Becoming Known: Awareness and Connection with the Intellectually Disabled

Stepping Stones - an article written by Andrew Seubert and Beth Barol

Click on the buttons to the right to view the articles with specific information in the context on supporting Intellectually Disabled clients.

Offerings for Providers to Intellectually Disabled Clients

In the course of working with intellectually disabled clients over the period of fifteen years, Andrew Seubert has developed three workshop/retreat formats for administrators, managers, therapists and caregivers who serve this population.

Therapy Outside the Box is a training for counselors and therapists originally developed for Pennsylvania's Office of Mental Retardation Clinical Institute. Therapeutic Mind, Compassionate Heart is the adaptation of "Therapy Outside the Box" for direct care staff, the "social therapists," who tend to be the mainstay in the overall treatment of these clients. Then, Integrative Retreats are tailored for individual groups to create and renew a sense of community among staff members as well as to provide rest, relaxation and appreciation. Finally, I have added some case descriptions from therapists using EMDR in the treatment of Intellectually Disabled clients.

THERAPY OUTSIDE THE BOX

Psychotherapy with Intellectually Disabled Clients
This experiential and interactive training will introduce participants to the dynamic processes of awareness, expression and relatedness as significant change agents and necessary goals in the use of humanistic psychotherapy with dually diagnosed clients. Participants will move from self-exploration to client application.

In the context of this training, process refers to the central importance of choiceful and consciously lived experience in its organic and varied forms, rather than exclusively cognitive and behavioral activity. Specifically, experiences of awareness (primary contact with self, other and the world as well as awareness of needs, wants, feelings), expression and relatedness (connection) will be introduced as both means and goals of therapeutic treatment.

Andrew believes that caregivers and dually diagnosed clients all exist on the same continuum of human existence. The more that awareness and choice are involved in one's life, the more authentic that life becomes. This overriding principle will permeate the entire workshop as participants experience aspects of their own awareness and choice-making and then apply this learning to their clients ("compassionate guesswork"). The focus will be on the universal needs common to us all , namely the need to become known and to be separate (unique) as well as related (connected).

THERAPEUTIC MIND, COMPASSIONATE HEART

Therapeutic Skills and Attitudes for Direct Care Staff
This training is an adaptation of "Therapy Outside the Box" for direct care staff. It will experientially introduce therapeutic attitudes and skills to participants without formal background as counselors or therapists. Most of the care for dually diagnosed clients depends on these staff members. Self-awareness, skill-building and exercises that open the heart combine to provide the training and support they deserve.

INTEGRATIVE RETREAT FOR STAFF AND CAREGIVERS

"Show them you really care!"
For a general description of the Integrative Retreat, click here. This is an experience which could last one day, a weekend and even longer. It is an opportunity to renew and show appreciation for staff (administrative, managerial and direct care) who often experience frustration and burnout in their work with Intellectually Disabled clients.

EMDR in the Treatment of Intellectually Disabled (MH/MR) Clients