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Volume 2; Issue 6
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June 2007
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Welcome to Summer!
Summertime means vacation time
for most students and many
parents and families. Because of
the inherently stressful nature
of abuser education work, it is
always important to find ways to
relax and take advantage of good
weather and time away from work.
This month's main article
focuses on the topic of burnout,
both in group as well as for
group leaders in our personal
lives.
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Stress & Burnout In Abuser
Education
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Personal and Group Strategies
by Christopher Hall, Emerge Group
Leader
Abuser education counselors face a
number of challenges. These include
dealing with resistant clients,
contact with partners/victims (in
some locations), striking a balance
between educating and confronting,
and many others.
Being an abuser education counselor
is rarely boring. There is
significant variation in the types
of topics group leaders get to
discuss and present, and clients are
always presenting new spins on
excuses and rationalizations for
their hurtful behavior.
As interesting as the work can be,
it is also stressful. Some group
leaders experience 'secondary
trauma' from hearing about horrible
examples of abusive behavior.
Ironically, group counselors
sometimes neglect their own
self-care, even while prodding their
clients to take better care of
themselves. Yet it is critical for
group leaders to learn how to manage
stress and take the time to debrief
from interactions with abusers in
ways that are healthy and productive
to our continued work. Before we can
do this, we must first recognize
some of the pathways to stress and
burnout. These include the
following:
PERSONAL INVESTMENT IN MAKING
CLIENTS CHANGE: Some group
leaders overextend themselves by
thinking they have the power to
change an abuser. When giving
feedback to abusers, we often tell
abusers they can only change their
own behavior, and attempts to change
their partners are likely to be
controlling and abusive. Yet, they
may expect us to control or to fix
them. We all make mistakes, and it
helps to have a good
supervisor to point out when I slip
into "fix" mode with a client.
In contrast to believing you can
change abusers, accept that you can
do the best possible job by giving
feedback and providing alternatives
to group members.
COUNTER-TRANSFERENCE:
Oversimplified, counter-transference
is when a personal reaction to an
abuser education client interferes
with the effective provision of
services. There are always going to
be abusers you like, and some you
don't. In supervision, you and your
co-leader can decide who approaches
a client that you find challenging,
or are overly sympathetic towards.
As a matter of routine, I suggest
that counselors should assess
whether and to what degree
particular clients evoke unusually
positive or negative feelings. Then
in supervision, you and your
co-leader can strategize about how
to appropriately conduct group
sessions despite these feelings.
DEHUMANIZATION: When group
leaders enter into verbal struggles
where they begin to demonize or
shame abusers, it often leads to
mutual antagonism. Some clients shut
down while others get defensive or
hostile. Both clients and group
leaders may oscillate between apathy
and hostility and the opportunity
for constructive work is lost.
Unnecessary and unproductive
conflict is stressful for group
leaders and can possibly lead to
disinterest in conducting services
for abusers.
ADMINISTRATIVE STRESSORS:
Necessary paperwork and contacts
with referral sources can be
overwhelming. Abuser education
counselors are usually underpaid and
overworked. There are no simple
answers to these problems, and while
we can all improve our time
management skills, these problems
have a structural and institutional
component at the agency and systems
level. Individual group leaders, if
it is safe and they are comfortable
doing so, can make efforts to
discuss such issues with program
management. Those who supervise
abuser education programs need to
keep in mind that conducting
services for abusers is very
stressful, and administrative
concerns can increase their
counselor's stress exponentially.
Being open to feedback as a
supervisor can help to create an
environment that allows
opportunities for counselors to ask
for help in managing exceptionally
heavy administrative overload.
One of the
first things I heard when being
trained to work in this field was to
make sure that each counselor has
interests outside of the domestic
violence field.
Initially,
it was easy to overdo
things by reading and talking and
thinking about DV and related issues
both at work and during my personal
time. Our culture is saturated with
DV related material. All DV all the
time just doesn't work, and becomes
stressful in and of itself.
It's summertime! Let's focus on
having fun and taking the time to
relax!
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Upcoming Emerge Trainings |
Emerge Workshops ~ Tulsa,
Oklahoma
June 21, 2007
Ted German, Emerge Director of
Training, will be conducting the
following three workshops as part of
the Oklahoma Coalition Against
Domestic Violence and Sexual
Assault, 2007 Domestic and Sexual
Violence and Stalking Conference:
- Engagement Strategies for
Working with Abusers
- Dealing with Difficult
Clients and Special Problems in
Abuser Education Groups
- Assessment and Evaluation of
Clients for Abuser Education
Programs
These workshops are 75 to 90 minutes
in length. For more information, or
to register, contact Vickie (info@ocadvsa.org)
at the OCADVSA at 405-524-0700x11 or
visit
their website.
Counseling Abusers Training ~
Boston Area
June 20-22, 2007
This training, conducted three
times per year in the Boston
area, is an introductory course
to counseling abusers and using
the Emerge model of
intervention. This training will
feature discussion, lecture,
participant role-playing,
overview and demonstration of
Emerge exercises, and panel
presentations.
There are currently attendees
signed up from seven states and
some attendees from Sweden! Join
us!
There is one more three-day
training in the Boston area in
September, so
visit our website for more
information
or to
register!
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Thanks again for your continued
interest and support of Emerge!
We hope you have an excellent
summer and are able to work on
your own self-care throughout
the season!
Best Regards,
Emerge: Counseling & Education to
Stop Domestic Violence
*All articles Copyright 2007,
Emerge. Please contact our office
for reprint requests*
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