Poor Soul

Working to help the poorest families in America transforms you. I’ve been working at The Center for Children and Families for several years directing treatment programs and providing clinical supervision/therapy. The agency is a non-profit providing in-home therapy to impoverished families in Northeast Louisiana.  This region is part of a larger area commonly referred to as the Mississippi Delta. The Counsel for a Better Louisiana has called this area of the state “America’s Third World”. Many of the families that our agency serves are faced with the most challenging conditions and circumstances imaginable. 

While families brave such harsh conditions, the people of the Mississippi Delta Region have poured out their creative influence on the world with the birth of great musical traditions like Blues and Gospel and the writing of authors such as Tennessee Williams. The heritage of this region is as rich as fertile soil along the banks of the Mississippi River, which became the battle ground for the civil rights movement in the United States.

 The Louisiana Delta is dominated by cotton and corn fields in every direction. You can drive for miles without so much as a gradual slope. The Mississippi River cuts through this flat expanse. Its levies border the small villages and communities. At the feet of these boundary lines of rock and earth, the homes of the poor huddle together. Most of these are dilapidated shotgun houses, which are stark reminders of years of exploitation. The doors are barely hanging on the hinges and the roofs sag from age. The front steps are mangled and many of the floors bow under your feet when you step.

 I remember how overwhelmed I was talking with families in these poor communities. By the end of the day I was in a state of hopelessness. It took time for families to begin to open up and talk about issues that they faced. I came to realize they had good reason to be skeptical of another person coming into town to “help them”. I have come to see the beginning stages of treatment more as a process of integrating into a community and becoming more of a cultural anthropologies in studying the rhythm, pace, language, and interactional patterns of the community as a whole. Once families feel safe, many of the issues brought-to-bare are social inequality, poor education, and poverty. These are heavy and difficult matters.

The work has stretched me thoroughly by forcing me to examine my values, beliefs, and presuppositions about the appropriate way to live.  It is all well and good to speak intellectually about shedding assumptions and becoming culturally sensitive, but in this region it hits you in the face every time you walk into a home. The practical aspects of all the theoretical underpinnings are all around you. The experience overtakes you. It’s not like sitting in an office that you decorate and establish as your sanctuary. You move into the turf of the client’s life, right into the living room. The tastes, smells, sounds, textures, and sights put you into the guts of what’s real. I have grown to love it.

Once your heart is open, the nature of this business of therapy begins to change completely. It’s not about bringing in some new technique or mode of therapy. It’s about utilizing the amazing resources of the people. It’s a matter of being a catalyst for creativity, faith, and healing. This is a group of people that have survived immeasurable hardship, yet carry on. If you can tap into that strength, resilience, and deep-love then you’re onto something. You and the family set out to simply mobilize and enact. The very character of the family becomes the force to produce the needed transformation. The trick, however, is that both you and the family change together.

Matthew Thornton, Ph.D.

Welcome

Time magazine described the northeastern Louisiana towns of the Mississippi Delta as the poorest place in America. This is where we, at the Center for Children and Families, conduct clinical work. Among other clients, my colleagues and I see court ordered Delta families in places like Lake Providence, Tallulah, St. Joseph, Rayville, and Waterproof. We also work with adolescents who are serving time in prison. Though most outsiders have heard of New Orleans, Lafayette, and Baton Rouge, fewer know about the more isolated and deeply impoverished communities near our Mississippi River Delta. This is where the blues was born and where it is lived today. Here among the cotton fields, swamps, and juke joints, is a wild frontier of creative therapy.

Soul and creativity flourish in the southern swamps and in Louisiana there is something extra – invisible though felt – that gives life an extra kick. It is no surprise that jazz, blues, zydeco, and gospel came out of this wilderness of the soul. Here my friends and I have commenced a quest to bring forth creative ways that help people transform their lives. In the crumbling shanties, inside the barbed wire prison walls, and in remote social service and university free clinics, we do our work. We are delighted to share what we have experienced and learned about the resourceful ways people can overcome impoverished circumstances and suffering. We aim to help therapists, counselors, social workers, and other dedicated people helpers move past the limitations of their professional models and theories. Our work shines the light on a new highway – one that leads us away from therapy, but helps us become more therapeutic. Like our region’s food, music, and celebrative expression, the way forward is through the creative spirit, fired by a passionate heart and syncopated soul.

Welcome to the road that will take you past therapy – all therapies, whether pre-modern, modern, or postmodern. We call it “the gumbo cure.” You make gumbo by utilizing what you already have in the kitchen and then blend it all together, while adding some spice and hot sauce to make it come alive. We do the same with our clinical cases. We utilize what our clients bring to us. We add some spice through wild talk and playful imagination. Then we throw in some hot sauce through the ways we have them initiate unexpected action. With this gumbo, we find ourselves moving toward the therapeutic crossroads. There everything is utilized and juxtaposed so as to create a motor for growth, a buzzing intersection of change, a progression through lived contraries.

Dr. Bradford Keeney

Can I Go Now?

I thought the session was going well. He nodded along with me as I talked. I, in turn, offered valid points and numerous options for him to try that certainly would help alleviate his problem. I was even quite charismatic in my delivery, noting with smugness the rises and falls of my intonation, hammering home insights I expertly crafted out of thin air. I had him on the ropes and I was confident that he was about to stand up and declare himself healed and me a therapeutic genius. I finished and waited in anticipatory silence for the reward of my hard work. He looked up at me and I nodded empathetically at the glimmer in his eye most certainly moments away from becoming a tear. He opened his mouth and asked, with noted apathy, “Can I go now?” Ungrateful juvenile! Did he not know that I, his therapist, had just carried out a textbook therapy session, full of difficult verbal gymnastics and intricately constructed interventions? I delivered the right lines, I made the right moves, I followed my chosen model of therapy to the letter and this is the thanks I get?

As my anger subsided and I began to process this turn of events, a new question arose. Are these the results that I should expect? As I thought through past sessions I realized that more often than not clients gave me some form of, “Can I go now?” Whether non-verbal or verbal, the messages I received from clients confirmed the same thing over and over again: what I was doing was not working. This was not the case for all those master therapists in the videos I was required to watch in grad school. This was not how those conferences and seminars I had attended promised me it would work. This was something different. I tried different models, different techniques, different interventions and my fears were only confirmed. And suddenly I was unsure of myself.

As I have gained more experience, I am coming to the realization that something was left out of my education. I had no idea how to be me. More accurately, I had no idea how to conduct therapy as myself. I knew who I was with friends. I knew who I was with my family. I seemed to know exceptionally well who I was as a student and employee. But I failed to learn who I was as a therapist. Dr. Brad Keeney suggests that the most unique instrument that a therapist has use of is himself. He further suggests that when played correctly, this instrument makes a unique sound and wields the most influence with the client. I found that I did not know how to play my instrument. I could mimic others well enough. In fact, I could switch back and forth between the styles of different therapeutic masters with relative ease. But this did not seem to be enough.

What makes a therapist or counselor good at what they do? How does one know when a session can be called successful? As a family therapist working with incarcerated juveniles and their families I wrestle with these questions often. I must think most therapeutic professionals do. While some may have forgotten the original purpose of the mental health profession, bringing about change and healing in individuals represents a heavy responsibility and any ethically centered therapist bears that weight. More so, those doubts about efficacy remain buried under a socialized fear that such thoughts should not be articulated.

And we are floundering. Go looking for evidence of success in the mental health field and I am afraid you will come back disappointed in your findings. We are not succeeding as well as we think we are. More and more people do not see mental health counseling as a viable option and I am afraid we are to blame. Frankel claimed that people seek experiences of meaningful life and the majority of therapists do not seem to offer this to their clients. Instead we offer trite answers, over simplistic in nature, based on methodologies and techniques gleaned from textbooks rather than our own authentic selves. Perhaps we are not as adept at talking about such things. Perhaps we do not give due consideration to the self of the therapist.

Meaningful experiences do not come from textbooks and techniques. They come from genuine connection in authentic relationships. For evidence of this, think on your own experiences. Has this not been the case? I think therapists must begin to reclaim their therapeutic practices for themselves. Meaningful experiences in therapy begin with a therapist who is willing and able to utilize themselves and who they are . The practice of this utilization perhaps leads to a unique style of therapy practiced solely by the one whose uniqueness brought it forth. Perhaps then we will have more therapeutic masters expertly skilled at their own brand of therapy.

Dr. Adam Mathews

Messages

The idea that our behaviors tell a little about who we are is not a new idea. I think that for many this idea is an underlying tool of interpretation that is utilized in interactions with others. A single gesture by a stranger can lead one to deduce multiple positive, negative, or a combination of interpretations about that stranger. These feedbacks take place so quickly, and rapidly that one can easily be guided by them without awareness. My involvement with the Family Foundations Reintegration program brings me into contact with adolescents who have conducted behaviors that open the door to a wide array of interpretations. Such behaviors may include theft, dealing drugs, incest, rape, armed robbery, attempted murder, and others. Negative interpretations of these behaviors are not only the norm, but seen as the only interpretation that is acceptable. A worthy question to ponder is what message do these behaviors tell us about the adolescents who conduct these behaviors? In December of 1987, Family Process published a paper by Gianfranco Cecchin entitled, “Hypothesizing, Circularity, and Neutrality Revisited: An Invitation to Curiosity”. In this paper, Cecchin states that “it may be possible to identify ourselves as curious about the behavior of a person we do not respect. However, there we have curiosity in the linear sense whereby our curiosity is directed toward ‘discovering’ and consequently ‘explaining’ why this person acted in such a way. In these situations, we are typically interested in ‘discovering’ more and more evidence that our lack of respect is ‘correct’ and ‘well-founded’.” Many times the adolescents who commit the behaviors mentioned earlier are seen for their behavior, and not as the person that they are. They are dehumanized as being equivalent to their crime. A message that is interpreted from their behavior is that they are broken in some way, and in desperate need of repair. My position of therapist is viewed as one who is responsible for searching for the magical switch to flip inside these broken individuals that will repair them. They are not seen as deserving of respect. I believe that my work with these adolescents is seen by many, as Cecchein stated, to exhibit curiosity for the purpose of discovering more evidence that this person is in fact broken, and in need of repair. In working with this population, I have found the message of a broken individual to be a fallacy that creates more difficulty for the therapist and the adolescent. In reference to my earlier question about what message do these behaviors communicate about the adolescent, I have found that alternative messages open the door to true curiosity. This sense of true curiosity opens the door to conversations that brings forth a sense of potential and humanity within the adolescent.

Ritchie Sheridan

To See Clearly

What if you were able to look at the world through a fresh pair of glasses? Glasses that allowed you to see differently then you did before? It could be any glasses really. What would the world look like and what would you see?

Perhaps as you look through the glasses you might see something off in the distance and it looks strangely interesting. Perhaps it is so peculiar that you feel compelled to look closer. As you look harder and closer you see “a lion”. As you get closer to the lion the image becomes so much more real and certain in your mind. The lion is golden brown with a huge mane and large, wide paws. This is not like any lion you have seen before. As you stare at the lion he begins an ear piercing mountainous roar. The roar shutters you to your core and yet you can’t stop staring. You look closer into the mouth of giant beast and you see in the blackness…”a fence”. It seems strangely curious but you feel drawn to walk alongside it, unsure of where it might go and at the same time eagerly wanting to find out. You continue walking and wondering. You ponder all that this fence could lead to. As you walk for what seems like miles you end up seeing a bright and majestic glow. As you get closer you see…“a treasure chest”. The treasure is so colorful and so bright that you can’t take your eyes off of it. You wonder what is inside and dream fifty possibilities within the seconds before you open it. You open it and see…“a rainbow of colors”. These colors are not like any of the ordinary colors. They are the colors you can only find beyond the color wheel. It is purple, blue, yellow… and at the same time so beautiful that no of those colors can quite describe what you are seeing. It truly is the most impressive creation you have set your eyes on. This treasure is a gift. It has been given all because of one being willing to look through a fresh pair of glasses.

What if we saw our clients (the people we work with) through a fresh pair of glasses? What would we see? What would we dream and what would the clients dream with us? This is a story that was created by my six year old son. The quotations are the places that he filled in the gaps. It started as a simple bed time story to get him to go to sleep. It became a metaphor (created by him) for the way his father and his eternal father see him. This story is simple and at the same time resourceful. This was not simply a collaborative narrative wherein my son wrote a new story about his life. My son was simply given an opportunity to create his own story. It is very much like filling out an adlib comic book and reading it back. This story however, gave my son and I, an opportunity to see the truth in each other, express love for one another, and dream together without every talking directly about any of that.

Our clients deserve to share opportunities to see themselves clearer. They need to be provided within an opportunity to unlock all that is already been created inside of them. Our clients benefit by the therapists getting out of the way and inviting the creative energy to fill up the room. This cannot be an exercise that is forced as a technique. This story will not work for your client. It is the practice of letting the story take over that holds the real power and influence.

Dr. Marc Fager