Article in English for "Sistemas Familiares"
v. Elizabeth Rapela, editor.
For translation into Spanish

"In relations focus on competence and resources
- and you'll find them"

by Eva Soendergaard, psychologist and family therapist, Randers, Denmark


In November 2001 my college and teacher  Marianne Lauritzen and I took the long journey from Denmark to participate in the XIII IFTA World Family Therapy Congress in Porto Alegre in Brazil. We did a workshop called "Focus on competence at all levels- and you'll find them." We also showed a video  with some of my therapeutic work, to illustrate our way of working and thinking. The video was made by Danish television and has English subtitles.

After the workshop Elizabeth Rapela, co-editor of "Sistemas Familiares" came up and suggested that I wrote an article about the place I work at, the basic ideas and  the themes from our workshop. I was very happy to get this invitation to tell about our work here.

"Oust Moelleskolen" is a Danish public dayschool for  32 children in groups of eight  of normal intelligence with social, behavioural, emotional and often also cognitive difficulties. These children have been malfunctioning at public school and are not wanted back till they can behave in a better way.
Our school is now influencing the thinking and function in this field of special schools in Denmark.

So what is so special?

Basic ideas

We have become known for working in a unique competence focused way with both the local community, referrers, staff/colleges, parents and children and the pupils of the school.
The children are only permitted to be at our school if the parents are willing to work closely together with us. And they have to do this because we need them to, and their children need them, too. Our experience is that we can not reach lasting progresses in the behaviour of the children unless the parents and the whole system around the child also undergoes changes in thinking, acting - and feeling. (Recent American studies of the most efficient methods in helping children to better function shows that including the parents  is necessary)

The referrers can only refer if they too are willing to collaborate, and the public school must be willing too, to change in order to re-admit the child,- only if this is judged to be the best for the child, of course.
Systemic thinking, social constructionalism could be headlines for defining the way we think, but we also include cognitive therapy with children and psycho-education among many other methods.

But the basic thing is how we relate to other people. Basically we assume that everybody has tried to do their best, but circumstances and social heritage  among other things may have made it very difficult to make this visible  for others.
When a family comes, we listen to its story. No matter how bad the situation is, we assume that basically there is a good will , that the parents want to be good parents - but maybe too bad conditions or misunderstandings prevent the good to unfold.
The dialogue is central, our listening, understanding and willingness to listen to stories without condemnation makes a new start, where the parents themselves openly state what they think need to be changed without our telling them what we think they ought to change. In the beginning some of them think that is a kind of trap we are setting up, not condemning them, - and soon they expect, we will show them, that we judge them like they have felt others did. Then they find out that we mean it,  relax and begin to trust us.

Our job is to facilitate the different voices of the family members and widen out the meaning in a co-constructive way that gives hope and points out to a better future and makes thoughts and actions from the past more constructive or understandable.
Each family is treated differently since everybody is unique, we don't try to put  anybody into a scheme. So we don't have one model, but try to figure out what fits the individual family.
Though we focus on ressources we don't neglect feelings of sadness etc. We don't immediately offer a positive re-framing, which would make people feel talked down to and not seen as they are.
Minuchin, Milan School, Tom Andersen, Harlene Anderson, Michael White, Eia Asen, Alan Cooklin and many others throughout  the years have been inspiring us.
In order to be able to meet our clients in this open and positive way it is essential that we as professionals are met in the same way by our colleagues and director - otherwise we can't.


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