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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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...

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 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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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).

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 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...

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. 

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.  

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 .

The treatment of eating disorders by the systemic approach is taught in the third year of the LACT course of the Clinician of the Relationship and in the clinical master of Giorgio Nardone .

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