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“Focusing on Families”
Notes from the NATSAP Winter 2003 Conference
Santa Barbara, California
By Loi Eberle, M.A.,
Educational Consultant & Editor-in-Chief,
Woodbury Reports, Inc.,
Bonners Ferry, Idaho
208-267-5550,
loi@woodbury.com
The National Association of Therapeutic
Schools and Programs (NATSAP) held their Winter 2003 Conference,
entitled, “Focusing on Families” this January in Santa Barbara,
California. In addition to many important informal conversations,
and let’s admit it, the beautiful beach and sunshine, there were
some thoughts shared in the presentations that also would be of
benefit to programs and parents.
Many of the general sessions and breakout sessions at the conference
dealt with the importance of working with the entire family, as
well as the adolescent who is in a program. It was also acknowledged
that there are some patterns of interaction within families that
can pose particular challenges for programs. While the various speakers
acknowledged the frequency of dysfunction in the families of “program
kids”, of course the argument could easily be made that all families
have some degree of dysfunctional behavior. In any case, confronting
it is instrumental in improving communication between the family
and the child in the program. Certainly the adolescent who is attending
a program will benefit by their family’s efforts to learn to function
more successfully as a family unit.
A keynote speaker, Michael Jenike, M.D., Director of the Psychiatric
Neuroscience Program and Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard
Medical School, and one of the world’s foremost experts on Obsessive
Compulsive Disorder, provided a powerful analogy of the airplane
oxygen mask: you first need to put on the mask yourself, before
trying to help others. In order to function successfully, it is
important for family members to take care of their own needs so
that they have the wherewithal to provide real assistance to their
struggling adolescent. This is especially significant because the
attitudes that parents have about themselves affect their expectations
for their children, which in turn influence their children’s sense
of value.
Another speaker, Dr. Claudia Black, internationally recognized
for her work with family systems and addictive disorders, and the
primary Clinical Consultant for the Meadows Institute and Treatment
Center in Wickenburg, A.Z., described the prevalence of addictive
behaviors in families whose children were in programs. Since many
adolescents are in programs due to substance abuse and addictive
behavior, it was interesting that Dr. Black attributed the origin
of these behaviors as being due to feelings of emotional abandonment,
which a child can experience when parents are emotionally and/or
physical unavailable. The parents’ emotional unavailability is usually
due to their need to over-achieve, or to escape, and can cause their
child to experience inadequacy and shame. The parents’ behavior
is often a result of their own conscious or unconscious feelings
of inadequacy that have remained with them as a result of their
own childhood feelings of abandonment.
If unresolved, parents’ feelings of inadequacy can be projected
on to their children, and can cause parents to have unrealistic
expectations for their children. They might not even realize that
they want their children to achieve unrealistic dreams because it
could create a positive reflection on them as parents. However,
since the dreams are unrealistic, they are unlikely to be achieved
by the child, resulting in the child experiencing failure and shame.
These feelings are often coupled with the abandonment the child
already feels because the parents are busy over-achieving or escaping
from their own pain.
Dr. Black explained how her work has shown that unresolved past
pain, in combination with currently felt pain stemming from experiences
and beliefs from the past, can cause a cycle of pain responses.
This cycle can lead to rage or depression, and a desire to numb
pain through substance abuse or become a perfectionist, in an attempt
to finally live up to the unrealistic expectations they were held
to as children. These feelings often cause parents to develop various
forms of addictive behavior and set the same pattern for their children.
Dr. Black described how healing can occur when people recognize
that it is distorted boundaries that lead to a sense of shame during
childhood. The solution is to recognize that unrealistic responsibilities
had been placed on them, given their actual capabilities. They need
to release themselves from the guilt that arose from being unsuccessful
at achieving impossible dreams. The challenge and the healing, is
for them to see that their sense of inadequacy is a result of unrealistic
expectations. They need then to make a conscious decision to create
new boundaries that separate realistic challenges from the unrealistic
expectations from the past. To make this a conscious choice requires
awareness and self-regulation, in order to notice when we are buying
in to unrealistic expectations and feelings of inadequacy. It also
requires awareness and self-regulation as parents, in order to avoid
creating unrealistic expectations for their children.
Many of the NATSAP presenters also talked about how issues of control
often create conflict when the adolescent’s need for autonomy, a
normal part of development, bumps up against the traditional caretaking
role of the parents. But in some cases, the parent’s need for control
can be more extreme than necessary, and is present due to the parents’
own, often difficult experiences as children. Dr. Black described
how some parents have a strong need for control, which they developed
as a response to their childhood feelings of being unable to make
sense of a chaotic family situation, coupled with their shame at
being inadequate. Accompanying this sense of shame are feelings
of powerlessness, either from being unable to live up to parent’s
unrealistic expectations or being unable to change an abusive situation.
Some people compensate for their past by developing a need to control
every detail in their present situtation. This control can be external,
when they become oppressive, or it can be internal, where people
minimize their needs, which can lead to other problems. When parents
attempt to over-control, it can cause the adolescent to become angry,
which in some ways gives the adolescent a sense of empowerment.
Other people respond to their anger by avoiding it, which is at
the heart of a lot of addictive parental behavior, according to
Dr. Black.
Kimbal DeLaMare, of Island View, spoke about how parents’
control issues can create havoc with schools and programs. For example,
traumas experienced during the parents’ childhood can cause them
a great deal of anxiety about not wanting their children to experience
trauma. This in fact can get in the way of treatment when parents
want to protect their child to the point of not wanting any kind
of discomfort to be experienced, and mild discomfort actually might
be necessary therapeutically for the child in order to stimulate
a change of heart and create a desire to rethink a belief system.
Dr. Jenike also discussed control issues during his presentation
about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. He explained how people with
OCD have a very distressing set of rituals they feel compelled to
enact, in order to rid themselves of anxiety caused by various belief
systems. In this case, clearly, it is important for them to gain
control over their thoughts and actions. No one approach is always
successful, although he described cognitive behavioral therapy as
being much more effective than medication alone for this condition.
In addition to the importance of working with a skilled behavioral
therapist, Dr. Jenike stressed the importance of parents being firm
and consistent when they attempt to carry out an extinction game
plan for these very troublesome behaviors. In this situation, the
parent must learn to not give in to the demands of the child with
OCD, while also explaining to the child why they are not succumbing
to the child’s obsessive demands. He also emphasized how important
it is for parents to learn to take care of their own needs, since
working with OCD children can be exhausting.
NATSAP speakers encouraged people working in this field to help
parents create the courage and skill to problem solve in the midst
of their pain and addictive behaviors. One way families can gain
this courage is by learning to love and accept themselves more completely,
by understanding and letting go of their feelings of shame and inadequacy,
also challenging the negative beliefs their children hold about
themselves.
Dr. Julia Lewis, Professor of Psychology and Director of
the Psychology Clinic at San Francisco State University and
co-principal investigator of the 25-year Children of Divorce Project
reinforced the idea of learning how to problem solve even when in
pain. She found that a major factor that determined a child’s ability
to function after a divorce was having at least one parent who kept
the child as a top priority. In this case, the airplane oxygen analogy
is once again relevant, in that it is important for the divorcing
parent to maintain his or her own situation well enough so that
the child still feels they are a high priority in the parent’s life.
Commander Shawn D. Mank, M.S., from New Lifestyles in
Winchester, VA discussed issues of young adults, in his lecture
on healing the wounded warrior through spirituality. He quoted the
ancient proverb: “The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their
right name.” In a sense, this proverb pertains to the idea of not
succumbing to feeling shame because of an inability to achieve unrealistic
expectations, but rather, to recognize the situation for what it
is: unrealistic. Through a willingness to confront, rather than
avoid the belief systems that have caused the pain and need to control,
it can be possible to create a new sense of self. He described the
metaphor of the Wizard of Oz, in which the Tinman, the Lion, the
Scarecrow and Dorothy all finally learned they had what they sought
all the time; they just needed to realize it for themselves.
Helping adolescents to realizing their value and their ability can
motivate them, in Monk’s words, “to fill the existential vacuum”
of meaningless they so often feel. It can cause them to become motivated
to give back. Then their questions then become, “who am I, and what
am I supposed to do,” which helps them to shift away from their
experience of woundedness and shame.
The themes that emerged from the NATSAP Conference discussed the
importance of recognizing how our past has influenced the way we
view our selves and the way we behave towards our children. This
knowledge can be used to create much needed healing in our families,
which can ultimately result in our children experiencing their value
and developing a desire to explore their life’s purpose.
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