How to Coach Yourself and Others Coaching Families | Page 77

As a first step in joining and tracking the rules of the family, the counselor shows respect for and allies with
the adolescent. The counselor contacts the drug-abusing adolescent by phone or in person (perhaps on his or
her own turf, such as after school at the park). The counselor listens to the powerful adolescent's complaints
about his or her parents and then offers to help the youth change the situation at home so that the parents
will stop harassing him or her. This does not threaten the adolescent's power within the family and, thus, is
likely to be accepted. The counselor offers respect and concern for the youth and brings an agenda of
change that the adolescent will share by virtue of the alliance.
To bring these families who resist entering treatment into treatment, the counselor does not directly
challenge the youth's power in the family. Instead, the counselor accepts and tracks the adolescent's power.
The counselor allies himself or herself with the adolescent so that he or she may later be in a position to
influence the adolescent to change his or her behavior. Initially, in forming an alliance with the powerful
adolescent, the counselor reframes the need for counseling in a manner that strengthens the powerful
adolescent in a positive way. This is an example of tracking--using the power of the adolescent to bring him
or her into therapy. The kind of reframing that is most useful with powerful adolescents is one that transfers
the symptom from the powerful adolescent/identified patient to the family. For example, the counselor may
say, "I want you to come into counseling to help me change some of the things that are going on in your
family." Later, once the adolescent is in counseling, the counselor will challenge the adolescent's position of
power.
It should be noted that in cases in which powerful adolescents have less powerful parents, forming the initial
alliance with the parents is likely to be ineffective because the parents are not strong enough to bring their
adolescent into counseling. Their failed attempts to bring the adolescent into counseling would render the
parents even weaker, and the family would fail to enter counseling. Furthermore, the youth is likely to
perceive the counselor as being the parents' ally, which would immediately make the adolescent distrust the
weak counselor.
Contact Person Protecting Structure
The second most common type of resistance to entering treatment is characterized by a parent who protects
the family's maladaptive patterns of interaction. In these families, the person (usually the mother) who
contacts the counselor to request help is also the person who is-- without realizing it--maintaining the
resistance in the family. The way in which the identified patient is maintained in the family is also the way
in which counseling is resisted. The mother, for example, might give conflicting messages to the counselor,
such as, "I want to take my family to counseling, but my son couldn't come to the session because he forgot
and fell asleep, and my husband has so much work he doesn't have the time."
The mother is expressing a desire for the counselor's help while protecting and allying herself with the
family's resistance to being involved in solving the problem. The mother protects this resistance by agreeing
that the excuses for noninvolvement are valid. In other words, she is supporting the arguments the other
family members are using to maintain the status quo. It is worthwhile to note that ordinarily this