Module 6: Lesson 1

How to Enhance Your Senses to See the Village (Extended

Family) and BeyondWorksheet

FST Digital Advanced Training Course12 FST Techniques to Become a Family Trauma Expert

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Lesson 1How to Enhance Your Senses to See the Village (Extended Family) and Beyond

This worksheet will help you enhance your senses and your practice in these areas:

• The Negative Implications of Failing to Engage the Extended Family

• The Potential Positive Outcomes when the Extended Family is Mobilized

• Villain, Victim, and Hero: A Strength-Based Way to See Your Families

Using this worksheet as your guide, watch the Primetime Live video through a high powered family systems magnifying glass.

You can then generalize these same exact principles with your future cases. It will be a great foundation for your next two worksheets in lessons #2 and #3 for this extended family module.

In sum, this worksheet is designed to help you:

• See where things went off track for this single parent mother and see what it could look like if we approached the same case from a family systems trauma lens.

• What the mom and this family needed to get unstuck? (The answer may surprise you. Look for the bonus technique of villain, victim, hero. You will love it!)

Two Action Steps#1 – �Enhance�You�Family�Systems�Trauma�Senses:�

A Checklist of What to Watch

Watch the Primetime Live Case Using this Worksheet (6:59–13:28)As you watch this video, please have the checklist in Table 1 in front of you. The emphasis is placed on the negative impact of not proactively mobilizing the mom’s boyfriend, friends, neighbors, or institutions like law enforcement. However, I will also highlight the impact of a non-systemic lens throughout the video with a both/and emphasis.

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Your call to action is simply this:

1. Look for the family systems lens items listed. When you see it in the video, check the box. Celebrate this win with yourself.

2. Write down your thoughts to each nonsystemic vs. systemic explanation of events as you see them on the video unfold.

3. Post some of your thoughts and questions on your FST Community Facebook Group. Why? We all need encouragement, and your questions will generate awesome discussion on our Friday get-togethers. As always, you can also email me your questions direct before Friday at info@familytrauma.com

Sometimes the best way in life to learn is first to see opposites — the opposite of what is supposed to happen before you can see a better way to address it.

In this case, Table 1 will list the “opposites” or what happened in this family when not using a family systems lens that (a) caused the stuckness or trauma to go unhealed and (b) what the mental health or helper systems did or said that helped this family remain stuck. Side by side, I will show the mirror opposite of what should have happened.

This opposite learning process is identical to your Toxic Seed and Undercurrent Handout from your Module 3, Lesson #3 worksheet (see example below). It helps to see mirror opposites together.

Please Note: I am not implying that your skill level is good or bad whether or not you see your clients or families from a systemic or non-systemic lens. Instead, I am presenting a dichotomy to jump start your senses to see your stuck cases from multiple angles. At the end of the day, it’s about results. Or “if it’s not working, do something different.”

Misuse of Power Undercurrents

Unhealthy Undercurrents Healthy Undercurrents

☐ Dance of Aggression → De-escalation Tactics, Playfulness, Safety

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Table 1: Checklist to Enhance Your Family Systems Lenses

A Non-Systemic Lens A Systemic Lens and Possible Solution

☐ Mom raises her voice with sarcasm and says, “Have a good life, son!”

Demonstrates that she is the sole reason for escalating her son and needs individual counseling and/or medication.

She is to blame for the sons kicking the wall in their mobile home and is likely mean spirited or has a personality disorder of some kind.

No de-escalation tools or healthy undercurrents. Mom raising her voice with sarcasm indicates that no one has shown mom the de-escalation tools that she needs in this high conflict interaction. Generational trauma and mom’s painful childhood may also block her from seeing her role in the escalation process.

Mental health providers needed first to help mom see this “it takes two to tango” dance in a non- blaming way and then give mom step-by-step written tools with practicing her delivery through role-plays. It might be necessary first to ask Mom just to try a small experiment to see for herself “how it works?” After a small victory, mom may then get the insight after seeing it work.

Your thoughts or Questions (post them in the FST Community Facebook Group): ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________

☐ Jonathan immediately kicks in the wall after mom raises her voice with sarcasm

Demonstrates his inability to self-regulate his emotions, need for anger control sessions in individual counseling. He also shows aggression and conduct disorder tendencies. Individual counseling is needed or home removal.

No de-escalation practice in interacting with mom or others. During the documentary, it was revealed that Jonathan had anger management training using individual counseling while in foster care. But the missing piece was a lack of interactional training.

He never practiced his anger management tools with mom through role-plays, and mom never got these same tools to practice with him. As a result, Jonathan was not able to generalize his new anger control skills to the anger dance between him and his mom.

Your thoughts or Questions (post them in the FST Community Facebook Group): ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________

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☐ Individual TraumaDemonstrates that the conflict between mom and son is a by-product solely or primarily due to mom’s generational trauma or individual mental health issues and/or a personality disorder with mom.

From this perspective, Individual counseling, psychotropic medication, or both are needed. And based on what we see, mom is most likely resistant, unmotivated, or untreatable.

Interactional Trauma An alternative explanation is the conflict and confrontation between mother and son represent what is called “interactional trauma” [see page 16 of your resource book]. This means there is constant bickering, yelling, and conflict between parent and child over many months or years.

Constant interactional trauma results in a loss of attachment or nurturance between parent and child. In turn, this can lead to bitterness, resentment, and unforgiveness.

From this perspective, we need both individual AND family trauma counseling. One without the other will not bring about change in this family. If we cannot stop the interactional trauma first (the bleeding), we will likely never get to the core trauma in both the mom and son to heal it. In sum, we have to stop the drama before the trauma.

Your thoughts or Questions (post them in the FST Community Facebook Group): ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________

☐ More Police, More Foster Care, or More Hospitals

Mom has to call the police because things are quickly escalating out of control. It indicates that this Mom cannot handle these boys, so maybe a return to foster care or permanent removal is needed. And when Jonathan takes a knife to his throat, it clearly indicates that he is either suicidal or will harm himself. This indicates the need for psychiatric hospitalization.

An FST Extended Family Playbook With Clarity of Roles. Reframe used — not More Police, More Foster Care, etc. But a Coordinated Plan with a Town Meeting and Written Plan of Family Support.

Mental health practitioners and case managers would need to come together months before the reintegration of the boys from foster care back home.

The practitioner needed to meet with mom using the FST Diagnostic Assessment (after strength-building MI techniques and a villain, victim, and hero mindset-see Action Step #2) to locate the village and assemble everyone together. A rough draft of an Extended Playbook plan would be passed out as an example, and then a playbook could be customized for this family, and everyone’s roles would be clarified. Practice role plays, and troubleshooting would then be initiated (see Module #11) to help ensure a new operating system.

Your thoughts or Questions (post them in the FST Community Facebook Group): ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________

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#2 – �Villain,�Victim,�Hero:�A�Strengths-Based�Mindset“People don’t care about how much you know until they first know how much you care.”

From this story, you will see that it won’t matter how great your systemic lens or proficient you are in engaging your extended family. If we don’t let all of our future Primetime Live mothers and fathers first know how much we care, we fail before we begin.

A therapist (Pat B.) in the audience watched the Primetime Live Video and approached me during the break. Pat said:

“Dr. Sells (Scott), I have a mom just like this on my caseload. I came to your workshop just to get help for this one case. Just like the mom on the video, the mother I work with is resistant and not cooperative. The juvenile court judge is on my side, and even the court ordered the mom to see me and threatened her with consequences if she doesn’t attend.

But even with all that, the mom shows up late if at all. She wants me just to fix her kid and is angry all the time without taking any personal responsibility. Can you give me a technique to get this mom to cooperate?”

My answer:

“Let me first ask you three questions…”

1. List all the things or qualities about this mom that make her a villain in your eyes? The therapist listed 10 without thinking. Here was her list:

✔ She provokes her son

✔ She is mean

✔ She won’t listen to anyone, especially to me

✔ She is a bad parent

✔ She is probably bipolar

✔ She just yells and screams. I feel sorry for the son.

✔ She is rebellious

✔ She is resistant

✔ She can’t control her anger

✔ She is out of control

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2. List all the things or qualities about this mom that make her a victim? The therapist could list only 3 after giving it much thought. Here was her list.

✔ She probably has had trauma and hurts others because of that

✔ She might not have a lot of resources

✔ She might have been abused as a child

3. List all the things or qualities about this mom that make her a Hero? Here was her list:

✔ 0 – She could not think of one quality

Pat then said:

“I’m confused. Why does this matter? I just need a great technique. Even though I feel negative towards mom at times, I would never tell her. I was taught in grad school to be nonjudgmental always with my clients.”

I replied:

“Unfortunately, our clients and this mom can smell it on your sweat glands (metaphorically, of course) that you do not see her as a hero.

If we sat down with this mom from Primetime Live, do you honestly think that she would say that she felt her therapists saw her as a Hero on any level? Or mostly a villain?” During the video, did you cue in on the therapist’s body language, tone of voice [sweat glands], or sarcastic “Now she wants to talk?” at the end.

Under these conditions, do you think the mom cares about a technique that her therapists could give her?

Pat then said the eight magic words that are the beginning of a paradigm shift.

“I never thought about it that way before.”

I then said:

“So, as a personal experiment with the mom, would you do this at your next session.

I want you to use the following question from the Motivational Script, and a bonus question to find the Hero is your mom. Here they are:

#1- “Mom, if I got to know you even better what are the qualities that I would admire about you as a:

Mom and as a Person?”

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If mom says, “nothing” or “I don’t know,” you will take guesses to get her going.

And when she says anything positive, fan the flames of hope. Ask for clarification and examples. Stay with mom. Ask her to expand on her stories of strengths and as an “overcomer.”

#2- “Mom, with everything you have been through, what keeps you from throwing in the towel?”

“When she answers with something like, “I still love my child,” follow up with why? And again, fan the flames of hope by asking for examples”.

Call to ActionThen after you do this, email me a summary of the session, and I will email you back a technique to use. You must see your mom as all three: A villain, a victim, and a hero. You must soften your heart and mind to see mom as a hero and more as a victim. Otherwise, your balance sheet is blown way out of proportion with seeing the mom as only a villain. This singular viewpoint hamstrings you from being flexible, nimble, and seeing other possibilities or pathways of change.

I then said, “What do you have to lose to try?”

What Happened Next?Two weeks later, I got this email (It is paraphrased).

From: Pat Br Sent: Friday, August 2003 To: Scott Sells Subject: A Miracle Happened

Dr. Sells, it worked, it really worked. The whole mood shifted, and more importantly, how I see the mom is now different. I see her as a hero. The most important moment came when I asked her, ‘Why haven’t you thrown in the towel?”. The mom then rolled up her sleeves and proceeded to show me all her cigar burn marks up and down her arms. And then she wept.

And said, “I will not throw in the towel with my kids because as my dad put out his filthy smelling cigar on my arm as his human ashtray and spoke horrible and disgusting things to me, I swore that if I ever had kids, I would not fail them.”

But you know what, I am failing them. I am mean and yell at them all the time. I feel helpless at times, and this is the first time I can feel that you care about me.

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I then said, “I am so sorry. I only saw the anger. I didn’t know.

And then an incredible thing happened. We hugged and cried together.

Thank you, Scott

PS: The mom is starting to move

AftermathThis incredible story back in 2003 was the beginning of a journey for me: Communicate to parents or any other client competency first, technique second. I believe that this Primetime mom did not have a fighting chance to succeed. Symbolically, first base (joining through strengths-based questions) was not covered before going to second base (technique), then third base (a written plan), and then home (role plays and troubleshooting).

Pat told me later that future implications for her practice would have been dire. Without this pause button, she would have continued to see future clients from a villain or victim only lens. In turn, any noncompliance would have continued to be interpreted from the lens of resistance instead of the need for competency and strength-based first.

In reality, it is about balance.

If we are honest with ourselves, all of us are sometimes villains, sometimes victims, and sometimes heroes. Our clients are that way too. It is just as dangerous and unbalanced if your parent is convincing you that they are the true hero and their ex-spouse after a bitter divorce is the true villain. If you buy into this villain on PR, you will likely never bother to attempt to call or engage the ex-spouse. In turn, your effectiveness in helping will be severely hampered.

Villain, Victim, Hero: Call to ActionSo, like with Pat, for your next family, will you take a moment to fill out Table 2: A Villain, Victim, Hero Balance Sheet with each parent, and even the identified child.

Table 1: A Villain, Victim, Hero Balance Sheet

Villain Victim Hero

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Your goals are simply this:

1. Make sure all three columns are balanced or close to equal in number. For example, don’t have 10 qualities for a villain and only 2 for Hero or vice versa.

2. Use the same strength-based questions I gave Pat to generate Hero talk. And timing wise, use them at the beginning of treatment through your Motivational Phone Call and Social Stage (See Module #3, Lesson #1 Worksheet).

3. You will not have to look hard to see villain and victim examples. You just have to listen for them in the stories your families tell. For example, when you get the Top Three Problems in the Stress Chart or the Toxic Seeds and Undercurrents Handout, your parents will describe stories that show when they were villains (i.e., “when my son ignored me, we haven’t spoken since. He needs to make the first move, not me”) or victims (“when I was young my dad never told me that he was proud of me”).

4. Once you try it, the FST community will want to share your success. This exercise is a significant paradigm shift moment for your practice and has positive ramifications for all future clients, whether you are a therapist, a case manager, or a school counselor. Please post your success stories or struggles on your FST Community Facebook Group. It will inspire all of us.

Success MilestonesAfter you complete this Lesson #1 worksheet, look for these success milestones in your practice:

✔ An Enhanced Systemic Lens = Better Outcomes – The proof they say, “is in the pudding.” After you use the checklist to see better a before and after family systems lens, watch to see how it impacts your future cases. Look for these concrete signs:

• When your client describes the problem, you find yourself thinking: “How is the environment or people around him or her fueling or causing the symptoms?”

• A parent describes their child’s problem, and you ask yourself or them, “Parent, what are you doing or saying that helps your child misbehave or not heal their trauma?”

• How would this session (or meeting) be different and better if we had the grandparents here, aunts, uncles, or institutions?

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• How would this client, couple, or family be better equipped if we had a pre-written plan with practice dress rehearsals instead of verbal homework?

• I am seeing how linear cause and effect is enhanced by family systems interactional trauma. It is a both/and, not an either/or.

And after the above are accomplished or observed, are you seeing better outcomes, more hopeful client feedback, and/or more confidence in your practice? And above all, more peace of mind? Peace of mind often happens when you can see the same problem from multiple angles and have tools to solve it from whichever angle you choose.

✔ Villain, Victim, and Hero: A Strength-Based Paradigm Shift – Always remember this statement:

“Competency is quiet; it tends to be overlooked in the noise and clatter of problems.”

After you complete Table 2 with your next client or family, notice if you get quiet in your mind, and the noise and chaos is quieted. In other words, when you can intentionally look for the hero in your client (even if they are a sex offender, murderer, or abuser), does the noise and clatter get low, and the competency gets louder and more apparent.

And after this competency rises do you see these tangible signs:

• Your client or family is suddenly more cooperative

• They are now more willing to trust and accept your direction on faith even when asking them to engage and bring in the extended family

• Both you and the client are more hopeful and energized

• The client or family is suddenly willing to put together an FST Playbook and give it a go even if they are extremely skeptical

• Your confidence and excitement skyrockets as you start to see the competencies more clearly and the importance of balance.

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Big Ideas: Lesson 1 VideoTop Reasons Why Treatment Lacks the Extended Family

✔ Here you saw what is meant by the term “Bus Picks” within the FST Stress Chart and how it originated from “who?” before “what?” from Jim Collins’ famous book, Good to Great.

✔ Unfortunately, in mental health, we often do the exact opposite. We start with “what” are the goals of treatment instead of “who.” Who do we need at the next meeting from the immediate and extended family before we set goals? We may think a family is stuck, unmotivated, or resistant. But the real problem is the “who?”. We don’t have the right people on the bus or what to do with them once they walk through the door.

✔ I outlined two possible reasons why the extended family is not engaged at a high level. First, it’s scary to do, and Second, we lack step by step tools in this area of trauma treatment.

Primetime�Live:�See�the�Negative�Impact�of�No�Extended�Family

✔ Here you saw a video clip of a single-parent mother who shows generational trauma and lacks the tools necessary to parent properly when her boys return from foster care. This is shown in the television documentary, “Primetime Live” with Diane Sawyer.

✔ At first glance, it’s easy to see this mom as unmotivated or resistant. And to stop right here. To write this mom off as untreatable and to recommend foster care again.

✔ But when we look deeper using the checklist in this lesson and the villain, victim, and hero exercise, we see mental health counselors who are not trained in family systems trauma or how important it is to look at strengths first and then family therapy with both the immediate and extended family.

✔ Our parents will do well if they can. But only if we help them with concrete tools, a step-by-step written plan, and practice role-plays for much better delivery. There are other reasons why this case failed, but failure to engage the extended family was a major one.

✔ If ever there ever was a video to show the need for us to treat the entire traumatized family and not just the child, this is it.

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The FST Community Comments on the Primetime Video (4 minutes)

✔ An interesting discussion ensued between the community and me as we debrief the Primetime video together.

✔ On the one hand, community comments reflect just how difficult a shift it is to see the problem from a family systems lens. When you see a problem from an individual lens for years or decades, it is hard to switch gears and at look both/and- Both individual and family systems at the same time.

✔ On the other hand, other comments reflect a shift in thinking.

✔ I add context around other likely key issues behind the scenes that caused this family to fail and how policymakers in child welfare could benefit by watching this case study and hearing our FST Community discussion.

Please Note: Materials that are included in this course may include interventions and modalities that are beyond your authorized practice as a mental health professional, case manager or parent support liaison. As a professional, you are responsible for reviewing your scope of practice, including activities that are defined in law as beyond the boundaries of practice in accordance with and in compliance with your professions standards.