Lact - Palo Alto School Representative

Palo Alto School Representative

Center for training, intervention and research
Systemic approach and hypnosis

Online Open House on April 5, 2023 from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Come and discover our training courses in systemic approach and hypnosis

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Train and analyze your own practice

Train and analyze your own practice, whatever the approach, to improve your daily results

Grégoire Vitry (PhD), Emmanuelle Gallin, Audrey Becuwe (PhD, HDR)

published in the journal Hypnosis and Brief Therapies (2022)

After 4 years of training, Anne-Charlotte de Maupeou, member of the SYPRENE Network (Systemic Practice Research Network), hypnosis practitioner and relationship clinician, testifies to the changes that have taken place in her relationship with the patient since she has been using the evaluation and improvement of practice: “the analysis of my own practice allows me to put the relationship at the heart of change and improve my results. » What is practice improvement and evaluation? How does it lead to improved results? How does it create a change in the therapeutic practice and in the relationship with the patient? How did this practice develop? Let's go back to this new discipline and its inner workings.

Train and analyze your own practice

The SYPRENE experience

The improvement of practice as a discipline in its own right stems from the results of the SYPRENE Practice Research Network (PRN ) set up in 2014 by the LACT research center to bridge the gap between practitioners and researchers. With the aim of initially evaluating the effectiveness and efficiency of strategic systemic therapy and observing the processes of intervention and change, SYPRENE brings together some twenty practitioner members from seven different countries. Many institutions and research centers have joined this program: LACT (Paris), the Laboratory of Psychopathology and Neuropsychology of the University of Paris 8, CERMES3 (CNRS), the Center for Strategic Therapy of Arezzo (Italy) of Pr. Giorgio Nardone, the MRI of Palo Alto (California), the CIRCÉ training center (Paris) founded by Teresa Garcia, the UNAM University - National Autonomous University of Mexico (Mexico City), the MIMETHYS Institute (Nantes) of Dr. Eric Bardot or the University of Louisiana-Monroe (Louisiana). Initially thought of as a tool at the service of research, SYPRENE has become above all a powerful tool for observation and evaluation of practice at the service of improving results for any professional practitioner, whatever his approach (hypnosis, systemic, CBT…).‌

Several quick questionnaires (less than 30 seconds) allow the practitioner to quantitatively and qualitatively assess both the therapeutic alliance with the SRS (Miller & Duncan, 2004) and the state of contextualized well-being (individual , interrelational, social and global) with the ORS (Miller & Duncan, 2004) . The GHQ 12 (Goldberg, 1972) clarifies the state of well-being from the perspective of the individual. Finally, the question of the scale [2] assesses the evolution of problem solving from the point of view of the patient and that of the therapist.

It was thus possible to establish - for the strategic systemic approach - by analyzing the interventions of 22 therapists with 1150 patients, a significant improvement or a complete resolution of the problem in 79% of cases, with an average of 5.4 sessions and a duration 5.3 months of treatment (Vitry et al., 2021).

References

[1] Contact: gvitry@lact.fr / 01 48 07 40 40

[2] The problem-solving scale originated with Molnar and de Shazer (1987) and was originally called the “inverted scale”.

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The indirect approach in schools: helping parents and teachers to help children

The indirect approach in schools: helping parents and teachers to help children

Nathalie Chollet

Nathalie Chollet worked for twenty years in the National Education as a school teacher, in primary and kindergarten. She is now a systemic therapist.  

School difficulties , learning or behavioral disorders, so many difficulties that constitute a challenge for students, parents and teachers. Yet “the thinking of the Palo Alto school is perhaps an opportunity to restore the possible where everything seems blocked, to propose an adaptation to these new contexts without having to do violence to oneself. Some may consider that they are not educators but purveyors of knowledge, others that they are not psychotherapists. Neither is needed to help struggling students. It is in the interactional processes that we can find answers. The systemic approach of the Palo Alto school thus makes it possible to bring a vision, not centered solely on the student, but more global on a problem. The systemic view facilitates the highlighting of the interactional link between the school, the teachers and the students. Thus school difficulties can be considered as the result of the reciprocal influence in an interactional system that has become dysfunctional.

The indirect approach in schools: helping parents and teachers to help children

The systemic and strategic approach in a nutshell

The fundamental idea of ​​a systemic approach is to consider that it is not the person, therefore the pupil, who is the problem but rather an interactional system which is dysfunctional and which we must try to understand. Brief strategic therapy offers a constructivist perspective by viewing problems as dysfunctional systems of perception of reality and therefore of reaction. The idea is therefore no longer to seek a “why” but a “how”; we are no longer looking for the causes but for the solutions. The strategic approach is based on the idea that the solution attempted to solve the problem becomes the problem. Despite the best intentions, we tend to repeat more and more of the same thing to get out of a problematic vicious circle. The more we repeat these attempts at solutions , the more we maintain, or even aggravate, the problem.

Difficulties in school

In the school context, the problems most frequently encountered by students are:

  • performance decline, 
  • behavioral problems, 
  • hyperactivity,
  • non-compliance with the rules, 
  • shyness,
  • isolation,
  • anxiety, stress.

In general and regardless of the nature of the problem, an alarm will first go off on the teacher's side who will try to solve the problem, then, in a second step, call the parents. The teacher and parents will set up solution attempts to solve the problem. However, if the latter become redundant and ineffective, they risk maintaining or even increasing the problem. We find this dysfunctional pattern very frequently in the case of a turbulent pupil, like Pierre, who is in kindergarten. The teacher first tries to reason and discuss with Pierre. Without success, the teacher sanctions Pierre. If these attempts at solutions do not work, then the teacher calls on the parents, who, in turn, will try to calm down and then discuss with their child, or even arrive at the sanction.  

 

We can clearly see in the case of Pierre that the attempts at solutions frequently implemented in these circumstances are: to reason, to explain, to reward, to punish, to look for the causes and all the intermittent behaviors, that is to say an alternation of different attempts at solution. The attempted solution can sometimes be to bring the child to a psychologist to change his behavior, or even correct it, even if this alternative risks becoming pathologizing by labeling the child with a psychological or behavioral disorder. If Pierre does not calm down despite the attempts of the teacher and those of the parents, a consultation with a psychologist may be suggested as an attempt to understand the behavior of the child. This external speaker can rightly diagnose hyperactivity. However, this diagnosis will perhaps not calm Pierre, but will perhaps aggravate the situation because Pierre now knows that he has every reason to be turbulent being diagnosed as hyperactive! It is therefore essential to identify failing attempts at solutions, to interrupt them and to apply specific strategies in relation to the problem at hand.  

 Systemic reading of dysfunctional relationships at school

Systemic reading of dysfunctional relationships at school

In this feedback loop , in which Pierre reacts to the actions and words of the teacher, who, in turn, modifies his actions and words according to Pierre until creating a vicious cycle, it is obvious that the recurring problems of the students identified above will have an impact on the teacher. The latter can face two categories of difficulties: the dysfunctional complementarity (also called the paradox of aid) and the symmetrical struggle . Each scenario is characterized by the repetition of dysfunctional interactions between the teacher and one or more students, between the students or between the teacher and the parents. These systems, teacher-student or teacher-parents, find themselves in dysfunctional interaction loops that become veritable vicious interactional circles. It is “useful to seek out and highlight these redundant interactions which participate in the persistence, or even the amplification, of a problem in the classroom, because teachers are very sensitive to them. Identifying “always more of the same” often constitutes a reframing that completely changes the teacher's way of understanding or feeling the situation. This “re-reading” of the situation functions as a springboard for the search for new ways of doing things.”

When an interaction of the help paradox type (where the help provided by the teacher becomes ineffective) takes place, we observe on the part of the teacher a large number of support measures put in place to one or more students. But when these measures persist without positive effect, they end up contributing to school failure as well as to the exhaustion and guilt of the teacher who will have tried in vain. This common situation is well illustrated by the case of Julie who is a CP student with some difficulty in graphic design. The more the teacher asks Julie to do her lines of writing and the more she suggests that she practice at home, the more Julie feels in difficulty. Despite her best intentions to help Julie, the teacher unfortunately sends the little girl a completely different message suggesting that she is not capable of doing like her classmates.

In certain situations with pupils presenting behavioral problems, we observe that a sort of symmetrical struggle “for power” is gradually taking place between the teacher and the pupil. The teacher, who should be in a high complementary position, then finds himself in a low complementary position, forced to react rather than act in the face of the child's problematic behaviours. The case of Fabien, a pupil of CM2, perfectly illustrates how this symmetrical struggle is set up. Fabian is the "clown" of his class. He doesn't like school very much because he finds the work too difficult, but he likes to make his classmates laugh. This situation of course exasperates his teacher who tries by all means to channel him by giving him the floor, getting him out of the classroom or even giving him a job to do. But the more the teacher sets up these attempts at solutions, the more Fabian is difficult to channel. And soon the teacher and Fabian will enter into a “power” struggle over who will resist the best!

The alliance with the teacher

We can deduce from these examples that if there is a problem at school, there is a solution at school. It is, above all, to have a first reflection with the teacher who is directly concerned:  

  1. by creating a collaborative bond through systematic research with the teacher on the basis of their observations.
  2. by defining the problem for a search for the facts, that is to say the problematic manifestations.
  3. by understanding the desired change request and the timeframe within which a first small change needs to take place.
  4.  by defining a contract of collaboration by clearly specifying the role of each with a precise mention of the fact that the speaker will in no way replace the teacher. 

 

It then becomes possible to carry out a reframing by reformulating the problem in systemic and interactional terms. Finally, it is necessary to define an intervention strategy which can be broken down into an observation task or an active task with a different behavior prescription.


Just like a medical prescription, the prescription of a task to be performed in class aims to experiment with another mode of interaction. The teacher will thus be able to experience a new operational situation and experiment with new methods of communication. This 180° task of his attempt at solutions may seem paradoxical to the teacher, but it will block his attempt at a solution and then gradually move towards solving the problem. If we go back to the case of Fabian, the teacher could have encouraged her student to clown around at the end of a difficult lesson in order to bring a little levity. This indirect approach aims to modify the behavior of the student and will place the teacher in a position of co-therapist and will thus facilitate the path towards problem solving.

The indirect approach

The implementation of an indirect approach with young children and pre-adolescents through the teacher will therefore be preferred in the school environment. Until preadolescence, the emotional maturity of the child is generally not sufficiently developed. On the other hand, the child may not be aware of the problem. As children grow and mature, direct therapy can then be used.  

The Strategic Therapy Center of Arezzo (the Institute for research, training and psychotherapy founded in 1987 by Giorgio Nardone and Paul Watzlawick) has developed intervention protocols in order to best remedy these disorders frequently encountered in schools. :

  • attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
  • oppositional defiant disorder
  • selective mutism
  • avoidance disorder
  • school phobia

 “These protocols are simple guidelines, which are far from being rigid and pre-established […] These protocols are easily duplicated, predictable and self-correcting. »  

The so-called indirect approach makes it possible to modify the problem behavior of the child by giving the teacher tasks at 180° of his attempted solutions. This approach has many advantages. First, it reduces teacher's resistance to change The work focuses on interaction and not on pedagogy. Actions, often paradoxical, are proposed to the teacher. Secondly, this approach makes it possible to stop the attempts at solutions put in place by the adult without them being really aware of them, thus gradually modifying their perception and then their reactions. Finally, the student's problematic behavior is modified in spite of himself, the interactional process becomes more flexible and becomes functional again. In the case of Cléo, a very angry kindergarten student, the teacher used the energy of anger in a positive way by offering this very energetic child to help her with tidying up the workshops. This prescription co-constructed with the teacher and the therapist allowed the teacher to implement a strategy at 180° of the usual sanction. Moreover, Cleo not only accepted the proposal, but also asked her teacher to use her energy to help her. This change in interaction gradually changed the teacher's view of Cléo.

indirect techniques and strategies put in place with students

Examples of indirect techniques and strategies implemented with students

After defining the problem and identifying attempted solutions, techniques and strategies are put in place:

  • a reframing with a positive connotation thanks to which the use of the symptom manifested by the child will bring a positive connotation to the child in difficulty. The case of Sophie can illustrate this positive reframing. Sophie is in CE1 class and has difficulty with reading. Instead of suggesting simpler texts or readings to do at home (attempts to find a solution), the teacher suggested that she “act” like in the theater what she had to read because her voice is magnificent. Julie found this game interesting and thus became more interested in reading.  
  • a paradoxical prescription of behavior that will create an aversion to it. Talkative or turbulent pupils, for example, can dedicate class time of a few minutes a day to the child to do “his little theatre” in front of his classmates. The case of Zoé illustrates this indirect strategy. Zoé is a kindergarten student who is rather talkative and dissipated during learning workshops. She was not disciplined but was encouraged to tell a short story of her choice four times a day in front of her classmates. Zoé got exhausted telling stories, and after a few days she chatted less during the workshops.  
  • the technique of "as if" or "let's pretend that this disorder does not exist". This is the case of Alexis, a third grade student who lacks self-confidence. The teacher has put in place many aids, such as reassuring and helping. Despite the teacher's best intentions, the message to Alexis was that without help, he couldn't do it. The prescription given to the teacher was to act as if Alexis could do his work alone with the instruction that if he needed help, it was up to him to ask and not the teacher to anticipate. Alexis took a bit of time to reach out to her teacher and gradually managed to find a certain form of autonomy in her work.

The systemic approach in schools, an effective approach

The systemic approach sheds light on school difficulties by placing the child at the heart of the systems in which he interacts, and in particular the class system. By focusing on dysfunctional interactions within the class system, it provides another perspective and solutions to difficulties in the school environment from kindergarten. In addition, the indirect approach in a systemic and strategic reading allows teachers to better understand and apprehend school difficulties. The main thing here is of course to help the teacher to help his student in difficulty by focusing, not on a problem, but on the dysfunctional interactions which contribute to maintaining and/or aggravating the problem. “It is the teacher who will be the main agent of change, relying on his own skills and those of other members of the system. »  

Learning about a problem through change is the only way to develop effective techniques for providing help to those who need it. It is therefore essential to conclude that “the use of the systemic approach in school is not intended to transform teachers into therapists, but to enable them to become better teachers. »

The systemic approach in schools, an effective approach

References

Curonici, Chiara and McCulloch, Patricia. (2004). The systemic approach in schools: reflections after 20.

Nardone, G. and Portelli, C. (2012) Knowledge through change. 

Vidal, Michel and Garcia-Rivera, Teresa (2013). Palo Alto at school..

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Brief and effective treatment for eating disorders

Brief and effective treatment for anxiety disorders and phobias

Brief and systemic therapy, an excellent treatment for eating disorders thanks to scientific research

The systemic and strategic approach is particularly effective in the treatment of eating disorders. Thanks to a scientific approach to the functioning of these disorders, systemic interventions record powerful results in terms of treatment in an average of 5 appointments over a period of 5 months.

Overcoming Eating Disorders

We help our patients overcome their eating disorders, anorexia, bulimia, vomiting, binge eating, etc. Our goal is to provide you with the understanding and keys necessary to resolve these disorders, it is possible to eradicate all traces of eating disorders in a person's life.

Strategic Brief Therapy®

Using over 25 years of clinical research and with thousands of patients successfully treated using our intervention model known as Brief Strategic Therapy®, we have proven (Gibson 2014, 2016, 2019a, 2019b, 2019c, Nardone 2013, Portelli, 2007) that while human problems can be persistent, complicated, and painful, we don't always need some long, drawn-out form of intervention to fix the problem and alleviate the suffering.

Our model has proven to be the most effective and efficient form of treatment for eating disorders (Ray & Nardone 2007).

Whether you have an eating disorder, are a family member, friend, or healthcare professional, this site aims to provide you with information about the signs, symptoms, and effective treatment of eating disorders.

Bulimia, a pleasure that poisons

Discover...

Bulimia

Bulimia is an eating disorder that literally means "hunger like an ox." Bulimia is one of the eating disorders that are characterized by an uncontrollable urge to eat and a feeling of lack of control over the type and amount of food eaten...

Book an in-office consultation in Paris Montorgueuil or remotely by videoconference

We receive our patients from Monday to Friday.
To make an appointment you can call us on +33 (0) 1 48 07 40 40 
or +33 (0) 6 03 24 81 65 or even make it directly online
by clicking here:

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relationship management

relationship management

Online Open House

April 5, 2023 from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.0

MEET US!

Come and discover our training courses in strategic systemic approach, hypnosis and strategic coaching. You will meet the trainers of the University of Paris 8 and will be able to discuss with them!

The Master's in Relationship Management teaches the relational approach to management derived from the communication theory of the Palo Alto school, which emphasizes interactions and soft skills in your relationships with yourself and others. , to your work environment and to the world in general.

A training that allows you to:

deploy your resources
to improve your professional performance
(solution-oriented approach)

to better understand
relational and psychological issues
(problem-solving approach)

In partnership with

Bulimia, a pleasure that poisons

Problem solving and business performance

The work of the Palo Alto school has opened up a whole section of research on strategic logic, an action planning model based on the objectives to be achieved and the problems to be solved. This type of logic takes into account the phenomena of logical ambivalence by using paradoxes or contradictions as real operational tools. In a causal and circular systemic view, communicative paradoxes and self-fulfilling prophecies were identified by the founders of the systemic approach as the building blocks of many important relationships between human beings and their reality. Giorgio Nardone modeled this Problem Solving approach to develop a powerful problem solving tool.

 Problem solving and business performance

TRAINING COURSE 2023/2024

This distance learning Masters is made up of a set of modules divided into 3 study cycles. You will obtain the Diploma in Relationship Management at the end of the 3 training cycles. A certificate will be issued at the end of each cycle. You can register for a single cycle or directly for the 3 cycles with a preferential rate.

COMPLETE REGISTRATION FOR THE 3 TRAINING CYCLES
Relationship Management Diploma

Prerequisites
Have experience in team or project management in HR or operational

35 hours of lessons
1 individual coaching of 45 minutes
35 hours of personal work approximately


Relationship Management

Certificate Cycle 1

Strengthen your communication


relationship
management

Cycle 3
Deploy your
relational intelligence

Pre-requisite
to have validated cycle 1 and 2
 
 
50 hours of lessons
1 individual coaching of 45 minutes
50 hours of personal work approximately
Master in

Relationship Management

Possibility of
University Certificate with

POSSIBLE EQUIVALENCE :
3 additional modules to follow to access the diploma of
systemic coach or systemician ® (practical level)

Business performance and strategic problem solving model

The strategic problem solving model will allow you to define the problem and agree on an objective, to analyze and evaluate attempted solutions, then to put in place techniques that will allow you to achieve the objective. Among them, the “how to make it worse” technique, the “scenario beyond the problem” technique or even the mountaineer's technique. These techniques will allow a progressive adjustment leading to a solution.

The scenario beyond the problem

The implementation of this technique involves asking a person to imagine what the perfect scenario would be like once all current problems and difficulties have been completely overcome. In other words, the person is asked how the scenario would be compared to the current situation, once the problem has been fully solved or the objective has been fully achieved.  

mountaineering technique

This mental strategy clearly represents the application of an inverse logic compared to ordinary logic and requires the implementation of acts that apparently go against common sense. Once the objective to be reached has been defined, the mountaineer's technique will make it possible to imagine a sequence of stages backwards to the starting point, rather than starting from the initial point and building the sequence of stages. to the point of arrival.

The technique "how to make it worse?" »

This technique is an essential step in the strategic problem solving model formalized by Giorgio Nardone. It consists in asking oneself what actions should be carried out or avoided in order to voluntarily worsen the current situation.

Business performance and strategic problem solving model

Is problem solving effective in improving business performance?

Problem solving techniques are particularly suited to the world of organizations and companies, for the resolution of complex problems, conflict resolution, organizational problems, restructuring, etc. The training of managers and HR personnel allows them to acquire effective tools for problem solving.

Systemic approach, prevention of conflicts in companies and psychological disorders related to suffering at work

The systemic approach to relationship management improves relational performance by developing emotional and relational skills and collective intelligence ; improve the quality of life at work (QVT) and the PSR prevention system . With a scientific approach to the evaluation of well-being at work , it helps to prevent psychological disorders and conflict situations at work. This approach also makes it possible to support companies in their complex transformations at the level of businesses and organizational changes.

The Master's in Relationship Management proposes to acquire the tools of the theory of strategic systemic communication in 3 teaching cycles, ranging from the theoretical lessons of communication from Palo Alto and the art of strategic systemic Problem Solving, to practical workshops on the development of soft skills (speaking, decision-making, management of emotions, conflict management, strategic communication).

The consequences of a bad relationship on the individual

The relationship is at the heart of many professions: teachers, managers, HR, health professionals. Today we are witnessing a real loss of meaning for these professionals, which can lead to psychological disorders such as depression, burnout, loss of self-esteem, suicide. Others sometimes choose to leave their jobs in this movement of unprecedented magnitude of "Big Quitting", the big departure. But isn't this loss of meaning due to a break in the relationship where the individual, caught up in his function, ceases to exist? How to take into account the individual as a whole in structures with rigid architectures? How to communicate better to avoid the installation of dysfunctional relationships and their consequences on the quality of life at work?  

Our global and systemic vision of well-being at work makes us experience that it is the relationship between the individual (or a group of individuals) and their environment that allows them to understand their situation in conditions of well-being. . The quality of life at work, confidence, the feeling of happiness emerge when we manage to overcome each and together the challenges of work according to a satisfactory balance.

In the event of suffering at work, we observe that it is these individual and collective regulations that are ineffective and become pathogenic. Within a framework of guaranteed confidentiality, we help the individuals or the teams concerned to mobilize their resources so that they can apprehend their situation again in conditions of well-being.


What is relationship management

Relationship management requires learning communication and relationships. Thanks to the tools of the theory of communication developed by the School of Palo Alto, a new type of functional relationship is established and makes it possible to prevent psychological disorders linked to dysfunctional relationships. This systemic and strategic communication also makes it possible to improve conflict management for better organizational cohesion.

 relationship management

Examples of business support

  • put in place intervention mechanisms that respond to individual or collective complaints
  • support one or more employees who are suffering from a situation for which no one can find a solution
  • be able to act effectively and quickly in a virtuous resolution of the situation of suffering
  • control and avoid costly side effects
  • act on complex situations: problems of suffering at work linked to a behavior of transformation, suffering at work (burn-out, conflicts, harassment), crisis situation (strikes, threats of suicide attempts or events where there could be post-traumatic stress)

Who can train in relationship management?

  • managers who wonder about the strategy or the communication to adopt within the framework of an individual or collective device to support suffering at work
  • managers who wonder about their way of interacting with one or more members of their team. The assistance will enable him to exercise a more strategic managerial influence, both from the point of view of the context and its challenges, and from the point of view of communication and the relational style to be implemented,
  • employees in pain (manifestation of worrying symptoms) or in relational conflict in their professional activity,
  • representatives or medico-social staff who wish to better understand an employee's complaint and feel the need to be guided on the best strategy and communication to implement. This support is particularly effective for complex situations and/or situations with exacerbated emotional components.

A scientific approach to the relationship

The quality of life at work, confidence, the feeling of happiness emerge when we manage to overcome each and together, according to a satisfactory balance, the challenges of work at the heart of the dynamics of production, decision-making and cooperation.

LACT is committed to seeking the continuous improvement of its interventions, which aims to reinforce or restore the perception of well-being at work; this quality approach is embodied in the animation of a research program "LACT Research", where the interventions are documented and evaluated in a qualitative and quantitative way, and of a network of research practitioners in strategic systemic approach, SYPRENE, to share experiences and expertise with universities and institutions in France, Italy, the United States and Mexico, in particular to develop interventions in companies and adjust the methods of their efficiency.

For each type of our intervention, the beneficiary(ies) assesses their own well-being at work before and after the intervention; the aggregation of anonymized assessments allows our customers to objectively and transparently assess the overall perception of well-being at work.

relationship management tools

Problem solving

Problem Solving brings together operational tools to be able to better define the problem encountered in its given context, in order to find the most appropriate solutions. It offers new methods of investigation that will lead to think outside the box, to find solutions even in seemingly impossible situations with problem-oriented techniques and solution-oriented techniques to be able to assess in depth the problem they face. The method of strategic problem solving is rigorous but not rigid, and can be applied to different contexts: individual, family, school, company, etc. She takes an ecological approach to avoid dealing with problems in a one-size-fits-all way. Additionally, participants will learn how to create a step-by-step action plan by taking an action-research approach to their practice.

Strategic communication

Systemic and strategic communication comes from the interactional, systemic and cybernetic models that make up relationships, and from work on communication skills drawn from Paul Watzlawick, Milton Erickson, or even Giorgio Nardone and strategic dialogue, developed at the Centro di Terapia Strategica of Arezzo, Italy. Throughout history, great thinkers and leaders have used dialogue as their primary means of inducing creative thinking and influencing others toward change. Dialogue is undoubtedly an essential coaching tool. Based on the studies of Human Communication and on the analysis of the powers of influence, Nardone and Salvini (2005) have developed a set of communication strategies which they call the "Strategic Dialogue" which transforms a simple dialogue into a genuine means of change. Participants will be guided to acquire and master this model of persuasion which contains specific advanced communication strategies. This model is rigorous and flexible, it is self-correcting, reproducible and adaptable to various social contexts; finally it is transferable, that is to say that it can be acquired and mastered by almost everyone. This module takes a learning-by-doing approach where students are guided to practice and master these advanced communication strategies.

emotional regulation

Work on emotion regulation studies “how individuals influence the emotions they have, when they have them, how they experience them and how they express them” (Gross). Emotion regulation is defined as the cognitive or behavioral strategies that are used to alter the circumstances in which an emotion occurs, the experience of an emotional response (including intensity and duration), or how an emotion is expressed to others (Gross, 2002).

The systemic and strategic coaching interview

The systemic and strategic coaching interview focuses on the way in which the beneficiary approaches the professional situation in which he is experiencing difficulties in order to bring out a different perception of it. Because he may perceive his situation differently, the way he will be able to approach it will be different and in this way allow the rapid disappearance of the unwanted symptoms or the problem encountered.  

  • The interview process includes:
    • Perception of the situation experienced by the coachee according to his point of view and in concrete, current, interactional and dynamic form: "who complains about what and does what to whom and with what consequences", distinctions are made between complaint, request and symptoms in order to better define the mechanism of the problem and its stakes.
    • Investigation of current resources and limits in the 4 dimensions: rational, emotional, behavioral and relational,
    • Highlighting the difficulties experienced by the employee and the challenges of change,
    • Consideration of the repercussions of the difficulties encountered at the personal, relational and contextual levels,
    • Contractualization of a clear, concrete, realistic and significant change objective in a three-dimensional perspective: strategy, communication and relational.
    • Prescription of targeted and specific actions to be implemented in situ.

Manage the QVT approach and the PSR prevention system

We approach the improvement of the quality of life at work and the prevention of psychosocial risks from a global perspective. The objective is to focus attention on the processes of interactional regulation at the heart of the dynamics of production, decision-making and cooperation, and on the way in which the individual and the group can agree to improve them; it is an approach that stimulates learning, experiences and collective intelligence, and energizes social and professional dialogue.

 Who is the individual support intended for?

Individual support

Individual support is offered to measure the quality of individual and collective interventions and assess a tangible improvement in the state of well-being of your managers and employees.

Our device:

  • A rigorous methodology of evaluation by the client and by the practitioner as the sessions progress for consultations and interventions
  • A network of around thirty contributors in France and abroad, part of a quality approach to serve relational and psychological regulation and well-being at work.
  • Self-administered questionnaires validated by the APA (American Psychological Association): GHQ12, ORS, SRS

Who is the individual support intended for?

  • managers in their reflection on how to approach QWL and the prevention of psychosocial risks
  • the actors involved in the management of a transformation project to mobilize all the actors that the transformation directly impacts, to develop the relational agility of the managers concerned and to stimulate collective intelligence 
  • actors from the QVT and PSR prevention groups, to define, implement and evaluate their actions for prevention and management of complex situations
  • the actors involved in the management of pathogenic situations to regain control over a crisis situation and restore a quality balance (occupational physician, HRD, managers, management),
  • management of suffering at work where it emerges (at the individual or collective level) within a framework of confidentiality. We help the individuals or teams concerned to mobilize their resources so that they can re-apprehend their situation in conditions of well-being.
  • companies thanks to interventions adapted to the overall prevention and QVT actions system. We implement feedback mechanisms focused on processes and not on individual situations.

Where to train in relationship management?

LACT offers 2 relationship management training courses: The Master's in Relationship Management with certification from the University of Paris 8 and the Systemic and Strategic Coach Diploma.

Master's in Relationship Management in partnership with the University of Paris 8

One-year course (adaptable over 3 years or by teaching module) to acquire the fundamental theoretical lessons of strategic problem solving and the Palo Alto approach as well as practical lessons on the implementation of these techniques in collective workshops.

Diploma in strategic systemic coaching in partnership with the University of Paris 8

The Strategic Systemic Coach training course (2-year course) provides the fundamentals and techniques to guide change and solve individual and collective problems. 

  • guide change 
  • solve individual and collective problems that you may encounter in your professional life. 
  • know the operating processes of complex professional ecosystems ( companies, organization, administration, association, etc. )
  • calibrate strategic communication and relational leadership.

Who are these courses for?

  • the leaders 
  • the actors involved in the management of a transformation project to mobilize all the actors that the transformation directly impacts, 
  • actors from the QVT (Quality of Life at Work) and PSR (PsychoSocial Risks) prevention groups, 
  • the actors involved in the management of pathogenic situations (occupational physician, HRD, managers, management)

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No, I don't want to sleep! N / A!

No, I don't want to sleep! N / A!

by Béatrice Giraudeau , brief therapy and hypnosis, member of Syprene / Lact research

When the Palo Alto school puts children to sleep, soothes moms and dads.
Especially mothers... Note that a little girl's sleep problem Indeed, as systems therapists , we assess the relevant system : Who has a problem? Who complains? Who suffers? Who does what? Who says what? We do not necessarily see the person who carries the symptom .
In this case, it's the mother who can't take it anymore; She is the lever of change with whom I want to work. Let's leave the little girl to her games...And let's go straight into Palo Altienne indirect therapy.

No, I don't want to sleep

Christina, mother of two children aged 4 and 6, called me again one fine morning; Indeed, I had already accompanied her for relational problems within her family .
I feel exhausted and excited. Christina, although well versed in systemic and strategic therapy , thinks that I will see her with her little 4-year-old; Yes it's her daughter who doesn't want to sleep after all, she's the problem ! After a little reframing , I explain to him that we are going to see this quietly both, I want to know what is happening exactly.

First session (Excerpts)

Therapist : Hello Christina, so what's going on?
Explain to me... Christina : I'm exhausted!
My 4 year old daughter does not want to sleep anymore! She has a fit every night, cries, screams, gets up, prevents her brother from sleeping! It lasts for hours! Help me! Therapist : Ok...And what is the name of the "devil" who doesn't want to sleep anymore?
Christina : Eléonore
Thérapeute : And how long has it been going on?
Christina : About a month ago
Therapist : Has anything special happened lately?
Christina : Not really... Ah, if her father has found a new job for six months, he's less often at home;
I need to be more present. Therapist : Do you think this upset your little girl?
Have his habits been disrupted? Christina : Yes a little, but that didn't prevent her from sleeping.
It's only been a few weeks. Therapist : Tell me, how is the bedtime ritual ?
Do your children sleep in the same room? Christina : Yes they sleep together, and her brother is already sleeping when she begins her crisis;
He is a heavy sleeper. Therapist : So these seizures don't wake up his brother?
Christina : Not really, still happy!
But I apprehend it. Do something for her to sleep, I can't take it anymore! Therapist : Tell me about the bedtime ritual ...
Christina : Every night I tell a new story with characters that I invented;
The children are in my room for the stories. Then we sing four songs, and they go to bed. Therapist : Ah yes four songs!?
You give of yourself! And before this crisis, Eléonore fell asleep without any problem? Christina : It was already a little complicated, sometimes she called me back but fell asleep all the same. Now when I tell her "Good night see you tomorrow", she tells me " No I don't want to sleep! Na!" She screams and she follows me all over the apartment!
Therapist : And what do you do?
Christina : I tried everything! At first, I reasoned with her, I negotiated, I was gentle, I stayed longer with her, then after a while, I got angry, I shouted! And nothing helped...Sometimes even, exasperated, I forced her to go walking with me outside! But nothing helped, I tell you, I tried everything !
Therapist : Yes, it looks like Eléonore has taken control of the relationship , and the more you tell her to sleep, the more she tells you no , right?
Christina : Yes I realize that...But it's stronger than me, she knocks me out!
Therapist : " The devil " is out of her box, and it only exhausts you that she isn't sleeping;
Children have incredible resources! And what does his dad do, he intervenes? He leaves you to handle the crisis on your own? Christina : Oh as usual, I manage everything on my own!
Anyway, she doesn't want her father to put her to bed, she gets even more angry and repeats over and over: "I want mommy!" and it's even worse, so I give in. Therapist : I understand your exhaustion; Is it sometimes very ungrateful to be a mother?
Christina : Yes, so...
Therapist : Alright, shall we? Are you ready for the 180° ? (Christina has worked with me on this Palo Alto School , and I can afford to be blunt with her.)
Do you think you still have a bit of courage left to turn the tide?
For this showdown to finally end? Christina : Yes of course, that's why I'm coming back to you, I can't wait to get started!
Therapist : Good to start, Christina, and I ask you to keep this in mind, if Eléonore is not sleeping, we accept the idea and the assumption that she has a good reason for not sleeping , unconsciously of course, You follow me?
Christina : Yes absolutely
Therapist : Secondly, do you remember that the more I want to take control over a physiological, natural and spontaneous function , sleep in this case, the more I lose this control and the less sleep comes?
Christina : Yes
Therapist : So we agree that the more you ask your daughter to sleep, when sleep does not come, the less she wants to sleep, the more she says No?
Christina : Yes
Therapist : And finally in this logic , it seems almost reasonable for her to say no, since sleep does not come? (I bring step by step the very paradoxical prescription that will follow, for all good common sense)
Christina : Uh... Yes
Therapist : So you will have to apply the symptom prescription : "No, don't sleep!"
Christine : Oh yes!
All the same! Therapist : I reassure you, you are not going to tell him like that; We are going to adapt it in an ecological and educational for your little girl, so that she tames sleep , and even more virtuously, we are going to ensure that sleep becomes a friend , and not a punishment .
So when it's time to go to bed, you'll tell her: "I've understood that you're not sleepy and that the little train is running late...Come into the living room to wait for her; I'm going to put on a little bell, and as soon as that you hear it ringing, it's the signal that the little train has finally arrived. You can go back to bed and sleep, but not before."

I suggest 15 minutes for the timer, Christina prefers 30 minutes, so apprehensive is she that her granddaughter refuses to sleep;
The next appointment is taken in 15 days, with the request to carefully observe the reactions of her granddaughter. In this inter-session, let Palo Alto, like the sandman, throw his powder of sleep on Eléonore's eyes.
I first ask this overexcited mother to write a few angry letters in order to empty this emotional charge.

Second session (Excerpts)

Therapist : Hello Christina, so how did this prescription go?
Christina : It worked!
I told him: "It's not good to force yourself to sleep, you don't go to your bed right away. You're not ready yet, come to the living room on the sofa." Therapist : What does she say?
Christina : "No! I don't want to! I'm going to my bed!"
Therapist : (Laughs) It's amazing!
So what? Christina : I didn't let go and I explained to her that I had understood that sleep was not coming, that the little train was late, and that she had to wait for him on the sofa until she hears the ringtone.
I set the timer for 30 minutes, she lay on the couch and told herself stories while I went about my business. I did not stay with her. Therapist : Very well.
And how was bedtime? Christina : She didn't have to be asked to go to bed!
I gave her a kiss and left her room....She didn't call me back; She took a long time to fall asleep, but I didn't hear anything, everything was silent, finally! Therapist : And the other evenings?
Christina : Same thing. The second night, I tell him: "No, you don't go to your bed! You go to the living room!" She lies down on the couch and tells herself stories, quite happy. And then over time, Eléonore understood that it's a new ritual .
She doesn't mind going to bed right away, but she says to me: "Just a minute mum!", but I remain firm. However, I went to 15 minutes. Therapist : Correct me if I'm wrong, but I still feel a little overexcited when you ask him to wait for the little train? Not only is the idea to soothe bedtime , but also to teach Eléonore how to tame sleep. I understand that all these last weeks have exhausted you, but nevertheless, we are not in a punishment.
Christina : Yes you're right, maybe I rushed the prescription a little too much.
Therapist: For the rest, you who like to invent stories for your children, you could perhaps stay with her on the sofa, if only for 5 minutes, and talk to her about the little train... You could say to her: "Do you know why the little train is late? Well imagine that a passenger had forgotten his suitcase in the station, and we had to wait for him. This little train is very nice... thank him because he watches over us; Perhaps you could thank him for being late because he is so nice?"
I trust your creativity...

Feedback one month later

During a new request from Christina, for her son this time, I ask about the " sandman " Palo Altien. Everything is going well. Symptom prescription has become a new bedtime ritual for Eléonore.
Christina took pleasure in inventing beautiful little train stories, and every evening, Eléonore asks: "I want the timer!" and go to the living room. She was able to tame her sleep by rediscovering her mother's peace and serene understanding.

Regaining control for parents does not consist, in a symmetrical escalation with their children, of getting into an arm wrestling match ; This one is aggravating .
It is a question of marrying the movement by ritualizing it strategically, and by reinforcing it in an ecological way for the child. The Palo Alto is completely akin to Aikido , this martial art which uses the strength of the adversary by sending him back.
It fully integrates this motto: Discourage the attack and not defeat your opponent.


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the strategic systemic approach in the school environment

Why is the systemic and strategic approach relevant in an intervention in the school environment?

The testimony of a school teacher trained in the strategic systemic approach

Nathalie Chollet

Nathalie Chollet worked for twenty years in the National Education as a school teacher, in primary and kindergarten. She is now a systemic therapist.  

 “Some may consider that they are not educators but purveyors of knowledge, others that they are not psychotherapists. Neither is needed to help struggling students. It is in the interactional processes that we can find answers. »

Michel Vidal and Teresa Garcia-Rivera, Palo Alto at school (2013, p. 181)

School difficulties, through learning and/or behavioral disorders, are today at the center of many public concerns and reflections because they constitute a real challenge to be overcome, both by pupils and by parents and teachers. teachers. In my role, I have often felt responsible for the well-being of my students and that of the parents vis-à-vis the school. Over the years, I have gradually had the feeling that my students in difficulty often require more than pedagogical help. However, my role as a teacher did not allow me to provide appropriate psychological support to these students. I persisted, but the more I persisted in trying to do what I used to do, the more helpless I felt in the face of their difficulties. I asked myself: was it really my role to provide psychological support to my students? Did I have the necessary tools to do it? After ending my teaching duties and completing the Relationship Clinician training at LACT , I now know how to answer how indirect therapy, in a systemic and strategic approach , can help students with learning difficulties and that from Kindergarten.

the systemic and strategic approach in the school environment

The systemic and strategic approach

The fundamental idea of ​​a systemic approach is to consider that it is not the person who is the problem but rather an interactional system that is dysfunctional and that we must try to understand. Brief strategic therapy offers a constructivist perspective by viewing problems as dysfunctional systems of perception of reality and therefore of reaction. The idea is therefore no longer to seek a “why” but a “how”; we are no longer looking for the causes but for the solutions.  

The strategic approach is based on the idea that the solution attempted to solve the problem becomes the problem. Despite the best intentions, we tend to repeat more and more of the same thing to get out of a problematic vicious circle. The more we repeat these attempts at solutions, the more we maintain, or even aggravate, the problem. As Claude de Scorraille, Olivier Brosseau and Grégoire Vitry remind us in When work hurts (2017, p. 68), the concept of attempted solution is key in the approach: “Attempted solutions basically represent the person's resources. It is the inadequacy of these “usual” resources to certain difficulties which creates an incapacity and causes a problem to appear. They then represent the operational capacities which participate in maintaining the problem. The therapist intervenes by blocking the attempts at redundant solutions in order to allow the patient to consider the problem according to a new logic, thus taking him out of the vicious circle in which he has locked himself. The strategy used will make it possible to apprehend the problem from a different angle and to bring the patient, through reframing, observations, actions to be taken, to live a corrective emotional experience thus allowing him to move towards his objective, towards the resolution of problem.

Why is the systemic and strategic approach relevant in an intervention in the school environment?

An intervention centered on the present

The intervention will approach the problematic situation in its current characteristics, thus leaving aside the events linked to the past.

A solution-oriented intervention

The intervention focuses above all on change with a SMART objective (explained below) co-constructed with the patient.

A non-normative and non-pathologizing intervention

By focusing on the interactional processes, the intervention focuses on the how and not on the why, thus avoiding the search for a “culprit” and making it possible to move towards an adequate solution for each point of view.

An interactional intervention

By focusing on the way the person interacts with his environment and how he reacts to it, the intervention makes it possible to define the problem in an interactional logic.

A strategic intervention

In order to alleviate the suffering caused by the problem, the intervention focuses on identifying attempts at redundant solutions in order to stop them.

An intervention that respects the ecosystem

The approach identifies and respects the side effects of change for everyone involved in the interactional process.

The problem solving process

The problem solving process

The stages of the problem-solving process are explained in the book Vaincre sans combat as such:

A clear definition of the problem here and now

 In this context, here are the questions to guide the therapist towards a definition of the problem:

  • What is the problem 
  • Who is concerned ?
  • When does it take place?
  • How does it work ?

Identifying failed solution attempts

Since there is a circular causality between our attempts to solve the problem and the resolution of the problem, the therapist will therefore help the patient to identify his attempts at solutions and to stop them. By answering the question "how to make the problem worse?" the patient wonders about his dysfunctional behavior. Conversely, the identification of exceptions guides the patient towards a solution-oriented approach by allowing him to identify functional behaviors. If the patient does not identify any exceptions, then the therapist will work to create the exception with the technique of "What would you do differently if your situation were different?" » then do « as if ».

A clear definition of the objective to be achieved

It is essential to co-construct a SMART objective with the patient

  • Specific: the objective is personalized
  • Measurable: the objective must be quantified or qualified
  • Acceptable: the objective must be shared by all (watch out for side effects that could cause resistance)
  • Realistic: the goal must be achievable
  • Temporally defined: the objective must be limited in time.

Formulation and step-by-step implementation of a plan for change

This action plan is rigorous but flexible in order to authorize modifications and corrections. The role of the systemic and strategic therapist is therefore to study the problem in the "here and now" to have an operational knowledge of the functioning of the problem. While co-constructing a SMART goal with the patient, the therapist will implement an action plan. He will nevertheless have to remain vigilant to the resistance to change on the part of the patient. The advantage of focusing on “how the problem works” makes the approach non-guilt-inducing, thus allowing some resistance to be removed. The therapist will thus be able to introduce a change of perspective, focus on stopping attempts at redundant solutions and thus put in place new interactional strategies in the hitherto dysfunctional system.

As Chiara Curonici and Patricia McCulloch remind us in their book Psychologists and Teachers - Systemic Perspectives on School Difficulties (2007), if the teacher says there is a problem at school, it is because there is has a problem at school: an interactional dysfunction is happening in the school-student system. It is therefore essential to first understand what is happening here and now in this system, and not what is happening elsewhere, especially at home, nor what was happening before. And if there is a problem at school, there is a solution at school.

Formulation and implementation step by step

Difficulties in school

In the school context, the problems most frequently encountered by students are:

  • performance decline,
  • behavioral problems,
  • hyperactivity,
  • non-compliance with the rules,
  • shyness,
  • isolation,
  • anxiety, stress.

In general and regardless of the nature of the problem, an alarm will first go off on the teacher's side who will try to solve the problem, then, in a second step, call the parents. However, as we mentioned above, both the teacher and the parents will set up solution attempts to solve the problem. If these become redundant and inefficient, they risk maintaining or even increasing the problem.

The most frequent attempts at solutions implemented in these circumstances are: reasoning, explaining, rewarding, punishing, looking for the causes and all intermittent behaviors, i.e. an alternation of an attempt at a solution and the other. The attempted solution may sometimes be to take the child to a psychologist to change his behavior and correct it; this strategy risks labeling the child in his disorder and thus becoming pathologizing. It is important to spot failing solution attempts, interrupt them, and apply specific strategies to the problem at hand.

In the feedback loop , the student problems listed above will of course have an impact on the teacher. As Chiara Curonici and Patricia McCulloch explain in their article "The systemic approach in the school environment: reflections 20 years later", the teacher can face one of two categories of difficulties: dysfunctional complementarity (also called the paradox of ) and symmetrical wrestling . Each scenario is characterized by the repetition of dysfunctional interactions between the teacher and one or more students, between the students or between the teacher and the parents. This system, teacher-student or teacher-parents, finds itself in a loop of dysfunctional interactions which becomes a veritable vicious interactional circle. It is “useful to seek out and highlight these redundant interactions which contribute to the persistence or even the amplification of a problem in class, because teachers are very sensitive to them. Identifying “always more of the same” often constitutes a reframing that completely changes the teacher's way of understanding or feeling the situation. This “rereading” of the situation functions as a springboard for the search for new ways of doing things. (Curonici, McCulloch, 2004, p. 582).

If there is a problem at school, there is a solution at school.

It is a question of having a first reflection with the teacher who is directly concerned.

  1. It is necessary to create a bond of collaboration by doing a systematic research with the teacher on the basis of his observations.
  2. It is then a question of defining the problem by looking for the facts, that is to say the problematic manifestations.
  3. Then it is necessary to define the request for the desired change and the deadline within which a first small change must take place.
  4. It is then necessary to define a contract of collaboration by clearly specifying the role of each with a precise mention on the fact that the speaker will in no case replace the teacher.
  5. In this case, it becomes possible to carry out a reframing by reformulating the problem in systemic and interactional terms.
  6. It is then necessary to define an intervention strategy which can be broken down into an observation task or an active task with a different behavior prescription.

The prescription of a task

Prescribing a task to be performed in class aims to experiment with another mode of interaction. The teacher will thus be able to experience a new operational situation and experiment with new methods of communication. This 180° task of his attempt at solutions may seem paradoxical to the teacher, but it will block his attempt at a solution and then gradually move towards solving the problem. This is an indirect approach, with the objective of modifying the student's behavior, which will place the teacher in the position of co-therapist and thus facilitate the path towards problem solving.

Indirect therapy

The implementation of an indirect therapy with young children and pre-adolescents through the teacher will therefore be preferred in the school environment. Until pre-adolescence, the emotional maturity of the child is generally not sufficiently developed. Also, the child may not be aware of the problem. However, as children grow and mature, then direct therapy may be used.

This indirect approach will give the teacher a role of co-therapist. It will therefore be essential to take care of communication and the relationship in order to avoid resistance to change and to create a therapeutic alliance.

If there is a problem at school there is a solution at school

Conclusion

The systemic and strategic approach, with the theories on which it is based, such as systems theory, cybernetics, the pragmatics of communication and the creation of various realities, makes it possible to analyze problems in terms of interactional processes within a system. This approach sheds light on school difficulties, by placing the child at the heart of the systems in which he interacts, and in particular the class system. The systemic approach, by focusing on the dysfunctional interactions within the class system, makes it possible to bring another perspective and solutions to the difficulties in the school environment from kindergarten.

The main thing here is of course to help the teacher to help his student in difficulty by focusing, not on a problem, but on the dysfunctional interactions which contribute to maintaining and/or aggravating the problem. “It is the teacher who will be the main agent of change, relying on his own skills and those of other members of the system. (Curonici and McCulloch, 2007, p. 160). G. Nardone and C. Portelli in Knowledge through Change, recall that learning to know a problem through change is the only way to develop effective techniques to provide help to those who need it. However, the following question can quickly arise: if the systemic approach is so effective in dealing with school difficulties, why is its use not more popular in the school environment? To answer this question, it is essential to question clientelization. In this regard, Michel Vidal and Teresa Garcia-Rivera mention the importance of properly targeting the customer, that is to say the person who is in difficulty because they cannot find solutions to their problem, that of best helping the student in difficulty. It is therefore with the teacher that it is a question of working and not with the person who is only designated as the carrier of the symptoms, that is to say the student who has behavioral problems. Nor is it a question of working with the parents who, following a vague and linear reading of the problem, are often questioned by the teachers and thus made to feel guilty. Unfortunately, when a difficulty arises in the school environment, the parents, too often questioned by the teacher, become the applicants for help. However, as mentioned earlier, when a problem arises at school, it is in school that the solution is found. In this case, can parents really be clients of this therapy? Also, the child is often too young, immature, or unaware of the problem to be a therapy client. The real client is therefore the teacher.

 

The teacher, with the help of the therapist, will be able to identify the problem as a dysfunction in the interaction. Moreover, through the indirect approach initiated by the therapist, the teacher will be able to bring about the necessary change by breaking out of this vicious circle. However, the institutional framework of National Education does not allow the teacher such an approach or only allows it on a personal basis. No budget for therapeutic follow-up, no human resources personnel trained in systems! How many teachers go, on a personal basis, to find a systemic therapist to help them better cope with school difficulties? I cannot answer this question. I can nevertheless end with a suggestion that could certainly solve many difficulties in the school environment: why not train teachers in systems thinking?

As Curonici C. and McCulloch P. rightly point out, “the use of the systemic approach in school is not intended to transform teachers into therapists, but to enable them to become better teachers. For my part, I might still be a teacher if I had had the opportunity to train in systemic thinking within the National Education...

References

CURONICI C. and McCULLOCH P. (2004). The systemic approach in the school environment:

reflections 20 years later. Geneva, Cairn info

CURONICI C. and McCULLOCH P. (2007). Psychologists and teachers – Regards

systems on school difficulties. Brussels, De boeck

DE SCORAILLE C., BROSSEAU O., VITRY G. (2017). When work hurts.

Malakoff. InterEditions

LUISIER M. (2010). Systemic approach in the school environment. A model for understanding

tools to act. Lausanne. hey

NARDONE G., BALBI E. (2012). Sail the sea unbeknownst to the sky. Brussels, Satas

NARDONE G., PORTELLI C. (2012). Knowledge through change. Brussels, Satas

PAPANTUONO M., PORTELLI C., GIBSON P. (2014). Win without Fighting. Paris,

Enrick B. Editions

VIDAL M. and GARCIA-RIVERA T. (2013). Palo Alto at school. Florac, SupAgro Florac

WATZLAWICK, P. (1972). A communication logic. Paris, Edition du Seuil

WATZLAWICK, P. (1988). The invention of reality. Paris, Edition du Seuil

www.psy-therapie-breve.fr/Systeme-ouvert-ferme-et-isole. Types of systems

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Bulimia - The pleasure that poisons

Bulimia

"The pleasure that poisons"

Padraic Gibson, PhD

Padraic Gibson is a psychologist, family therapist and supervisor. He works in Ireland, Italy, France and Malta. He is Senior Research Associate and Lecturer at LACT, Dublin City University and Clinical Director of La Clinique des TOC / The OCD Clinic ®.

 

Bulimia, what is it?

Bulimia is an eating disorder that literally means "hunger like an ox." Bulimia is one of the eating disorders that are characterized by an uncontrollable urge to eat and a feeling of lack of control over the type and amount of food eaten. This term is frequently confused with vomiting syndrome (Gibson, et al 2022; Nardone, 2014) because in contemporary psychiatric literature, mainly the diagnostic manual used in the field the DSM 5; they wrongly, in our opinion, confused bulimia or anorexia nervosa with the vomiting syndrome.

Bulimia, a pleasure that poisons

People with this disorder tend to eat disproportionately to what most would consider appropriate. The lives of bulimics usually pass between one binge and another. Their dieting attempts usually lead to massive meltdowns. With this type of disorder, the patient continuously goes from periods of uninterrupted control to periods of devastating binges, the effects of which can be dramatic. In the case of bulimia, patients perpetually follow a diet and fail to maintain it, each time measuring failure and not success, which aggravates their lack of self-esteem, their guilt, their disgust with self, etc.  

The most common pattern is that of patients who manage to diet for a few months, "successfully" losing many pounds, only to find themselves inexorably plunged into cycles of binge eating and, in their binge, gaining all the weight back. lost and end up gaining more, more than a few pounds. Much like the mythological character Sisyphus, doomed to eternally pushing a stone up a hill, the bulimic heroically tries, over and over again, to push his rock made of pleasure and control to the top of the hill, eventually see rolling to the bottom. Despite the person's many attempts to control and push this "rock" up the hill, they end up surrendering totally and completely to the temptation of food and this is usually how they get to the top of the hill. clinical obesity.  

Bulimia, a pleasure that poisons

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Why should we fear diets?

While the modern world is obsessed with diets, restrictions and control, we have created a perfect storm in which a problem can develop. Without even thinking about the fact that we live in an environment rich in "pleasure foods" or what we might call an obesogenic environment. However, when we diet, we produce 3 dangerous effects that compound our self-failure. Regimes and restrictions give rise to:

The Rebellion Effect - When we diet we begin to take a more rebellious approach to ourselves and life and in our restriction we begin to want to do what "WE" want to do and we rebel so against our own desires and start eating the desired foods,

The transgression effect - when we avoid, abstain and control pleasure, we begin to crave it even more because we have turned what was just a bar or cookie into a guilty desire and therefore more more pleasant, thus ensuring the rapid and immediate collapse of our diet.

The submission effect - this last effect is usually only felt when we have finally tried all of the above and decide we can't do it anymore, so we submit and rather than restrict ourselves, we eat continuously and without any limits, generally creating a situation of obesity. 

Diets increase weight

Looking at the work of the prestigious American Psychological Association, we see the results of a longitudinal study that lasted 18 years and followed tens of thousands of people, monitoring the effects of diet or not. What was discovered should come as no surprise to the reader: over 80% of dieters were overweight, while over 70% of non-dieters were normal weight. The inescapable conclusion is that diets make you fat.  

The power of obsessive control in an effort to lose weight has a paradoxical effect, essentially leading to a total loss of control, that's for sure. When the rigid and stubborn formula of self-control is applied to food, the potential negative effects are devastating.  

Along with bulimia comes a second problem, that of the constant overvaluation of the negative aesthetics of self and the positive aesthetics of others, especially thin people. Their rigid perception loves anything thin and hates anything that isn't, which can lead the patient to seek medical assistance for their "appearance" (cosmetic surgery) rather than their perceptions (psychological). This procedure rarely ends well and, as we know from the many celebrity magazines, it usually fuels an ongoing obsession with surgery and correction, even though satisfaction rates after cosmetic surgery are low.  

Treatment of bulimia with brief systemic therapy

Treatment of bulimia with brief systemic therapy

Padraic Gibson sheds light on the treatment of bulimia with brief systemic therapy. Padraic Gibson is a family therapist and supervisor. He works in Ireland, Italy and Malta. He is a Senior Research Associate and Lecturer at Dublin City University and Clinical Director of The OCD Clinic®.

Part of the treatment is really surprising for the patients in that we ask them to "eat, and only eat, what they prefer, but only in the three main meals of the day and to eat without any limitation of quantity or quality ". The effect of this intervention is that, almost immediately, it puts an end to binge eating. Indeed, after a few weeks, they begin to decline all prohibited foods, and these even begin to be less desired. At the same time, we help the person to create daily activities (which is also important in these cases) by choosing an activity based on what they like to do the most and not on what seems best for losing weight. We thus arrive at a true style of life, which is not difficult to achieve by the very fact that it is based on the expression of pleasure and not on its repression. This treatment requires only a few months and gives excellent results. As Oscar Wilde said, “ The only way to deal with temptation is to give in to it” .

How the systemic and strategic approach cures bulimia

The systemic and strategic approach is particularly effective in cases of bulimia. Bulimia is one of the psychopathologies addressed in the third year courses of the LACT curriculum .

LACT trainings to treat bulimia with the systemic approach

Content covered in the training on the treatment of eating disorders:

  • Anorexia in adults and young people
  • Binge eating and Vomiting
  • Bulimia and obesity
  • Real or suspected psychotic disorders
  • Male and female sexual dysfunction

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Brief and effective treatment for anxiety disorders and phobias

Brief and effective treatment for anxiety disorders and phobias

Brief and systemic therapy, an excellent treatment for anxiety disorders and phobias thanks to scientific research

The effectiveness of Brief Systemic Therapy

The systemic and strategic approach is particularly effective in the treatment of anxiety disorders and phobias. Thanks to a scientific approach to the functioning of these disorders, systemic interventions record powerful results in terms of treatment in an average of 5 appointments over a period of 5 months.

Overcome anxiety disorders and phobias

We help our patients overcome their anxiety disorders and phobias. Our goal is to provide you with the understanding and keys necessary to solve these troubles. It is possible to permanently overcome anxiety disorders and phobias. With our effective professional treatment and the support of family and friends when needed, it is possible to eradicate all traces of anxiety disorders from a person's life.

Strategic Brief Therapy®

Using over 25 years of clinical research and with thousands of patients successfully treated using our intervention model known as Brief Strategic Therapy®, we have proven (Gibson 2014, 2016, 2019a, 2019b, 2019c, Nardone 2013, Portelli, 2007) that while human problems can be persistent, complicated, and painful, we don't always need some long, drawn-out form of intervention to fix the problem and alleviate the suffering.

Our model has proven to be the most effective and efficient form of treatment for anxiety disorders and phobias (Ray & Nardone 2007).

Whether you suffer from anxiety disorders or phobias, whether you are a family member, friend or healthcare professional, this site aims to provide you with information on the signs, symptoms and effective treatment of anxiety disorder and phobias.

Bulimia, a pleasure that poisons

dysmorphophobia

The image we have of ourselves is linked to how we feel and how we look. This image relates to everyone at one time or another, given the nature of human evolution and our social processes, and we all have a perspective on how we are perceived as social objects. ..

cardiophobia

Cardiophobia represents a particular form of fear and in particular the fear of dying (pathophobia). By pathophobia is meant the fear of the onset of a fatal disease. It differs from hypochondria, which I discussed in a previous article, where I have hypochondriac patients who panic at the slightest sign of fluctuation...

hypochondria

Symptoms of hypochondriasis or health-related anxiety disorder involve a concern about being potentially or seriously ill. This assessment is also usually made by the patient based on normal bodily sensations (such as a rumbling stomach), or mild signs (such as a minor skin rash)...

Panic disorders
and agoraphobia

The World Health Organization defines panic disorder as a significant condition that affects up to 20% of the world's population and women are twice as likely to be affected as men. While the experience of panic can seem mysterious and sometimes inexplicable when it occurs, our research...

Social phobias
and paranoia

Social phobias or social anxiety disorder affect 15 million adults, or 6.8% of the population. This disorder is equally common in males and females, and according to most research, it usually begins around age 13. According to a 2007 survey, 36% of people with...


Parental overprotection

Modern life is marked by an increasing degree of narcissism and paranoia fueled by social media, which has poisoned our mental health. It's probably also partly because so many young people fear that admitting their vulnerability will affect their jobs or their relationships, at a time when their future is already much less certain...

Book an in-office consultation in Paris Montorgueuil or remotely by videoconference

We receive our patients from Monday to Friday.
To make an appointment you can call us on +33 (0) 1 48 07 40 40 
or +33 (0) 6 03 24 81 65 or even make it directly online
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