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HANNE LINDAU has been vice-director
at the Institute for Blind and Partially Sighted in Copenhagen, Denmark
since 1992.
Hanne Lindau is master of
psychology, speach-hearing-reading therapist and has a long carreer in
developing programmes for integration of visually impaired school children
in Denmark.
Hanne lindau has been counsellor
to the danish ministery of education for 5 years, chairman 8 years of the
danish board of regional counsellors for visually impaired.
Hanne Lindau has published
several articles on the organisational and educational development of the
danish model of integration of visually impaired in public schools and
higher education and has also been co-editor for 5 years on VISUS, Scandinavian
Magazine for educators of visually impaired.
Giving birth to a severely
impaired child is for most parents a dramatic experience.
Nobody expects a defective
child. Everybody expects a healthy, strong and gifted baby to have a longlasting
prosperous lifecareer and who gradually can take responsibility for its
own life, getting friends, family and children of its own and be a natural,
respected member of the society he is a member of.
Looking globally on childbirth
we will of course find a lot of different cultural patterns: Some societies
have better acceptance of impairment than others but in the part of the
world where I come from, it is mainly considered a disaster.
Most western industrialized
countries is deeply influenced with carreer struggle and competiveness,
stress, loss of human and family values, abuses of different kinds and
divorces.
Looking back in history
it was even well accepted in the nordic countries to throw out the defective
child to the wild animals in the woods.-But this is fortunately long, long
ago. We now live in highly democratized welfare societies where any impairment
is cared for through legislation, economy, counselling and education.
But still I clame that we
have wild animals to fight on a psychological level.
These are the attitudes
among parents and professionals surrounding the impaired child.
These are the communication
patterns and mutual understanding between parents and professionals.
Working as a professional-
for instance with blind children- you will often find great diversities
in attitudes and thus a breakdown in the communication between parents
and professionals.
One can often ask the question
whether the advise and help offered is a hinderance rather than a help.
The idea of todays paper
on THE MASTERY PROCESS is to reveal some of the psychological traits which
is crucial in understanding what is going on in families with a defective
child and thus hopefully open up new doors to the professional understanding.
The following 4 aspects are
of importance to understand the familiar MASTERY PROCESS:
I
The initial stage: An unusual
kind of sorrow and grief
appears on the family stage.
II
Beyond the initial crisis:Impact
of professionals
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III
Known reaction patterns
in the family leading to
succesful mastery.
IV
The role of values in counselling and guidance.
I. AN UNUSUAL KIND OF SORROW
AND GRIEF:
Psychological research within
the last years have revealed, that different life situations causes different
reactions to loss. The prevailing attitude has been, that the consequence
of a loss is the universal emotional state called sorrow, which after some
time will disappear and the individual will regain emotional stability.
Today common knowledge is
that at least 4 sorrow states has to be considered when working as professional:
1. The normal process, where
the individual will achieve balance in life without fear of what future
might bring of both good and bad events.
2. The concealed proces
where the person does not allow himself to face facts often being too occupied
with everyday carreer life.(It is not socially in to be a person plunged
in sorrow when you live in most of the western societies).The very uneasy
emotions involved in the grief process is rejected resulting in inability
to contain strong emotions to appear later in life. Maladjustment and too
rigid selfdefence and fear of taking new chances in life. This way of lossreaction
is said to be the most common in industrialized societies.
3. The cronic proces, where
the person nearly totally neglects the loss and will torture oneself and
the family in a rigid pattern of remorse and constant idylizing the loss
and rejecting to thread new paths in life at all.
4. The Perpetual process
often found among parents with a defective child:
The exposed reactions are
similar to other loss reactions, but these parents do not have a real loss
like when a beloved person dies. They have a child, but a defective one.
Their dreamchild never appeared, they have to confront themselves with
caring and parenting of quite another kind of child. This child is moreover
an attack to the self confidence because a child reflects the parental
idendity. Moreover is it not well accepted to reject the child now it is
there. You have to give care and love and hide your own inner feelings
of failure and reluctance. Nobody will understand you if you expose strong
feelings of grief in this situation. It is forbidden. Due to social pressure
most parents tend to hide their feelings on the surface and play the happy
parent role often resulting in overprotection or emotional rejection.
The concealed emotions will
often pop-out and expose themselves as the child develops and typically
everytime the child passes a developmental milestone.
This reaction pattern is
often confusing for professionals who tend to accuse the parents for not
having accepted the childs defectiveness and the mutual communication will
often break down.
A professional understanding
of this unique parental reaction will secure a sound and prosperous communication
all for the benefit of the impaired child.
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II. THE IMPACT OF PROFESSIONALS.
It is not common among parents
to say no to professional guidance. Very quickly the parents get involved
with medical, social and educational staff. Each branch tend to have the
idea that they found the ideal code for solving the familiys problems with
the impaired child.
Parents often feel overwhelmed
and many families will have up to 20 different professionals to communicate
with. This drags energy from other important life demands as other children
in the family, friends and relatives and parents are often gradually drawn
back from a normal family pattern. In many western societies there is a
growing tendency to overcrowd these families.
I think it is an important
future goalsetting to prevent the families from overcrowding by finding
better ways of multidisciplinary cooperation.
Recent resarch have revealed,
that there are only 3 demands wanted by parents from professional guidance:
1. As many local and regional
provisions as posssible.
2. Continuity as to professional
persons involved and in future plans.
3. The best possible professional
advice.
III: STRATEGIES LEADING TO
A SUCCESFUL MASTERY-PROCESS.
The following statements
are extracts from various research materials focusing on conditions in
impaired families. It is daring to say impaired families but I do it, because
many families gradually discovers that it takes a lot more than one ever
imagined to be a family with a handicapped child. They are more or less
dancing on egg-shells because this special situation put higher demands
to flexibility and ability to change frequently according to the childs
situation.
Which strategies can we
trace when we open the doors to the succesful families?
Some of the traits we find
are rather controversial and not to be found in traditional textbooks used
for training social and educational counsellors.
In all we find 7 prevailing
traits which these families use in their mastery proces.
These traits have priorities
meaning that number 1 is the most important and further on ending with
number 7.
These strategies are to
be considered as the families own working tools, to sustain succesful mastery.
Some of them are unconscious, but to be traced if you look thoroughly.
Others are very conscious and have developed as results of the families
own adjustment proces:
1. Marital concordance and
mutual respect.
This implies full respect
on both parts, confidence and trust. Willingness to set common goals and
to carry them out in practice. It does not mean that these families are
totally free of conflicts and disagreements, but they end up solving them
through negotiation and compromising on fully agreed terms. In these families
you will never hear farther complain on mother or vice versa.
They have a common life
project and nagging conflicts from the period before the birth of the defective
child are set aside and buried.
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2. Flexibility in roles.
In these families you will
often find a very unusual pattern in the role division between father and
mother.
They do not care much of
what are social conventions or traditional expectations. They do what is
needed to do to when it is needed in order to secure the best possible
everyday life for all members of the family.
3. Networkers.
These families seem to be
extraordinary good networkers. They support useful familiar,relatives and
neighbour nets from the time before the child was born and if they do not
have suffucient nets, they tend to establish them. They are the give and
take help kind of persons. They do not solely drag or profit on others
support, they are capable of offering it themselves.
4. High degree of selfconfidence.
All members of this families
seem to have a high degree of selfconfidence and reliance.
The outspring comes from
the parental platform and spreads through all layers of the family. They
may not be born on the sunny side of life but the challenge with the defective
child seem to make them fight for a positive and selfreliant outlook on
life.
5. High deegree of solidarity
implying all members of the family. There is not much selfishness in these
families.If one member is loaded with problems it is considered to be a
common challenge to find acceptable solutions.
6. High deegree of interaction
with the surrounding society and high degree of sports and creative activities
for all members. They do not cling to the wall- papers of their home, just
looking out at life from a rigid isolated position.
7. Satisfying job- and career
positions no matter of which kind and of what educational level and of
what social status.The only thing that seems to matter is that you like
to do what you do.
IV. THE ROLE OF VALUES IN
COUNSELLING.
If you think twice of the
above mentioned 7 strategies you might start wondering of what the underlying
cues are to what is going on in these families.
The answer is to some extent
very, very simple and to another extent extremely complicated.
From a psychological point
of view it is a question of 2 main kinds of values:
Material and immaterial
values.
We are not to decide which
values are best for the families with are involved with, it is their choice,
but it is a good idea to look out for which patterns are prevailing and
what you- the professional should advice. A large amount of materialistic
values will easily leave you lonely the day they are gone whereas a large
amount of immaterialistic values will bring you safely past difficult lifechanges.
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SUMMARY.
The mastery process in families
with impaired children seem to have controversial strategic traits where
the hitherto attitudes on money, education and social status as such are
less important than mutual respect, flexibility and self confidence.
The professional challenge
is not to overcrowd the family with all kinds of posssible equipment-for
instance- but to look and listen carefully to what the families own resourcepotential
might bring out.
A very rich and well off
family with high materialistic life demands might be poorer off in their
mastery process than a family who is able to find new and courageous solutions
and is willing to constant reevaluation of their Lifesituation.