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Below are some of the threads of discussions on varying Child and Youth Care related topics.
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Listen to thisHi,
I wanted to get some views on working with clients who are reluctant or
resistant. I would particularly like to hear views that are
relational and that seek to understand resistance in the context of
where and when it is encountered. The setting I am thinking about
is an assessment programme (residential) for young people who are
parents. They spend 20 weeks in placement for assessment and
development of their parenting skills. Some do not want to be
there and resist efforts to help them.
All sorts of variables are involved, one
being that some of the staff are close in age to the young parents and
the young staff are not parents themselves. I have looked at the
topic in some of the family therapy literature – not found it helpful.
Thanks in advance
Johnnie Gibson (Ireland)
...
I work with adolescents in treatment, and encounter the same resistance. For many of them, they aren't reluctant to admit that they could use the help in improving their skills, it's what the placement represented in the first place: a power struggle in which someone else "won" and they "lost" (by virtue of being placed)...so to engage and benefit, on some level, represents capitulation to the demands of those who "won"...being on the losing end of the power struggle.
I find myself going up against a mighty
powerful idea in my clients' minds that is difficult to get around...so
I don't try to get around it. Often I have to gently challenge it
head-on from the start, and begin to win my clients over through
invitations to talk about what their hesitations might be, how this kind
of imagery and thinking can hurt them in the long run, etc. If I
can get past that bugger, then often the client sees me as more of an
ally than just another accuser.
Scott Knapp
Perrysburg, Ohio
...
Complicated issue, John. I would say that like any other 'helping'
context, if as a practitioner one finds resistance, it would be
important to ascertain from the client where the resistance is coming
from. Maybe the approach is wrong; maybe there is no buy in for the
service being offered. I would avoid pathologizing the client (not
suggesting you are doing this) and begin with an inquiry approach to
understand the issue locally as it is emerging in that context.
Dana Fusco
...
Look at the "Motivational Interviewing" approach as a way to get a
different perspective on the therapeutic alliance between professional
staff and clients. Resistance is an interactional and
environmental dynamic between these relevant people. If the helper
can tweak their perspective to prioritize the alliance with the client
and facilitate empowerment then resistance dissipates. Look at
what Motivational Interviewing says about Resistance and check out ways
to respond.
Hector Sapien
...
John,
Besides letting you know that there is no such thing as client
"resistance", I hope that Hans Skott-Myhre and Jack Nowicki would lead
this discussion.
I'll quote Bill O'Hanlon for starters. Resistance is simply a label that
folks give to certain client behaviors when an impasse has been reached.
Unfortunately, labeling our clients as resistant can
limit our ideas about possible solutions and cause us to give up using
the clients as partners in the change process. Paying attention to the
cooperative elements of the client-staff relationship and build on these
more productive aspects. We no longer "see" resistance because our field
of vision is filled with observations of the things that clients are
doing to reach their goals and to cooperate. Focusing on these aspects
of the situation usually creates a positive atmosphere in which the
staff are likely to give genuinely warm, positive feelings toward
clients and clients are likely to feel the same towards the staff.
Steve Bewsey
...
This word resistance always interests me, as it seems to be one of those
words we find easier to apply to other people than to ourselves (like
'defensive' or 'judgmental').
What about our own 'resistance'? I am resistant to being asked to do or
say things which I do not like. I am resistant to having other
people's decisions or judgements imposed on me by colleagues or bosses
who themselves seem to resist my own attempts to influence them.
On some notable occasions I believe I was not resistant enough, and
colluded with decisions which I should have opposed more strongly.
So at what point does other people’s resistance become a positive rather
than a negative quality, or is it just a question of re-framing the way
we interpret their responses to us? For example, current thinking
values the quality of ‘resilience’ highly – but what is resilience other
than the ability to survive and thrive under pressure, to remain whole,
strong and free when others seek to undermine or humiliate you?
Resistance by another name.
In the assessment service you describe, it must be frightening for the
young staff trying to help these equally young parents to change, and
maybe they are still only beginning to learn the deep level of skill
involved in reaching out to and supporting people in such extreme
difficulty. Maybe these young staff need a lot more support and
education themselves, so that they can feel able to give something of
themselves to these parents, including – where appropriate – acknowledging their own 'resistance'.
This is not to devalue the real frustration and pain which we all feel
when we really want to get people to change their ways and they simply
refuse, often to their own detriment. But often this frustration is a
message which we can understand as mirroring the frustration felt by the
other person who may feel that we either don’t understand them or like
them or approve of them, and who assumes that this is why we are trying
to change them.
Remember the story of the sun and the wind competing to get the man to
take his coat off (drop his resistance)? The more the wind batters away
at the coat, the tighter the man holds on to it, but the more the sun
beams … you know the rest!
Best wishes
Adrian Ward
...
I have found Froma Walsh's take on "resistance" very to be a refreshing
and hopeful perspective. Here is a link to an article reviewing
one of her books, Strengthening Family Resilience:
http://www.kidslinkcares.com/admin/sources/editor/assets/journal/bookreviews
/CFJ%20Vol%205-1%20Book%20Review%20-%20Strengthening%20Family.pdf
Good luck!
Heather Bland
(Chicago, IL)
...
Ah, resistance. You gotta love it for so many reasons . . . I was
with a group of people the other day and when someone asked about
resistance, I gave back that I think maybe there is no such thing as
resistance, just feedback that the way you are going about it is not
going to work.
Why do you gotta love it? Well, it gives us great information, it points
to a place we need to work differently, it means that the person cares
about something and is letting us know, it means the person is able, at
least in this area, to protect self, it gives us reasons to think about
our own self, it suggests the person has courage, and it definitely
keeps you from napping.
Thom Garfat
...
Individuals are NOT resistant. I learned in graduate school that
individuals are not and can not be resistant. Resistance can only
exist in the context of a relationship between 2 people and develops as
a result of the mis-alignment of goals between these 2 people. As the
adults / professionals / caregivers, we must take the lead to help get
on the same page as the adolescent (or person of any age). Let's shift
our narrative from one of pathologizing the individual to one of
empowering and joining them on the journey to healing and wellness.
Gregory Manning
California
...
Pertinent to Steve Bewsey's comment (Steve is one of those amazing
practitioners for whom resistance doesn't seem to exist) Steve deShazer
wrote a great piece call The Death of Resistance in Family Process
(23) pp. 1-17
Hans Skott-Myhre
...
Check out Gordon Neufeld's work on "counterwill".
Dr N. draws on a wide body of knowledge and pulls it together in a way
that makes sense on both intellectual and intuitive levels. Look
him up on youtube to hear him speak or better still invest in his DVD
series. Find the Neufeld Institute at the link below. I'm
not on commission but for all the times I've recommended his work I wish
I was – no-one I know has been disappointed yet!
http://www.gordonneufeld.com/
Ni Holmes
Scotland
...
Let me just offer a brief thought. I heard someone during the
course of this week frame resistance in an interesting way. He
said: Resistance is a multi-party process – it is not a quality of an
individual, it is a quality of an interaction. I am sure we can
all see the implications of this view. What do others think?
Werner van der Westhuizen
...
I don't think there is a big research literature on
resistance, but for what it's worth here are a few titles:
Coldrey, Barry
The Extreme End of a Spectrum of Violence: Physical Abuse, Hegemony and
Resistance in British Residential Care, Children and society,
15/2 (2001), 95-106
While researching the history of traditional child care institutions – children's homes, orphanages, industrial schools and reformatories – the
author was impressed by the similarities of regimen across the spectrum
of traditional care. Underpinning all forms of care was a severe
discipline which often became abusive. Sexual abuse was also reasonably
common. There were differences but it is the similarities which are
stressed in this article, which seeks reasons for the perceived
sameness. Children in care came mostly from the same deprived social
background, and no matter what the intentions of the carers, traditional
care involved a confrontation with cherished working class values which
many of the children were bound to resist. Resistance was met by severe
staff reaction; hence the violent
undercurrent.
Stock, Brian
One child care worker's approach to resistance in adolescents
CYC-Online
: Reading for Child and Youth Care Workers, Issue 33,
October 2001
One of the most pervasive myths about good Child and Youth Care is the
idea that the competent practitioner is able to "break through" the
resistance of the client. From this perspective, resistance is seen to
be something that gets in the way of progress and, from here, many of
our most coercive, intrusive and manipulative techniques become
justified. In our experience, it takes a certain courage for a
practitioner to challenge this belief since such a challenge is often
taken as an act of resistance by those who supervise and monitor front
line practice. Once the issue of authority is understood, however, the
basic wisdom of such a challenge becomes painfully
obvious.
Dalrymple, Jane
Professional advocacy as a force for resistance in child welfare,
British Journal of Social Work (2003) 33/8, 1043-1062
The development of child and youth advocacy is a relatively recent
phenomenon, increasingly recognized by both practitioners and
politicians as a way of establishing communication spaces for young
people who are looked after in state care. Literature to date has
focused on the development and underpinning principles of child and
youth advocacy, which is a necessary starting point for establishing
good practice. However, while policy and legislation promote the view
that young people are actively involved in decision making, their
advocates can be placed in a passive position, effectively denying young
people a position as social actors. This paper argues that the
problemitizing of independent advocacy as unprofessional can serve to
further marginalize young people and render advocates impotent. It
suggests that while it is structurally necessary for adults to take on
the advocacy role, this must be undertaken in a way that actively
resists the oppression of young people. Through consideration of
accounts of advocacy activity, by way of illustration, the paper takes
the debate beyond the principles of participation, empowerment and
rights to a consideration of strategies that take into account the
complexities of advocacy practice in child welfare.
Campbell, Steven
Working with hostile and resistant teens: voices from the front
pavilion. Attainment Company Inc. staff development guidance
series, Verona, Wisconsin 1993
Hope this helps,
Alan Macquarrie
...
I know when I label someone as being resistant I have already committed
to the change and mastered the capacity to achieve the change and their
decision to not move forward is what I call resistance. However, when I
am resistant, the other person, in my mind, does not have a clue what
they are talking about in every situation, and are trying to put me in
an unsafe situation. As a result I choose to become moody and hostile so
they will go away.
Ernie Hilton
Nova Scotia, Canada
