting around. Our bodies are subject to our will and our need to get things done. Movement itself, however, contains at its essence, echos of the movement of the entire universe from where we came. Experiencing our deepest, most fundamental nature gives us a doorway to a world far beyond our normal identity.
Living a productive and successful life requires accessing that essential, creative part of ourselves. Becoming open to other levels of reality that manifest through subtle movements within our bodies and the environment around us can solve the most difficult problems and bring happiness and fulfillment with minimum effort.

This seminar is open to the general public, particularly those who are interested in an embodied experience of their symptoms and problems. Using minimal signals, this seminar may also be useful for those who have different ways of moving, such as Parkinsonism and many other physical states. Therapists who work with movement, or those wishing to know more about movement interventions with clients and others specialising in dance and movement processes will be interested in exploring a process-oriented approach.

During the seminar Conor and Clare will be working with some people individually, as well as having opportunities for large and small group work, and dyads.

I am a sixteen year old girl who suddenly has come to terms, or is trying to, with the fact that every day I am making decisions which will ultimately affect the rest of my life. Without overdramatizing things, I believe that today there is an incredible amount of pressure on young people, and for me personally, I am beginning to catch a glimpse of my life as an adult- and for the first time there could be nothing scarier.

The exercise using vectors to try and map out all the thoughts in my head concerning university and my life was something I had no previous knowledge of. The initial process of simply writing down my thoughts on paper was something which I had never thought of doing before, but was actually incredibly interesting as it added some sense of solidity to the dreams that pass through my head on a daily basis.

It is really hard to put into words the experience I had. Daily I seem to be bombarded with thousands of pieces of information, some things may influence me or have an effect, whilst others simply pass; the idea of formulating some sort of navigation between such a complex web of ideas was surreal, but also incredibly enlightening- travelling between things such as theatre and human rights, things which I would never have seen the link of before, I was now suddenly realising how everything is connected, as everything makes and influences the person I am.

A very deep moment for me was the walk between what we called the starting destination and the final destination. Basically we drew a line between the place where I had originally started and the place where I ended up, and it was actually quite crazy to see how my whole journey had resulted in one simple line. Then I was asked to go deep inside myself, in an almost meditative state to begin the walk between these two points. And all I was left with was the journey I had just taken, and what seemed like the almost primal intuitive gut feelings which grounded the bases for all the ideas I had mapped out. Just like that, I was deeply questioning the formulation of myself, almost un-building the bricks which make me, and with each brick I removed I seemed to have removed a weight or a burden of myself. This relief brought on what I can only describe as real, true emotion. Rather like images, I was suddenly overcome with thoughts of things such as brightness and the sun.

At the end of each walk, and at the end of the process altogether, I was left with a feeling which can only be described as pure relief. I really do feel after taking this journey, like I have come to terms with where I am in the greater scheme of my life. I am a child. I am an adult. In many ways I am both. Standing on what seems like the edge of something huge, to see clarity, to see brightness, is something which is both rare and something for which I am eternally grateful for.

ZB

05/06/2011

If you are ever feeling depressed or hopeless or struggling with inner turbulence generally, here is a simple exercise that will help you to resolve it quickly. Trying to understand moods is not generally useful. Relating to the mood or depression through vision and movement usually has much more success. All that is required here is that you suspend your normal thinking processes for a few moments only and follow experiences that arise within you – the key to resolution is almost always within the problem itself. Have a piece of paper and pen ready.

1. Consider the problem that is troubling you and then consider who it is in you that is suffering from it. The one who is suffering can be considered the observer, or you. As you do this go with the first few thoughts that come to mind
2. When you have settled on the problem and the one who suffers from the situation, consider that the problem has a quality of energy at its essence. Then, with paper and pen, make an energy squiggle on the paper to represent the energy.
3. Now feel into the observer in you and do the same, make a scribble that seems to represent the nature of the one who is suffering.
4. Look at both pictures and notice how they may connect, ponder associations that come up in you. Can you put a name to each energy? Name them now.
5. Now using one hand and arm, move the energy that is represented by one of the squiggles in the style of the energy itself. Do the same with the other hand for the second energy. Perhaps one is gentle and the other sharp, or one fast with jerky movements and the other slow and smooth, the energy, of course, can express itself in limitless ways.
6. With both hands moving the different energies, let them dance the movements and notice what each hand wants to do – do they ignore each other, do they want to move away from one and other, etc.
7. Let them move together slowly – too fast and you may loose the awareness that is trying to happen between them. Suspend your thinking while your hands show the way. If you feel that you are controlling the outcome then go back to what the hands want to do. Control only the slow speed of bringing them together.
8. Notice which energy is least know or least unraveled in your awareness. Find out more about that energy by letting it unravel itself more.
9. Notice the story that is unfolding as the hands touch. Ask yourself what part were you identified with mostly in your depression, or struggles, before you began this exercise. Is your mood now changing, or changed, as you observe this interaction?
10. Keep going until you reach some sort of new awareness. From this new perspective can you see the meaning of this dynamic and the direction it is trying to take you in.
11. If you have a partner, or a helper, ask them to play the original problem or its energy, while you stand for, and become, the new awareness. Let the new awareness interact with the old problem.

Amazing research has been done around the neurobiological development of a baby/child’s brain and the impact of the long-term effect both positive and negative through the relationship experiences of these early years.

PW ‘s sensory-grounded signal-based approach for engaging in relationships is an excellent  complement and practice to work alongside and with the attachment and neurobiological paradigm. They both emphasize the connection between the complex set of sensory perceptions associated with human interactions  – the face, smile, voice, touch and smell, which stimulate the neural networks mediating pleasure. This pleasure is seen as the human interactions that is the important neurobiological “glue” that bonds and creates healthy relationships.

PW has developed differentiated ways of engaging with both verbal and non-verbal signals and which are well suited to the sort of awareness, attunement and communication that is needed with a baby and small child.  Communication signals from a baby are usually a mixture of analogical sounds and movements – a cry, coo, gurgle, look, turn their head and eyes, move their arms and legs (especially when lying on their backs), seek the nipple for food, etc..  Responding to these signals in a positive way would be to engage with either the crying or cooing in a way that helps the baby feel related to, cared for and loved.  Not responding or responding with a voice or look that is grumpy or unfriendly will make the baby feel scared and unsure.

Some people have a natural ability to attune to their baby/child in a way that these unspoken communication signals are felt and “understood” and so are able to respond in a way which evokes positive feedback from the baby….a coo, smile, a deep searching look at you, – you coo back, look into their eyes, go cochi cochi coo, and so the conversation goes on.  This way of engaging with these signals and the babies having positive feedback to their signals is crucial for the babies’ well-being, sense of self and experiencing of caring and creative relationships with others.

In Process Oriented Psychology, Arnold Mindell ( Process Mind, C13) talks about entangled co-creation and how reality comes about through a process of reflection.  The observer and the observed experience each other and thereby co-create reality.  We co-create together.   The connection between the observer and the observed (in this situation the carer and the baby) is “entangled co-creation”. If you think about any of your own relationships – have you noticed how the other person’s face changes in response to how yours changes?  In the very early years of a child’s life this entangled-co-creation is especially powerful.

Sometimes carers/ parents are not able to attune and/or respond to the baby’s signals in a positive way, or do so in a detrimental way to the baby.   When a process worker enters into such a “home” or field the focus of attention is widened to include the carers and entire family.  We would ask ourselves – can we enter this field without a proscribed attitude – can we stay open and able to engage with exactly where the family are? For example, if it is found that part of what is happening is that the carer is just not able to care or respond to the baby, the Process Work practitioner would need to be able to embody “being responsive” to the carer as this is a missing attitude, or role in the situation and needs to be filled.

The practitioner would also want to find out what is trying to happen by “not responding”.   She would consider that “not responding” is somehow needed in the situation and bring awareness to it, so that the adult can be helped to be aware of this need in themselves, and to find a way of responding to it, while at the same time helping them take responsibility for the care of their baby/child.   Every aspect of the family’s field needs to be seen and appreciated for the benefit of the whole.   The trouble and difficulty that is happening has some wisdom in it, and through staying close to the communication signals from and between all the members of the family, the way forward will emerge.

The attitudes we bring with us as therapists will be felt by everyone.  Our aim would be to be helpful to the baby/child as the baby is the most vulnerable and has least voice (or rank) in the system, but would also stay open to the meaning of the disturbance in a way that takes care of each person and the whole family situation.

Rank refers here to the level or amount of power that each person has in any particular situation.  The baby’s cries and smiles have some rank because of the effect it potentially has on the adults. However, overall, the power to engage or ignore is with the adults, and the “voice” of the baby/child will need focussed support.

Studying the interactions between each person in the family system, we would look for the other “ghost” roles in the system.  That means looking for both, what is disturbing the family, and what is missing or needed and not present.  We recognise “ghost” roles through listening to what is implied by the family members, but not mentioned directly.  Or sometimes in “negations” in which people say.  For example a mother saying “I am fine, I don’t need help anymore”.   So “needing help” is a ghost, the mother is not able to identify with needing help, but actually does need help.

As well as thinking about the relationships between the members of the family, and the problems that are being presented we would also want to find out about deeper parts of the family.  What does the family dream about or strive for?  What are they longing for?  Trying to find and feel the essence of the family – feelings and dreams in the background.  As facilitators we might ask the family to feel into these things, when they had a sense of that, then to ask them to associate a place or spot in Nature that connects to these background feelings and dreams.  These spots in Nature that resonate with their deepest dreams opens up and puts them in touch with their inner resourcefulness.

For a practitioner it is also essential to be able to connect to this deeper and “dreaming” level of the family situation.   It gives the practitioner access to the meaningful common ground of the family.  Engaging in this way will help the family feel connected to and not invaded or “therapised”.  It also gives access to a sense of a deep presence that would be a resource, while engaging with their troubles.

The aim of the attachment model is to appreciate and respond to the crucial development of the baby/child attachment needs at specific times and in specific ways. Being able to attune to the baby and mother/father family situation and intervene in ways that takes care of the whole situation so that the baby/child has the opportunity to optimum development and well-being.

PW ‘s multi-levelled approach for engaging in relationships is an excellent  complement and practice to work alongside and with the attachment and neurobiological paradigm.

I met a teenage girl at the high school. She would barely speak a word and her body twisted in upon itself like a gnarled tree. What circumstances had caused her to turn-in on herself so? She wanted to see a therapist, but her parents must not know. She knew that if she told me she was unsafe I would have to act. I asked her where she felt the safest. In a tiny voice she said on her bed with her dog and she clutched her bag closely to her body. I said I was really interested in what was in her bag, was it something she could show me? She slowly pulled-out a book of her song-writing. She wrote songs when she was curled-up at home. I am a song-writer too, and I told her that it would be an honour if I could read some of her songs. She looked at me, passed her book with a slight nod, then turned half away.

Her songs were powerful and deep stories of betrayal, the loss of love and trust, wrestling with life and whether to end it all. Ode-coded questions and tortured truths cutting inwards and embedded in memories of a happy childhood. As I read and responded to her words out loud, a more vivid and terrible story wrenched itself from the page into the room. Now her twisted torso and tightened limbs unchanged, defended and turned-away from some ghostly figure within the therapy room. I knew it to be her father, but this was never said.

She had no voice. These things were unspeakable. She was out of control and yet using the power of her body and her voicelessness in whatever way possible to steer herself through these deeply unsettled waters. And, for the weeks and months to come I joined her on this journey, navigating the uncertainties, the dangers, the possibilities. Until one day, when time seemed to be running out, she told me a story that made me act, calling upon the intervention of outer authorities, the police and social services. This story was told to me by telephone and not in person. In this way I heard her voice describe in detail to me, an outer attack of a sexual nature, by men both strangers and yet familiar to her.

The professional and adult world around her sprung into reaction, in strange ways. with some believing that she was delusional and controlling, that her behaviours originated in a kind of madness, while others believed that something truly terrible had happened and continued to happen to her. As psychotherapists we are trained to work with body language, but until she would utter clearly in words a precise description of what was happening, she could not be believed (a year later when she had told her whole story there were still many who did not believe her).  It seems that the law doesn’t work with the language of the body, and so a voiceless child presents as something of an inconvenience. Whilst a therapist may work confidentially with a Gillick Competent teenager, once the police were approached then her parents became suddenly aware of the uncertainty of where her allegations might lead. Her parents sided strongly with the idea that she was mad, and wanted to help her. They complained about any therapist who had helped to bring her to this point, requesting their presence was refused at multi-displinary meetings.

Then suddenly the ‘madness’ paid off, she needed to be taken to a special unit for adolescents, she asked not to see her parents for many months. And slowly but surely her twisted torso began to unfold, her voice began to re-emerge, and with it came the stories and the details of a regular abuse within her own home. In the following months her dog died.

One year later this young lady spoke to me by phone with a new found voice and confidence. She had continued to live away from her family home. However she was vulnerable to the influences of other teenagers. Things were improved but not resolved.

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