This Sub-Chapter describes what I believe to be the most important elements in formal training and/or courses designed by and delivered in an organisation committed to supporting families in our Focus Group.
Emotional learning generally takes a long time – think of how long it takes to grow from a child to an adult!
And like the process of human growth, it is optimised by a multitude of experiences at regular intervals rather than separate or discrete modules delivered in short bursts – as might happen on training courses covering technological or business type fields.
It also takes some time to process the experiences.
It is worth digressing briefly to explain what I mean here, because in cognitive learning – that is, learning done mostly by thinking things out rather than feeling them – there is also processing. For example we may be learning mathematics and spend ages trying to solve a mathematical problem. The processing happens when we distract ourselves with something else for a while (perhaps study another subject) and then when we go back to the mathematical problem the solution might come to us. The same thing often happens doing a crossword puzzle, Our unconscious does the processing.
This processing is qualitatively different to the processing of emotional problems.
That is, once we get a cognitive (mathematical) solution, we get it, and can move on to a slightly more difficult cognitive problem, using what we have learned in solving the first one to solve the second. This is called stepped, or linear learning. Emotional processing, particularly in people who are deeply hurt, is rarely as stepped or as linear as cognitive processing [1].
The principal reasons why it is different are to do with how emotional distress is held in the body. (I hope that as the Sub-Chapter is read the differences will become clearer).
Emotional learning done on our courses needs to mirror the type of support work that will be effective in healing deeply hurt people – even if the participants on the training are not as (obviously or evidently) deeply hurt as the people who will ultimately be the beneficiaries of the training.
Because of the time taken to process, the elements described in the following posts will need to be delivered in parallel with each other rather than in sequence. For example, a course should, perhaps, deliver a Skill, then an Emotional element, then do a little on Ethos and then include another Skill, then do a Practical element etc.
[1]. This is one explanation as to why very hurt people such as those who end up in prison appear to take a long time to learn from their mistakes.