WGBH Lectures; WGBH Forum Network; Whole Child, Whole Day: Keynote Speech

Terry Real. You want to clap OK. Yeah as a following. He is no pun intended the real thing and anyone who knows Terry knows what I'm talking about. I know because he's a good friend and I have watched him. I've watched him work. Terry is full of contradictions. He's the family and couples therapy for the rich and the famous. He is but he's also simultaneously dedicated to really spreading the word and the word for him is that relationships and the power of intimate relationships the power of families has to be taken extremely seriously not as. Hey let's have a little bit of family outreach. But really making families in a very deep sense the partners in the process of education and in that respect Terri has you know really a lot to teach us and he's also

created his own institute. He has written a lot. I am I'm a social worker by trade. I'm a family therapist by training in particular. I do work with the rich and famous and. There they are. But I'm also very dedicated to I've created an institute here in Arlington called the relational life Institute and we're dedicated to bringing the idea of relational living to as many practitioners and students and families as we possibly can. There's a gorgeous redhead outside on the other side of this door Susan Brady is the president of the Institute just came back from Ohio where she's developing a program for college kids on relationship skills that we hope to begin to float on county college campuses around the country. I

personally would like to see kids taught basic relationship skills in pre-K K Junior High and High and High. One of the things I say is that as a culture we teach our kids more about how to drive a car than how to have a relationship. And I think that the results look like that kind of neglect looks like. I'm really encouraged as a relational person to hear the emphasis on relationship that has been in the conference so far the whole kid the team as a team but also the importance of. Relational teaching. I believe that as a culture in patriarchal culture we code intimacy in relationship as feminine. Relationship itself is a kind of chick flick. And we

hold relationship with the same kind of attitude that we hold many things deemed feminine which is that we idealize it in principle and we devalue it in fact. And I think that the researchers telling us quite the opposite I'm going to talk about my own work I'm going to talk. God bless Gil I said I don't know what to talk about and he said Tell them your own story. And so I will I'm going to talk about my own story because I am one of the kids that slipped through the cracks that you're trying to reach. And I want to talk about the importance of relationship. In a couple of turning points in my life. But I think that. First of all what I mean by being a relational therapist relational worker is this. I believe that all children from early infancy on are intrinsically relationship seeking. I live in a world of authentic relationships and are nurtured by authentic

relationships. I think that reaching out to kids relationally understanding what their relational world looks like and intervening not just with them but with their relational world is not just an addition or a luxury item it's not a spice it's the entrée itself and to the degree to which we can engage kids at that level to that degree I think they will learn and to the degree to which we do not pay attention to their relational world. We do not make a relationship with their families. We do not make a relationship with the children to that degree. Many many children who could and should be learning will not be learning as as they should so I'm really thrilled with this new emphasis and that's what I want to talk about and I want to talk about a particular kind of relationship that you hear a lot about. But I want to ask one thing to really mean we talk about empowering kids and empowering kids families. So OK relationships are

important. A now even more specifically empowering relationships are important. What is an empowering relationship. What does it mean to one of the elements of having a relationship in which the person on the other end of your transaction feels empowered. We talk a lot about that but how do you actually do that. That's what I want to focus on today. And I want to start with it with one of my stories that I want to tell you about truly. One of the pivotal moments in my life that made me want to become a family therapist. I taught for 30 years at a place called The Family Institute of Cambridge very close before my own institute and one of my great teachers who still with us. Carter a marker I was giving as a consultation with a quote unquote hopeless case. It was a DSS case and I

was privileged to witness that consultation. And on the other side of it one way mirror there was Carter with as sort of absolutely stereo typically archetype all multi problem family. It was a single mom or. African-American family. She was obese you look depressed you're about seven kids ranging from fourth about 17 the 17 year old just kind of the trouble with the law which was the reason why he was brought in for the consultation the therapist was totally overwhelmed with the case. It was this was the family that as a young family therapist I would close my eyes and have nightmares about. This was like ground zero. What we. Middle class white therapist were most afraid of. These kids were literally bouncing off the walls in fact there's no good film of this intervention because the kids were taking apart the

camera that was filming it. So we have this about five six kids of different ages running all over the place. There's no control of the interview there's no control of the thing. We have a sort of depressed rather rotund disempowered mother sitting on the couch barely paying attention and we have this middle aged white guy trying to do something that would impress all of us behind a one way mirror. Carter looked at all of us and he quietly walked over across the room to the mother and he put his hand on the mother's shoulder and very quietly he said to her as the thoughtful caring. Expert in your family. I absolutely know that you have some interesting theories about why 17 year old James

has gotten into trouble at this particular moment. And I watched this mother pull herself up to her full height and a rat a tat tat. With not much fuss. An incredibly precise and sophisticated report about James is upset with a fairly absentee father with the trouble he was having in school and with about three or four different social agencies who were to varying degrees helpful and on helpful to the family. It was brilliant and what I knew and what was thrilling for all of us who were witness to this was simply this. It's not clear to me at all that that incredibly brilliant analysis from that incredibly articulate mother existed anywhere until someone across the room put a hand

on her shoulder and called for it. That's my idea of an empowering relationship. I looked at that and it was so thrilling to me it was like watching someone be born. And that's what inspired me to enter into this field it was that moment. So what I want to talk about is this an empowering relationship is a relationship in which you ask. How sad is that too complicated for everybody. An empowering relationship is a relationship in which you keep the bar high and do not write off someone as disempowered in their own story. Rather you invite them in as a successful team member and an expert in their own story. Now I gotta tell you I can't think of a more

on ass human being. A more written off human being than an African American. Dirt poor single mother of many kids I think that this archetype a welfare mother is probably I am a mom. Me I'm going to get in trouble but I don't think that the conservatives in the US. Oh anything more than they owe to this archetype a mother who has been along with Willie Horton probably the the the B.M.. The straw dog. The cultural scapegoat. That a lot of people's reactions have been built around. It's a very powerful figure who ask her what should be done with the family. And I got to tell you this. And it's actually I would say this single point is the is the biggest reason why I accepted this invitation. We in the mental health field and we psychologists

have not been shy in jumping on the disempowerment bandwagon for the single mothers and I have to tell you I am a gender expert. That's what I am and there is absolutely no research whatsoever to substantiate a common idea that filters through all of our thinking culturally and as mental health people and I believe even in education's the idea being this. As a relational therapist I take issue with what I see as a traditional patriarchal idea that in order to grow a child must leave relationships and become autonomous. That in order to grow a child must separate from nurture and care and in particular a boy must separate from his mother. I believe that

what growth and development means is moving from immature relationships to transformed more mature relationships that will accommodate your growth and that this whole notion of having to leave a relationship in order to grow is unsubstantiated and does a lot of damage and in particular the damage reads like this. Only a man can teach a boy how to be a man. And I can't I can't think of a single more disempowering myth for single mothers of boys and I want to tell you today that mothers can teach boys how to become men. And that's true whether you're talking about female teachers or single mothers in families. This is about grownup human beings teaching children how to be grownup human beings

and teaching women by continuing this message that they have to disavow their power with their boys I think is the opposite of where where we want to go. So I want to talk about that. Thank you. Thank you. The other sort of disenfranchised people that we tend to give up on are the kids themselves. And I was happy to hear about traumatize kids and working with trauma. But you know I believe as a relational therapist that most trauma is relational. I believe that we live in a relational a dysfunctional culture and so most all of us have been traumatized. So one of the things I want to talk about is that there isn't really an us and them. They're doing the same work that we're doing and basically what we have is we have a bunch of traumatized teachers reaching out

to traumatized kids and everybody stimulating everybody. I was I was one of those kids I grew up in a violent home and part of the institute that we talk in relational life therapy which is the school I created. We talk about learning to live nonviolent lives nonviolent between you and others and nonviolent between your ears. And I grew up in a home where my mom was depressed my dad was also depressed but as I've written about in the way that men often get the press which is that he was violent. I would go home and deal with my mom's dysfunction in my dad's violence every day. I learned very quickly in junior high in Camden New Jersey and high school in Atlantic City New Jersey that what I needed in order to maintain a D D-minus average was to show up at school about want every seven to 10 days. And that's what I

did and bet those were the marks that I got and everybody and IMO I was a white you know in a way a suburban kid which also I think underlines that we're talking about these kids in trouble. One of the things that we know is that trauma is not just in African-American or Latino issue that there are kids in trouble in suburbs as well as kids in cities that drug use for example is more prevalent amongst white suburban kids because they have more access. So I was one of those kids. And my my after school program was called The Wonder Bar which is where I used to hang out in listen to jazz after school and what I did when I wasn't in school. Every seven to 10 days I mostly took drugs and and hung out. No one not one person. Asked me about my family. Not one person asked me really

why there was a huge discrepancy between my obvious potential and what was going on. No one brought my family and I no one evaluated much of anything what I heard a lot about was that I didn't apply myself. You know what I want kids or about my. I don't apply myself I was living down to my potential. I thought I was a tube of toothpaste or something because I kept on applying myself. But at any rate. So this went on for. This went on for a while and I was finally sent to the schools like ologist. I will say that there was a government agency. They did keep me in school. I was called the draft. And I see it in school because school seemed to be better than going off to be at Nom. And that was really the only reason why I stayed in school and I was washed ashore to a school psychologist and I was traumatized and I was depressed and I was 80 and the

school psychologist I think with the best of intentions. I wanted to get me on drugs. I was very concerned. Also I never asked to see my family or asked what was going on and because underneath my bravado I really was sort of depressed and screwed up. I am I came very close in fact I accepted his invitation to go on medication. And the way he wanted to put me on medication was to send me to the state mental asylum. In an car in southern New Jersey. And I'd agree. I was 17 years old and I agreed to a three month hospitalization and an car. And this is about the power of relationship. This is 1967. The hippie era there was a rabbi that I knew was much older than I was and he was known for hanging out with kids and he pulled me over one day this is

absolute your story pulled me over one day and he said that he got some really good shit from Colombia and that I thought I might really like to get high. This was an invitation that I was going to accept. He said The only thing is that he had some rabbinical duties that he had to perform at the State Hospital and korra. And if you didn't mind we would go down and I could get fumigated and he could do his rabbi thing and you know they need to meet me and we'd go back. I was fine with me. I want to tell you this if I'm going into that place truly it's not clear to me that I would have ever gotten out. And if it wasn't for that man it seems pretty clear that I would be here right now. That's the power that you can you can effect in someone's life. Anyway I got a warning and I decided I better go to

some sort of school so I went to Atlanta community college. Things were really dreadful at home. It was pretty unbearable and there was one teacher Gary said if you get good grades. Then I'll help you get to Rutgers the state school. And I had no idea that there even was a Rutgers Street School. I really did. And it was also because of this second man John McCormick that I got the grades I didn't get the grades you know home. OK I didn't get the grades for me. I got the grades for him because he believed in me and he sat down and he got the forms and he felt them out and he got me the hell out of that family he got me out of Atlantic City. And I want to tell you and I'm not doing this to be dramatic I'm just telling you the truth. Most of the kids that I hung out hung with back then are gone now. They're either physically gone or they're mentally gone. And he's the second person

that changed my life. And the second reason why I am here today. So don't tell me about the power of relationship with these kids that's being fluff that the key thing that I think that unites the movie Carter Umberger mate with that woman that unites what my rabbi did God bless him for me plus it was pretty good dope. I still remember it. And and why John McCormick did for me in that moment is belief. And I think that empowering relationship is really simple. It's setting the bar in a way that the person that you're interacting with can rise to. It's simply the belief. That if you set high expectations relational

expectations for the person you're talking to that they will rise to the occasion. If you get it too. It's just that simple. And how do we do that with parents and families. I think the way that we do that is really simple. We have to engage the best of them. We have to deal with what Barack Obama called the American dream in his acceptance speech. And by the by if you have any doubts that single moms can raise healthy manly men. Why don't you take a look at Barack Obama. Anyway. In his acceptance speech Barack Obama talked about the American dream the American dream as he put it is simply this the dream. The opportunity that really is the foundation of what America is

that our children will have the opportunity to do better than we have done. And when we normally think about the American dream about our children doing better than we have done we think about it materially. But in our work with families we think about it spiritually and psychologically. We talk about children becoming psychologically upwardly mobile children having better emotional relational skills than where we came from and people having better children having better legacies than the legacies that we came from. One of the workshops that we give and I'm going to show it to you in a moment at the institute all over the country including here in Boston is a workshop which is not necessarily for the rich and famous for everybody. Oh I just have to say this since since Gil you were cute enough and punishes enough to say that about me. I do want to say this. One of the things I'm

really proud about about finding the relational life Institute is anybody interested in doing relational life work and training with us will not be turned away because of money. And anybody who wants to do this work clinically will not be turned away because of money. You may not be able to get to see the guy was on Oprah but you will be able to do the work. So we work very hard to get to that place I just want to make sure that was that was said anyway. In these relational legacy workshops. Well we what we tried to do is tie into that part of the parent that wants things to be different for his or her kid than it was for them. And I think if you can tie into that part of anybody connected to a kid the generational part that says I want his or her legacy to be better than mine. Then you have a very powerful ally and man over 30 years doing practice.

I've seen families do all sorts of things with kids. But it is a rare rare rare parent who at their best is not sincere when they want their kids to have it better than they've had. So I think that's the force that we want to we want to tap into. I also think that it's critical that you enlist the family for that support because kids often don't see that in their families. Kids often don't understand that their families really want them to succeed and do better than they did. And part of the damage that occurred to me because nobody was dealing with my dysfunctional family is even when I quote Don't Even when I got physically out of the family I still was loyal to my scapegoat role inside the family. And it was very clear to me that being a success outside in the world was being disloyal

to my family inside the surpassing them was very fraud and their being loyal to my family had a lot to do with failing in the outside world. Until you remove that kind of burden from kids you are tell me if this is too technical for you spitting in the wind. You must feel when a kid is not learning and you're looking at why they're not learning they should be learning. You have to take a look at the larger system have yourself some questions like Does this kid have permission to learn. Does this kid have permission to be more successful than the generations that came before them. And we work to give kids explicit permission to do better than the people who came before. And sometimes that legacy is very obvious. Sometimes it's not so obvious. I'm not saying that this is what I'm about to show you is

typical but I wanted to give you some flavor of one family changing this legacy and since I started with an African-American single mom I thought I would choose work with an African-American single mom. This is an interesting piece of work for her. It Karla is a devout Christian. She's on her second marriage her first marriage was very difficult very fraught. Her husband was a substance abuser. Her Christian community she's a Jehovah's Witness does not believe in divorce so she took a fair amount of abuse and watch from things go down with her children that she felt very conflicted about before she finally took the great courageous step of going against the explicit direction and pressure of her community and of

her church and got got a divorce raised her kids by her self. One kid in particular was autistic. I actually looked up with the school psychologist for those of you who want a little romance this school psychologist was very good to a kid became involved with her started dating her and eventually married her and the work that you'll see that she's doing is now that she has finally made it to finding a mate who is good and kind and open hearted and wonderful with her and the kids. The problem for her is she has she has to let him in and begin to lean on him which is not her family tradition. The way that the legacy of works you'll see interviews with her and her husband Michael which is not part of the legacy it's just it happened to be that some of those sessions were

filmed. But the way the legacy workshop works is really three beats to it the first is you come in as very experienced and we teach we teach people the basics of how to raise healthy kids but the first third of it ends with you with a picture of yourself as a kid and you talk about the legacy that was handed on to you in your childhood. The second sort of third of it culminates with you understanding the positive and negative aspects of that legacy and what you're passing on to your kids often unconsciously you bring your parents in. Sit him down in a chair in your imagination. You reward the positive and celebrate it and you hand back the negative aspects of the legacy. Thank you very much. That's what the negative legacy cost me. I'm not going to pass that on to my kids. And then the third and it the culmination of it is you actually sit with pictures of your kids Carly had five kids. So she had five chairs with pictures

of her kids on the chair. Her husband was behind her. The group was around her and she said to these children. This is the concrete behavior change that I'm going to make in order to break this legacy and offer you something different in your in your lives. So that's what you're going to see a few sentences leading up to it and then that then that work. I mean you know it's a recurring theme this feeling excluded excluded and I know that she's used to doing things on her own. She's had to do it and she's like you said she's a very strong woman. It's one of the reasons I married her. But really at times she was

walled off you know. And then I try to get out and I you know I try to avoid being therapist you know. But at the same time if something's going on and I. Think something's going on. Yeah what am I supposed to do for my sister in law called me when I was headed to work that the day that she was getting the DNC and she said where are you on this and I'm in the car going to work. Where's your the hospital with any of the houses my thought was my mother a car was at the hospital was having problems hospital Y and she getting a DNC bed because she was ready to wring me out for what are you doing going to work when your wife said but I you know I was trying to process all this and then I wheeled around to the hospital. My anger started coming out. Yeah at least I was I was doing. I felt like I'm doing this stuff. And her explanation was why I didn't think it was that big a deal.

Yeah the DNC sucks so give it to you give your anger work for me. If you're angry at that time to speak what would be said. You mean a guy like that who are you do you know just like why are you whining. Why wouldn't you tell me something like that something as important as that. OK. There were some blue voices in your head can be a little harsh. Now I think they're being harsh. Righto me both up there. There is not I will have a room for your falling down on a jar and whatever the job it is at the mouth and there are always

multiple jobs and you get it dad. You just figure it out and get it back and you keep going through divorces. It's in my own voice it's my voice. Whose fourth result. It was my mother's voice it was my grandmother's for I said it was the voice I'll survive on when a situation where survival was not guaranteed. And if you didn't figure it out you fell by the wayside he ended out not doing anything or getting anywhere and you just disappeared. We wouldn't exactly say you have a Blood Doll being taken care of by anybody. Matt No. Have I deserve to have a part.

And you on desperately need to see me down my strength and lean on her. And I know this already because I work or is here but just to get it out. How far back in your generations do you stretch before you find a healthy woman leaning on I'll be more down on than me. I don't know. So you know what I would call you.

I call you a pioneer. Don't you think you don't wish to look at these kids and I want you to say. I'm a pioneer and I'm goddamn proud of it. Pam Brown and you should be. And I have to tell you as a devout job is when is that goddam part was really our Verdes get out. It's probably culturally insensitive of me to ask it but it works.

OK I'm open to take a question or two. Do I do any work with the Boston public schools. So far the Boston Public Schools have not asked me to but I'd be open to talking about it. Can you just tell us how long the process was to have very beautiful ending into her interaction with that woman. Yeah. At the time of the legacy workshops are the two long days and it's really it's really very structured. It's what is it that was passed on to you. What was good about it. What was bad about it and what is the bad part. I what was passed on to you cost you in your life. And then with group support you bring in one or two empty chairs. If you have a partner there your partner is behind you if not somebody else is behind you. You

acknowledge the positive you give back the negative and then the final third. You work in small groups about three specific three concrete behaviors that you're going to do to to transform this legacy. Now if you have a partner there it's usually quite transformative for the for the pair because your partner has probably been trying to tell you about the ways in which you're transforming it what you're transferring that legacy and you've been probably telling your partner that they're full of it for however many years or decades. And part of the magic of the group that you listen rather than discount. And then in that third third you meet with your children again in front of the group with your partner behind you or another supportive person behind you and you say this is one behavior. That I swear rock solid I will change. In her case of letting somebody in is somebody else. In many many cases is swearing off violence.

I'm not going to yell at you I'm not going to try to control you. This is one behavior I'm going to change BCV my co-parent and this is one form of support I'm going to get to continue this and that's it takes two days to speak for a moment about how you think you would apply this to schools and afterschool programs. Yes not just the question of you know are you working with the Boston Public School now. I know we talked and you had some really. Yeah. Morton I'd like to thing is this is the same thing that I said earlier I think we give family involvement. I think we idealize family involvement as a principal but we're not really built to to do it. So for example how many of you kids have many of you kids. I'm 58. How many. How many of you people have like teenagers or kids that you may say. Yeah yeah. As a family therapist I hate the idea of quality time at like one on one time the supposed to make up those of you have particularly teenage kids you

know that the real relationship develops on the side. Like when the kid is frying a hamburger and it's 12 o'clock and you just talk to him or the best way to talk to your kid is when you're driving them somewhere in the back seat of the car. It's these sort of interstates is places. Same thing when you're reaching out to families if you're if you've got a family. The best place to see a dad a working dad maybe at the end of the day when he comes to pick up is good. At the end of an afterschool program I don't want you to just sit there I want you to make a relationship with the ocean spend five or 10 minutes talking about that. That guy's kid and talking about how he feels about his kid. But I also don't want that 10 or 15 minutes to be on your back so that your holding up your families because that work is not really supported systemically. So it has to do with you reaching out to them. And it has to do with this is with a system supporting you and having the

time and energy to reach out to them. And then what I mean by reaching out to them is not that you bring them on board and report to them what you're doing. It's that they really are enlisted as team members whether it's formal or informal. Tell me what you think. Tell me how you think your kid is doing. Tell me how you think we're doing. What are we missing what are we not. I would love to see you know the sort of case conferences or team meetings happen on a parent's porch where you come to them instead of a school had them having to come to the school I'd like to see it after hours so that somebody who works hard can attend to it. I think I would like to see some systemic support for the people who are working with the kid to be able to reach out to families in ways that work for families and to not have that be volunteer time but to have that be really designated time that we we value systemically.

So that's what I'd like to say. Thank you. Even as a science teacher I would take the time to circle up my classroom and do the relational emotional work with the kids and I always sort of secretly snuck it in hoping nobody would you know my principal wouldn't come in that day and see me doing that. But the kids are starving for it and I'm so grateful to you for bringing this here today and for doing this important work in the world. I just think it's at the crux of what schools need and what is missing at schools. And I recently left teaching and one of my ideas is to start a program where trained educators go into schools and show the staff and the students how to do this work. And so I just yeah I really thank you and it's important.

Well I want to celebrate you first. Thank you. And I want to say that if the school you know I hear this all the time it was heartbreaking is I would gather the kids in a circle and do some of this relational work. The kids loved it the kids were starved for it. And I was afraid that my supervisor would come in to catch me. And that's what I want to change. And in fact if that work had not been on the side on your back an illegal but instead had been central supported and you know even given you some training in it perhaps you wouldn't have had to leave after 18 years and we'd still hold on to you. So thank you very much and thank you for your work. I want x. Yes one more time. You know within within the medical profession and within psychiatry there has been a transformation that has occurred in the last 20 years from the

kind of fiction that the therapist and the client are actually doing something but they don't have a true relationship is like an expert helping a non expert suffering person. And what happened during that time was that people had of course relationships but they had to hide them because that was seen as soft and not really expert like. That has changed. It was transformed to a point where now people know that the center of psychotherapy is similar to what we heard from Terry Real namely the relationship. I think that in education we have not made that transformation yet that you still have millions of adults who have to sneak in the positive productive relationships and the care because it's seen as soft and is not valued. So that's why when we build a system and we can actually create the focus of the afterschool world that does use development oriented

and the mental health professions that have made that transition we can now build the system from within education to make that same shift. We will have the same good results. With that I want to thank Terry a round of applause. Thank you. Thank you.