debor016

A very important part if the message that I teach is that working with trauma survivors is emotionally difficult, and that it is imperative that we take care of ourselves and each other. We are daily immersed in the pain of our client's lives. This includes sharing their past stories of abuse and neglect and their present experiences of rejection and inadequate resources. It includes being the recipients of the symptoms our clients have evolved to survive. It includes the anguish of caring for clients who connect and then leave. All these and many other experiences combine to create vicarious traumatization ( VT). We have written extensively about how agencies can imbed attention to VT into their practice. This is essential. Recently people in our field have been paying more attention to VT, or burn out, or compassion fatigue. I am worried about an approach in which an agency says: here is a large caseload, and you are expected to work extra hours, and you will be on call, and we c...

I have been reading Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink (Riverhead Books, New York, 201). It is very interesting and relevant to both staff and clients. He starts be reviewing scientific evidence which demonstrates that contingent rewards don’t work and in fact can be dangerous. Pink summaries these findings in a chart “Carrots and Sticks: The Seven Deadly Flaws” The flaws are: “They can extinguish intrinsic motivation. They can diminish performance. They can crush creativity They can crowd out good behavior. They can encourage cheating, shortcuts and unethical behavior. They can become addictive. They can foster short-term thinking.”   Pink shows that rewards and punishments only work when the behavior you are trying to increase is formulaic and repetitive, involves no problem solving or creativity. I can’t think of anything that we ask our staff or clients to do that fits that description. So what do we do instead to improve performance? Pin...