How to Coach Yourself and Others Coaching Families | Page 221
To encourage the family to gain a sense of mastery or control over their situation, their thoughts, feelings
and behaviours. This should enable the family members to take responsibility for their own roles and
actions, and for the process of change. In addition should enable family members to gain an awareness of
the actions and motivations of other people in their family in achieving change.
Example:
A mother and her two children aged 5 and 7 years are attending a late middle session of therapy. The
parents separated 3 years ago, and the mother has been finding managing the children’s behaviour difficult
since this time. The therapist and family have been working together through the therapy to identify the
things that the mother is doing well in relation to managing the children’s behaviour and managing her own
low feelings. The therapist is commenting on this process and highlighting the mother’s own stories of
competence which are often lost.
Mo: Well I feel like things have been going quite well with the kids, they have been behaving really well
most times, but I don’t know sometimes I still feel low, I wonder whether I am doing ok. What do you
think?
Th: We would predict many of the things you have been telling me about today, about things being up and
down at this stage. I hesitate to advise a family who have come up with such good ideas and solutions on
their own. Especially when most of them seem to be having the desired effect. What have you been thinking
of trying most recently?
Mo: Well I’m not sure sometimes I feel it’s right to take a sympathetic approach to the kids, then other
times I come down on them hard, you know, if they are playing up.
Th: If Josie (mother’s friend) were looking in on how you were managing them now, would she say you are
combining these two approaches, or are you sticking with one or the other?
Mo: Well she’d see a mix of the both I think, I mean I try and judge each situation as it comes.
Th: So do you feel you are becoming more confident in trusting your judgement about what is right for the
kids and when?
Mo: Well a bit yes, I mean they don’t pull the wool over my eyes, I know when they are just playing up or
when they are really upset.
Th: So when did you decide to be a bit more flexible about how you dealt with the situations at home?
Introduce therapist/team ideas:
May include the therapist sharing their ideas and hypothesis about the family, individual, or difficulties, for
a variety of reasons.
Including:
Normalise difficulties
Move the family to new ideas
Connect family’s ideas
Suggest ways to organise the discussion, e.g. Enactments.
Example:
A mother, her social worker and the therapist are having a session. The mother begins to discuss her
experiences of violence from her ex-partner when she was first married, in her early twenties. As the mother
is taking a rather critical stance towards her own actions at that time, the therapist normalises her reactions
to the violence, to try to begin to open up less critical stories and reframe the mother’s actions at the time as
understandable rather then ‘weak’.
Mo: I suppose I should have been stronger, and not let him trample all over me. My mum used to say just
get out, leave him, and I did for a while, I did try, but then I weakened and let him back even though I
thought why I am I doing this? What about the kids? I really should have tried to be stronger.
221