Becoming Centered

This podcast episode builds off of the concept of four different types of reasoning simultaneously performed by distinct parts of the brain. The inner Artist engages in Emotional-Reasoning, associating experiences with emotions. The inner Scout employs Magical-Reasoning, finding patterns and correlations to make sense of the world. The inner Warrior relies on Logical-Reasoning, basing actions on e...

This podcast presents a way to understand the brain's ability to use reasoning to become cognitively centered.   Emotional centering involves regulating the intensity and switching between emotional states. Behavioral centering, particularly physiological centering, focuses on transitioning from extremes to a calm baseline. It's a little harder to understand the concept of becoming cognitively cen...

This episode focuses on how to help child-clients become physiologically centered.   Previous episodes have focused on helping children become emotionally and   cognitively centered. Emotional centering involves regulating extremes of emotions, and developing reaction inhibition and stress tolerance. Various tools, such as the Check-in and Empathic Listening can be really useful for helping kids b...

This episode is a departure from the usual format by sharing original teaching stories.   Storytelling and stories are a fundamental modality for learning.   Our brains are wired to process experiences in the form of a narrative. Telling stories builds connections between adults and children, whether the adult is the storyteller or the child. Telling stories, or listening to stories together, fost...

This podcast episode discusses the importance of management and delegation within residential treatment programs for children and youth. It highlights the different levels of management within such organizations, including Executive Management responsible for overall leadership, Senior Management overseeing major aspects of the agency's operations, Middle Managers handling specific service units,...

This podcast episode is the second part of a series that addresses how to intervene when dealing with suicidal ideation in children and youth. It emphasizes the importance of training for counselors and aims to make discussing this sensitive subject more approachable. An important focus is for counselors is to help clients understand suicidal ideation as a symptom rather than delving into the "why...

This podcast episode discusses the challenging issue of dealing with suicidal ideation among child-clients in residential treatment. The podcast offers insights into different scenarios where staff may encounter suicidal ideation in child-clients and explains the unique challenges residential staff face, such as having to be the front-line mental health professionals, despite formal training. The...

This podcast presents a powerful perspective for helping your child-clients become centered.   It's based on understanding your kids' needs through The Aspect Compass, a model representing four aspects of the psyche: The Artist (emotions), The Scout (cognitions), The Warrior (behaviors), and The Chief (executive skills). Each aspect has unique needs that, when addressed, can help children become c...

This episode explores various techniques for helping children process their feelings and develop emotional regulation skills. The episode begins with a recap of previous discussions on physiological coregulation and processing aimed at helping kids become cognitively centered. The focus then shifts to processing feelings, which can be more difficult, because emotions are challenging for children t...

This podcast episode discusses the use of timeouts as a common and effective technique in residential treatment programs working with children and adolescents. Timeouts are employed to manage disruptive behaviors and prevent the spread of problematic behaviors and emotions within a group, similar to containing a fire's spread. The episode emphasizes the importance of setting limits in a firm but n...

This podcast episode explores the crucial role of structure and firm, yet respectful, limit-setting in residential care for troubled children. Structures and external boundaries are essential for creating order in a group environment, especially when dealing with children facing various challenges such as trauma, ADHD, developmental delays, and mental health issues. A core value in a treatment set...

This podcast delves into the fundamental structures of residential treatment programs and the concept of structural interventions. While theoretically residential treatment could customize programs for each individual, practicality dictates the need for a standardized framework designed to meet the overall needs of a group of kids.   The concept of program structures includes physical aspects like...

This podcast discusses the importance of coregulation in residential treatment settings for children who are emotionally, cognitively, and behaviorally disorganized. Coregulation refers to the process where an adult's nervous system synchronizes with a child's, helping the child learn self-control and emotional regulation. Coregulation starts from infancy when a baby's nervous system is linked wit...

This podcast episode is part four of a series addressing the use of physical restraints and interventions in response to extreme client behaviors, particularly in residential treatment settings. The previous episodes discussed the uncomfortable nature of these interventions and the necessity of their use for the safety of both staff and clients. The focus of this final episode is on post-restraint...

Physical Restraints tend to be in response to intense, often times violent, situations and will have some degree of traumatizing effect on both the staff and the client. The neurochemical changes in the brain that are caused by traumatic incidents don't automatically reset.   Instead, memories of the incident are stored in your brain with the emotional content that the incident evoked.   Parts of...

Physical Restraints are, in my opinion, the best option for safely dealing with violent behaviors among children and youth in residential treatment. Self-injurious behaviors need to be stopped before they lead to permanent, or at least significant, damage.   Assaultive behaviors need to be stopped before they lead to harm. Runaway behavior is a more nuanced judgement call.   Sometimes staff can co...

Physical Restraints are a complex and controversial subject that might be triggering for some people.   There are scholarly articles on this subject and many national organizations have expressed opinions on the use of physical restraint.   My perspective is primarily driven by my professional experiences participating in physical restraints, mechanical restraints, chemical restraints, and seclusi...

This episode uses The Aspect Compass to frame the role of a Residential Counselor as serving as The Chief function with the clients to set limits, to help regulate, the kids' emotions, cognitions, and behaviors. When residential staff don't set enough limits, you'll see a phenomenon called contagion.   This comes from firefighting and describes how a fire will spread from one tree to another.   It...

This episode reviews The Domain Compass, which is a way to visualize four domains of psychological functioning. In the East, there's the domain of emotions, consisting of feelings and moods.   In the South, there's the domain of cognitions, consisting of thoughts and beliefs. In the West, there's the domain of behaviors.   That's includes both external behaviors and all the internal workings of yo...

High level team work is an absolutely essential aspect of being an effective Residential Counselor.   There's a classic way to think about the formation of effective teams.   It breaks team development into 5 over-lapping phases:   Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, Adjourning. (1)  Forming refers to all the dynamics that happen between team-mates when you're relatively new to working with on...

Therapeutic relationships help your clients become centered in four domains of psychological functioning.   This can be visualized using The Domain Compass: ·       In the East, there's the domain of emotions, consisting of feeling and moods. ·       In the South, there's the domain of cognitions, consisting of thoughts and beliefs. ·         In the West, there's the domain of behaviors, consistin...

Professional boundaries includes: 1.          the schedule of when you'll have contact with the kids, 2.          limits on physical touch, 3.          limits on personal disclosure, and 4.          the general tone of the professional relationship.   1.   Your contact with clients is during scheduled hours.         Be polite but minimize any accidental contact with clients outside of work.      ...

Welcome to the first episode of Becoming Centered.  This episode begins the Residential Counselor Orientation series, designed for the new Residential Counselor.   It introduces a way to understand your role, your relationship with clients and other counselors, and introduces some basic tools for becoming a skilled Residential Counselor.   Episode 1 focuses on a specific understanding of the role...