A Team Approach To Dealing with an Irrational Client Trina A. - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

• A Team Approach To

Dealing with an Irrational Client

Trina A. Nudson, JD, LBSW Terri Clinton- Dichiser, MA, JD, LCPC, NCC Elizabeth Graham, MS, LCPC, NCC, BCC, CDTC

Co-Parenting Therapy: The Best of Intentions

• Professionals in the field saw the effects of conflict
• On the parent’s mental health
• The children’s mental health
• AND the legacy of further generations
• Unresolved conflict (perpetual problems) left few
• ptions for resolution,
• New option to assist the family in resolving conflict

Therapist Goals

• Learn to work together with the other

parent with new skills in a constructive process versus destructive process

What we have learned

• Cases are very complex
• Typically not sent to co-parenting until relationship is

high conflict

• The most difficult clients are sent to co-parenting

therapy

Challenges of Process to be Solved: Client’s Needs

• Client’s Agenda’s And Goals
• The clients want to be understood and validated about

their pain.

• They want a place to say/direct their unresolved pain

at the co-parent and the therapist

• They want the therapist to protect them against the

person who harmed them (the monster)

• Have to because attorney or court requiring
• Resistant reluctant clients and low motivation:

scheduling difficulties, financial stress, limited time to meet and implement a plan

Challenges Continued

Unaddressed mental health needs:

• Depression, Anxiety, PTSD, alcohol, substance abuse, etc
• Attachment styles
• Unresolved grief
• Major life stressor

Challenges Continued

• Therapist tries to calm client dysregulation prevent

escalation and teach skills stop and others are applied.

• Joint sessions
• Clients or in stress response
• Therapists trying to manage two individual’s stress

response and the hidden dragon in the room

Fight, Flight, Freeze

• Facing perceived threat our body responds quickly
• Before this kept us alive and the human race evolving

Stress Response

• The Stress Response

What happens to us and our clients?

• Fight: bully, verbally attack, attack person’s

reputation, physically attack, take them to court

• Flight: deny it exists, run away or make all attempts to

avoid

• Freeze: disengage, quiet, might try to appease

The complexity of perceived danger: fight

• r flight, freeze or fold
• If you are frightened and unwanted:
• brain specializes in managing feelings of fear and abandonment.
• Mirror neurons are our “neural WiFi” about another person’s

movements, emotional states and intentions.

• It also makes people vulnerable to others’ negativity-hijacked by
• ther’s
• Often people who are upset say they are “losing their minds” and

in technical terms what they are communicating is a loss of executive functioning.

• The left brain is not working well and when this changes often

people look for someone or something to blame.

Assessment for Services Evaluate for Individual Therapy Depression, Anxiety, PTSD, Grief If associated with prior trauma Evaluate for Co-Parenting Therapy or Divorce Coaching Co-Parenting: when able to be in room with co-parent and apply skills Divorce Coaching: Dysregulated and need skills

• Continue to assess needs of client
• Address therapeutic needs
• Address relationship needs
• Help them deal with the stress response
• We need to help people learn to to safely mirror and

be mirrored and how to resist being hijacked by

• ther’s negative emotions

Similarities and Differences Between Counseling/ Therapy and Coaching

Definition of Therapy

Professional help in handling and processes private problems

• such as behavior-related,
• job-related,
• marriage,
• school,
• rehabilitative,
• school-based,
• life-stage and
• emotionally rooted problems

Definition of Coaching

• Coaching is partnering with clients in a

thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.

• A professional coaching relationship exists when

coaching includes a business agreement or contract that defines the responsibilities of each party.

Gorilla Experiment

• https://youtu.be/nJyWIghprxI

Therapy

• Focus is on uncovering and recovering
• Seeking an expert
• Assumes a level of dysfunction in client’s ability to manage

life

• Past is important in seeking triggers, traumas, family

patterns

• Often painful and slow process, emotional
• Diagnosis or label of problem

Coaching: Focus is on Discovering

• Seeking a partnership
• Client sets goals, actions, stays in client’s language
• Assumes client has answers, wisdom and ability to reach goals with

stretch, not driven by emotions

• “What is wrong with you is beside the point. What is right with you

is the point.”

• Four areas of work – define goals, formulate plans, hold client

accountable, provide structure, support and encouragement.

Therapists, Psychologists, Counselors and

• ther Mental Health Professionals:
• Regulated by laws
• HIPPA protects confidentiality
• Established standards for education, internship

and supervision

• State boards monitor for assuring legal and ethical

practice

• Services may be reimbursed by insurance

Coaching Professionals

• Inconsistent regulation
• No consistent training requirements
• No established minimal standards for

practice

• Is not typically covered by insurance
• No standards for confidentiality

• A coach cannot do therapy with a

coaching client. They must refer out to an appropriate mental health professional.

• It is important to find coaches who

have the experience of working with divorce issues.

Co-Parenting/ Divorce Coaching helps the client

• self-discover,
• explore other options AND
• shift their perspective to

consider other possible solutions.

The American Bar Association defines divorce coaching as “a flexible, goal-oriented process designed to support, motivate, and guide people going through divorce to help them make the best possible decisions for their future, based on their particular interests, needs, and concerns.” Co-Parenting/ Divorce Coaches work with clients in even the most conflictual circumstances, supporting them in their journey to be their best self, championing their strengths, and putting them back in touch with their values in order to help them make the best decisions.

Where Is Your Divorce Client On the Credibility Spectrum?

What Co-Parenting/Divorce Coaching Can Do For You?

• Co-Parenting/Divorce Coaching can give

you a client who…

• Deals with the business of divorce rather than

the story of divorce;

• Asks relevant questions;
• Possesses sound communication skills; and
• Has reasonable expectations of the court

system.

What Co-parenting/Divorce Coaching Can Do for You?

• Co-Parenting/Divorce Coaching can give

you a client who…

• Deals with the business of divorce rather than

the story of divorce;

• Asks relevant questions;
• Possesses sound communication skills; and
• Has reasonable expectations of the court

system

Divorce can make clients crazy….logic, rational thought and commons sense are

• ften sacrificed, for bitterness and

resentment of the past. Before a client moves so far into his/her story that therapy or medication is necessary…co-parenting coaching/divorce coaching can help.

How do you know a client is right for coaching?

• They are locked into one option and refuse to consider other

possible solutions;

• They refuse to examine any other perspective but their own;
• They are either overly optimistic or overly pessimistic about how

things will turn out for them in Court;

• They seek relief from their highly emotional state and are willing

to pay any price for that relief- seeking revenge or complexly throwing in the towel;

• They lose sigh what is best for the children.

A Co-Parenting/ Divorce Coach can help your client feel heard; get

• rganized to work more effectively

with you; and thereby enable you to focus more fully on the important legal aspects of their divorce.

Is It Confidential?

• Yes and No. It is confidential to the extent

that coaches do not share information with

• ther, but it is discoverable and not protected

by HIPPA as therapy is.

• An attorney, however, can sponsor divorce
• coaching. Enter into a contract with the

Co-Parenting/Divorce Coach and then it is subject to attorney client privilege.