5 Practical Applications

I firmly believe in the well-known quotation (from the Bible I think – or, as the mechanic said to the parish priest who was sprinkling holy water on his broken-down engine) ‘faith without good works is of no avail’.

Section Five describes the Applications of the Concepts and Propositions that are described in Section Four and the Theories in Section Three.   

In addition to the Applications, the Section also describes practical steps that we need to take if we wish to design in methods of working that will reach the people with whom we wish to have the most significant impact.

The Section is divided into six Chapters:

5.1: CULTURAL MATCHING

5.2: CREATIVITY

5.3: LEADERSHIP

5.4: TRAINING

5.5: RESEARCH AND EVALUATION

5.6: ORGANISATIONAL MATTERS

Remember that I said in a previous post in the Chapter on Symmetry And Resonance that it was all very interesting but what had it to do with child protection or community work in general?

Well this Chapter provides the answer!

Because this Chapter, the first in Section Five, describes, in respect of the Focus Group, the practical application of symmetry, that is, cultural matching.

It is widely accepted nowadays that to build relationships effectively with any group of people an important factor to consider is the cultural divide.  The narrowing of this will reduce the gap between what we think should work and what actually works.

It is probably the most important design factor in any organisation that aspires to work in this field of family support.

Cultural Matching is of great help in ensuring that very vulnerable people have a sense of belonging in an organisation.

And a sense of belonging is vital if people are to be attracted to the organisation – over the long term – and trusting relationships are to be built.

Cultural Matching is a kind of ‘symmetry in action’!

The Chapter is divided into Six Sub-Chapters.

5.1.1                CULTURAL MATCHING – INTRODUCTION

5.1.2                THE CHALLENGE

5.1.3                THE ‘MATCHING RESPONSE’

5.1.4                CULTURAL MATCHING IN ACTION

5.1.5                THE PRISON CULTURE

5.1.6                CULTURAL MATCHING – CONCLUSION

Over the past decades, particularly in countries that are multi-cultural – as are most countries nowadays – there has been increasing appreciation of a cultural divide that exists in society in general but particularly in the helping professions.

Bridging this cultural divide has led to the recruitment of, for example, black workers to work with black youth, gay and lesbian workers to work in agencies that assist gays and lesbians etc.

In Ireland there are organisations that are focused on issues that arise for the Travelling Community and there are some Travellers employed in them.  (It would be of great benefit if there were more [1]).

All the above are examples of cultural matching – and in general it seems to work well. Affording culture the importance it deserves has some element of high-impact low-noticeability; in the sense that while the recipients of the service generally don’t think that much about it, it has a powerful effect.

The culture of individuals and families in the Focus Group is, however, quite different to that of black people, gays/lesbians, Travellers, or other easy-to-distinguish minorities who might need support to ensure that their rights are respected.

It is formed not by colour of skin, or sexual orientation, or ethnicity, but by trauma, exclusion, loss, fear, anxiety and the emotional roller-coaster that is part and parcel of family involvement in crime, drug addiction and imprisonment.

And even within the trauma, it is usually private trauma, not public trauma that distinguishes.

(Of course, camaraderie, creativity, tenacity, togetherness, friendship and caring also contribute to the overall culture.   But sadly the more negative ones are present enough to be influential – in that they contribute to many behaviours that are problematic).

Now in families in the Focus Group, there are many individuals that wish to help others, for example are the strong and wise people that I referred to in this post earlier on, and who will have often been helping informally anyway in their extended families for many years.

It is obvious that people who have been directly affected by imprisonment will have learned skills throughout the years that practitioners like me who have not been so affected (or, at least, not as deeply) will not have learned.

If our organisation wishes to take cultural matching seriously, we need to be proactive in smoothing the path for people directly affected to take up positions of responsibility, leadership etc., should they so desire, to support other families going through the same experiences. (This can be challenging – I explore the process further in the Chapter on Training and also in a post that I entitle two-way challenge towards the end of the website – in the Epilogue).

Cultural matching is a huge saver of energy and time but far more importantly is empowering and inspirational.  Work is undertaken with families in partnership and this gives the relationship a symmetrical dimension.  Because we tend towards symmetry (i.e. we find symmetry attractive) we are drawn to relationship, with the locus of decision making in respect of our choices almost always within ourselves.

If we are suffering, this invitation is helpful:

Firstly in becoming aware of and then trusting the process of growth (the root foundations) within ourselves; and secondly taking responsibility for our circumstances as the relationship develops.

[1]. As I was writing this I thought of how few members of our Travelling Community are working in a professional capacity within their own communities.  This is a terrible indictment of our efforts to be inclusive of the Travelling Community in our education system since the foundation of our State – and continuing to today in respect of the Mission Statement of the Department of Education.   

Central to cultural matching, for formally trained practitioners, is our invitation. (I will be covering what I will refer to as invitational leadership in the Chapter on Leadership, later in this Section).

If we aspire to do something different, but very hurt people are not included in what we are doing, then we run the risk of being seen as functionaries – maybe very nice, maybe even very professional, but functionaries nonetheless.

In my experience, after the initial invitation, when we become established and comfortable in a very hurt person’s world, we may forget the invitational nature of the relationship.  When we forget that, (almost always unintentionally – it must be said) we start imposing our own ideas and norms and values and then we expect that the response to our invitation will stay the same.

But it doesn’t – and very often the people who matter most drift away.

This was brought home to me one night on the street when a young man, at the end of a long complaint, said to me angrily; ‘Only for me you wouldn’t have a job’.  (I was obviously trying to draw some boundary or another).

While the logical, defensive part of my brain immediately kicked in and decided that the statement was not factually true – because there are loads of jobs that I could do – after some reflection I realised that the whole truth was – yes – only for him I wouldn’t have a job that I really enjoyed.

So I knew what he was getting at.

Further reflection alerted me to the realisation that I had initially invited him by being friendly and (I suppose) unconditional – which was easy – because the context of the invitation was the street.

However, when we began to go on activities which meant us (the workers) imposing conditions, I realised that there was more work to be done on the negotiation of those conditions.

Here are brief accounts of experiences that I had that might give a hint as to what this Chapter on Cultural Matching is about:

First Experience

I was sitting in our agency one day and a woman who has been very hurt by life and is very well known to us dropped in.  She said that she’d been outside another agency and had wanted a cup of tea (code for a chat) and, as she put it, ‘I didn’t have the problem that they had a solution for – so I knew that I wouldn’t have been able to stay long’.

I’m not at all judging any other organisation here; I know full well how we can all be run off our feet, and also her perception was probably influenced by previous experiences of boundaries and whatever she was feeling at that time.

However I did feel very proud that she chose to have the chat and take the time that she felt that she needed with us.  Home is where we go if we feel at home, and obviously she felt at home with us.  It can be difficult for someone in distress if (as she stated above) she perceives that the solution that’s offered by the agency outside whose door she is standing doesn’t match the problem that she has.

Indeed, perhaps the presenting problem (if it’s identifiable at all) is a kind of lonesomeness or simply a world-weariness caused by isolation and a host of other factors related to imprisonment.

It is of great assistance to cultural matching (but sometimes quite challenging) to offer time – and only time – to someone. It enables expression of the uncensored, freely expressed opinions of people which is so crucial to our learning as practitioners.

Second Experience

I was at an event many years ago and I was describing the essence of what this Chapter is about. Afterwards a worker from a partner agency asked me ‘how do you involve families but stop them taking over?’ 

I acknowledge this as a respectful question from a fellow practitioner who was struggling with this issue as sometimes families affected by imprisonment (and in our Focus Group) have never felt a sense of power or inclusion – and the partner agency wished to do that but was aware of the difficulties that might ensue.

It is true that people require certain skills to be involved, or indeed be in charge, and foster development and growth in others.  People who are struggling with addiction and imprisonment may need support in acquiring such skills – but that doesn’t mean that they can’t be involved in a real and tangible way.

When I reflected on the question that my fellow practitioner asked me, that part of me that sees the world (kind of) differently to most people clicked in and I thought to myself ‘how do families involve professionals —– but stop them taking over?’ 

An equally valid question – I felt anyway!  And my colleague’s question was brilliant on another front too – it got me thinking about what taking over means.

Decisions made while suffering might not always be the ones that will bring long-term benefit.

For example it’s well known that we should not make significant, life-changing decisions immediately after a bereavement or similar trauma.  If we are very hurt and our suffering is ongoing (as we may be if we are affected by imprisonment) we may find it very tempting to choose a solution that might offer instant relief rather than think through the problem and choose a solution that might offer a better outcome in the longer term.

All too often the instant relief offers short lived happiness, (or a high) that is followed by unhappiness, (or a low).

This, of course, can be seen in addiction.

What we label as addiction is simply a series of decisions that we make that brings quick relief but are harmful and distressing, primarily to ourselves, but also to those around us, over time.  (Thinking about it, the most extreme example of short term quick relief which can be harmful and distressing in the long term is suicide).

So it might be important that families affected by imprisonment, in the midst of suffering, and sometimes deeply traumatised, are respectfully offered assistance with decision-making in respect of their own or their families’ destiny.

In such situations, it is equally as important that we practitioners don’t dominate the decision making process – because our options for an individual or family might not always be the best either!

This is because we (the educated professionals) may lack the lived experience that is needed to empathise with the suffering that is ongoing in families’ lives. 

We can, of course, choose to be polite and inoffensive, and consult to garner knowledge.  But if these things really matter to us we will want to be involved to the fullest, and work to include the families in our Focus Group in a meaningful way. 

They are, after all, the ones that are generally forgotten and whose opinions count for little.  (The post on the hierarchy of helping, and examples A and B that I gave at the end of the Chapter on the Pillars are relevant here).

So one way to culturally match our response is to meet people where they are at and not try to exclude the bits that we find awkward or might work against us or even, from our perception, might appear to undermine, or slow down what we are trying to do.

That is what I meant by challenging.

Previously I have briefly described the difference between the left brain and the right brain.  The people who are left brain are very highly esteemed in our society. 

The left brain, technological, male way of thinking and the primacy of the figure out the problem and then build something to solve it method is very ingrained in our thinking. 

And this is only natural.  As we say, sure you can’t eat poetry!

Now what I am interested in here is the fact that while society’s technological problems (feeding us, transporting us, heating us, ensuring where we live is safe etc.) have always been solved predominantly by left brain thinking, all our wonderful technological advances are undermined by our disesteem of right brain thinking.

That is, ignoring intuition, love, compassion, feelings etc. in our design.

The most obvious example of ignoring the above in our advances in technology, is, of course, using our brains to develop weapons to go to war. But as I have argued in a post in the Chapter in Power and Control in Society, safety and well-being of our species is almost almost always sacrificed on the hard-nosed logical reality of more and more profit for the few, not only in the development of weapons, but even in products that we use every day, like plastics and cars.

Previously I mentioned how the world ascribes lesser status to what I called women’s work and I’d like to expand on that theme here in the context of how well-meaning organisations respond to spontaneity, emotion and expressiveness in general.

Most people will agree that women find it frustrating to argue with men and vice versa. This is particularly true in long term partnerships – and can cause tension.

However, in most good enough relationships (and the families that might result from same) the tension reaches a kind of equilibrium, acceptance or accommodation, so both male and female ways of looking at the world have more or less equal status. I suspect – but I am not sure – that in long-term same-sex partnerships similar left-brain – right-brain dynamics are at play.

(Just as an aside, anyone who has read the novel Hard Times, by Charles Dickens will have come across a character named Thomas Gradgrind who rules his family with total left-brain logic. Dickens perceptively describes the harm that domination of logic-only decision-making does to Thomas’ relationships with his children and, ultimately, how they turn out to be the exact opposite to what he desires).

However, unlike families, where, as I said above, there is a balance, in almost all workplaces the left brain dominates.

In respect of family support/child protection workplaces, (as I explained already) this is probably because the norms of the corporate world have filtered into community work to the extent that they have.  The male way (or left brain) is manifest in HR protocols, health and safety procedures, financial controls, what is acceptable and what is not, company handbooks etc., all of which are formulated around what is logical and rational, not what is intuitive and irrational.

There are some emotional nuances to policies around bullying, dignity at work, respect etc. but even in these areas strategies towards resolution are largely left-brain linear dominated.

This can be seen in the documents directing charities on their behaviour and practice. Here is the sample compliance document issued by the Charities Regulatory Authority. There are pages and pages given over to governance protocols around finance, recruitment, HR, data protection, fundraising, health and safety, employment, insurance, record keeping etc. While there are two or three lines mandating charities to revisit their vision and mission statements, there is nothing about kindness, thoughtfulness, compassion, generosity, gentleness or similar traits.

Now I know that it is a lot easier to regulate matters such as finance or health and safety, but the fact that compassion or kindness is not even mentioned in compliance documents issued by the CRA is revealing.

As with other examples that I give, I’m not passing judgement on all the above. It’s just interesting to ponder on the influence that the bias towards the left-brain has on our work!

Also of interest is that even in organisations where there are a substantial majority of women, women learn to live with the dominant left brain thinking in their workplaces.

Thinking about this, I concluded that if I had to live my life, and do my work, in an environment where decision making was based predominantly on intuition and emotion with logic and rationality totally discounted I would find it very difficult.  In fact, I’d be thinking that I’d get nothing done.

And in order to live our lives, things have to get done.

(Actually – another aside – this reminds me of the pure left-wing taking on right-wing values to get into power and govern which I have mentioned previously).

I also described the different way that the Irish language and the English language describes feelings.  Perhaps there is a difference between the two languages stemming from the cultural difference between the Irish and English, and the Irish language had more feminine influence in its development than the English.

Referring to my earlier description of tá fearg orm (there is anger upon me) I will argue that a woman’s anger can be upon her while a man always tries to own, and rationalise his anger.

In fact he will feel a little silly afterwards if he is angry and doesn’t have any explanation, whereas a woman often won’t.  This has implications for the workplace which as I stated above has been male dominated over many centuries.

In the next post I will discuss how the dominance of left-brain thinking in workplaces impacts on our Focus Group.

Most courses, programmes etc. to assist people in distress, and to which, very often, angry or hurt people are referred, are rooted in the male, left brain, logical way of looking at problem solving. Generally, they don’t honour the female way of looking at the world, i.e. where rationality is often influenced by emotion, and which has a very important purpose in family life. Most of them are based on the CBT modality that we described earlier in the blog.

Often what’s on offer in such courses struggles to touch people emotionally, and that includes the staff delivering the programme. Many of them use manuals, flip-charts, videos etc., and involve homework. While being well-intentioned, these learning tools, which lean towards purely cognitive methods of problem solving and skill-learning, can often act as barriers, or inhibitors to emotional expression.

I joked about building a relationship with an engine here and again here, and hoping that it would fix itself. I will revisit this general theme briefly now.

A male way of looking at a problem might be ‘here’s a problem – let’s find a solution now, quickly, so the problem will not be stressing us out then and we’ll have an easier life’ – like a mechanic looking at an engine.

A female way might be ‘here’s a problem – let’s get emotional about it and that will not only assist us in working it out – it might assist us in getting to know each other too’. 

This might not work that well with engines, but who is to say that the male, mechanistic way works well with humans?  In the workplace, (which consists of a group of humans), almost always, logical rationality (the typical male way) trumps what I will call intuitive irrationality (the equally valid typical female way).

Reflecting on such questions in respect of society, if intuitive irrationality (right brain) had equal status with logic rationality (left brain), things might be done in a slower, and perhaps slightly more disorderly way – but, like in the good enough family, they’d still get done! Decisions might be made as much on the basis of intuition – the feelings we get about something – as logic. [1].

The world as we know it is very left brain – rational, and in almost all workplaces excitement, inspiration, creativity, spontaneity, impulsiveness are generally dampened down and discouraged.

Could a society be built where intuition has equal status to rationality?

Would female values be conducive to building a good enough society; and what would it look like? I wonder if the female value of intuition was of higher esteem in the world would there be wars?

I feel a bit of a fraud as a man arguing this – but my hunch is that the world would certainly look different to what it is now.

As someone [2] said once ‘we need unreasonable people to change the world’.

[1]. I remember well the anti-nuclear protests in Ireland in the late 1970’s. At the time I would have been in favour of use of nuclear power for electricity generation – as a technologist I did not see any problem with it. Logically, it could be proven to be safe. I tended to dismiss those who thought that it was dangerous just because it felt unsafe. Over the next few years there were major incidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, the latter exploding, causing great death and destruction. These accidents, were, of course, put down to human error. They certainly influenced my opinions on how experts who have vested interests discount (and undermine) the fears of ordinary people.

[2]. I looked this up and there were so many references that I have no idea who came up it.  If anyone knows please let me know……

I discussed the benefits of listening already, I also mentioned the challenges posed by the culture of the Pillars in community work. This post expands on those topics.

In matching our response to spontaneous, impulsive, irrational expressions of anger practitioners can do both themselves and people in distress a great favour by listening, simply honouring the anger for what it is.

Now most of us find it easier to listen to coherent anger than incoherent anger [1]. I propose some reasons why this might be so:

~ We are conditioned over many years and probably decades to give left-brain coherence far higher esteem than right-brain incoherence.

~ In our childhood, if we associated expression of anger with violence, our emotions (usually fear but also anger) might be triggered by the incoherence that we are faced with.

~ We may not want to hear the bit of truth that might be hidden in incoherent anger directed at us.

Incoherent anger is a very visceral, intimate thing and if our education, family life experiences etc. tended toward insecure avoidant attachment we may fear the intimacy of the encounter.

Suppose it all gets out of control – will someone get hurt?

We may associate coherence with winning – and, generally, incoherence with losing.

So, the left-brain response to the right-brain, spontaneous burst of incoherent anger often involves, during the event:

~ Arguing using logic and/or trying to calm the other with reason (fight).

~ Leaving the scene (flight).

~ Ignoring until the moment passes (freeze).

After the event, in a more enlightened workplace, it would not be uncommon to present the angry person with a rationale, a kind of summing-up, a neat explanation or the last word, as to why the person is the way he is, or might have done what he did. This may be accompanied by encouragement to apologise, and, often, a suggestion that he enter a process to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.

And, I stress, there’s nothing wrong with that.

But it is usually a logical, asymmetric response, sometimes perceived to be punitive, or at least depowering, and rarely does it match the spontaneous burst of anger.

Now when I say matching our response I do not mean that if someone shouts at us we shout back, or if someone cries we burst into tears too!

What I mean is, if the hurt person is emotional, we are appropriately emotional – and listening respectfully and empathically has an emotionality that is totally different to the non-emotional, logical or defensive response. The angry person also perceives our emotional presence to have stability, solidity and sincerity, and – most importantly – we are modelling that being emotional does not necessarily mean being out of control.

Listening with no agenda is also a refreshing response to a person who is used to telling their story and being fobbed off (or fogged off, as is sometimes said in Limerick) by explanations.

Referring it on to some specialist, getting a form and assessing the person, or, just as bad, rationalising it, (i.e. explaining it away quickly with terms that discourage or dampen spontaneity) sends out a strong signal that we don’t really want to listen.

The good news is that in my experience, almost always, people who express a lot of anger and hurt, if listened to, and allowed sit with it, will, in time, balance what appears to the listener to be irrationality with their own cognitive awareness.

The fact that this awareness emerges naturally, i.e. comes from within, makes it far more powerful than awareness that comes from the neat explanation or rationalisation offered by the practitioner, however benign and well-meaning.

I remember reading once that insight is like a spotlight that illuminates, whereas awareness is like a warm glow that reaches into our psyche – a lot deeper than insight [2].  Understanding a problem (i.e. having insight) has the potential, but only the potential, to be of use in solving it.

I believe that the neat explanation is like the spotlight whereas awareness that emerges from within enables a more complete creation, a warm glow of personal satisfaction and fulfillment.

I deliberately said above that by listening we’d be doing ourselves a great favour too. 

The reason for this is twofold.  Firstly we will probably learn a lot.  Secondly by listening, we are matching our response, thereby increasing the level of safety of the person in distress – and our own safety too.

One of the difficulties with assessment is that, being a very explicit process, it implies a significant power difference.  In not formally assessing, we may put out the message; I’m not going to do it for you, but we can try and do it together.

And anyway, it is my belief that the hurt and angry person is continually assessing the agency and/or worker – this is as it should be – the customer is usually right!

[1]. Though maybe I’m wrong. Coherent anger can also be very challenging to listen to. In fact, it might be easier, from our high horse of judgement, to go through the motions of listening to incoherent anger, then dismiss it altogether, and maintain that the person is not entitled to express it that way!

[2]. I think that this description was in a book entitled In and Out of the Garbage Pail by Fritz Perls, one of the founders of Gestalt Therapy, but I’m not sure.

This post is a follow on from the last post, where I promoted the importance of listening in raising awareness among both practitioners and people in the Focus Group who may be very hurt and angry.

The benefits of (indeed, the importance of) coming to my own awareness, if I am very hurt and angry, is that 1): it involves parallel left-brain/right-brain growth and 2): I will learn that emotions are as important as logic in decision making. That is, I am not punished for having strong feelings about things even if they are deemed by others to be irrational.

A quick, external rationalisation, on the other hand, can lead to the belief that logic is superior – and in addition to feeling powerless, a great opportunity for learning is lost!

It must be remembered that if I am very hurt I may be reluctant to be explicit about what I want or need because this involves being vulnerable in the relationship, and this actually takes great confidence. So generally, a lot of testing goes on before I am confident in the genuineness of the intentions of the practitioner.

It might be helpful here to discuss perfection.

If I am very hurt I may look for perfection in relationships. This may be because, unconsciously, I know it cannot ever be attained, so the constant striving fulfils a self-fulfilling prophecy – that is, my life has to be a constant struggle!

What about us practitioners?

Perhaps the fact that we can’t deal with imperfection – or we prize perfection over being good enough – is one of the reasons why we can succeed in highly complicated technological projects but we struggle to solve serious societal problems! (I referred to this in a previous Chapter).

If we put a man in space (or do a triple by-pass) everything has to be perfect. Due to the primacy of reductionist thinking in the world in general, striving for perfection filters down to community work.

Striving towards perfection, of course, increases the amount of work that we do, and the extent of worry that we have, so with it comes stress – mostly bad stress. But, and it’s a big but, while by doing loads of work we can build a perfect machine no matter how much work we do we will never make a perfect human.

I wonder if we community workers, influenced by Pillars thinking and years of reductionist type education – in our striving for perfection – get all stressed out, miss out on the naturalness of encounters that are normal in family life, and subsequently miss out on major opportunities for growth?

Sometimes when a practitioner tries to build a relationship she is rejected because the process is viewed with suspicion if it is not one hundred percent perfect on the very hurt person’s terms. 

If we are very hurt, (and constantly live in the old hurts) we’ll always find it difficult to plot a course for future happiness because that would mean, once again, taking responsibility for what might happen in the (uncertain) future due to our choices!

And if we don’t trust that we can determine our own future then we will always live in the past hurts – because it’s a safer option.

This is partly because of the effects of the disorganised attachment described in the Chapter on Trauma and Related Topics but it is also driven by our desperation. We want someone else to take our pain away because our hurt is so deep we might not be aware that we can do it for ourselves. 

People who experience secure healthy attachment in childhood usually are (after some processing and/or reflection) able to rationalise their feelings of hurt and place them in a wider context.

This is self-nurture – and a very hurt person usually needs some time to develop the skills to do this.