BULLIES ARE EVERYWHERE :Power Issues at Home, Work, and School

Part III: Other Project Applications

Stuart W. Twemlow, MDProfessor of Psychiatry

Baylor College of Medicine

Project Applications

• Jamaica Development and Research– Police and Secondary Schools– All Age Schools: Activating helpful Bystanding

• Municipal– Fire Department– City Council– Northbrook

• Multi-Problem Family Project in Boston• Gentle Warrior Research

Project Applications

• Jamaica Development and Research– Police and Secondary Schools– All Age Schools: Activating helpful Bystanding

• Municipal– Fire Department– City Council– Northbrook

• Multi-Problem Family Project in Boston

Community Stabilizing Systems

• Social Control and Law Enforcement

• Education

• Spirituality

• Health and Social Welfare

A Safe Connected Community

Jamaica

• 1992-1996 Jamaican Police in Montego Bay

• Present: Sheffield All Age School

Jamaican Police

• 4 Year Training Project with 75 JCF• Violence Prevention Program in a

Secondary School• Women, Inc. and Rape Prevention• Political Advocacy• Use of Physical Skills and Mental Training• Domestic Violence & AIDS Education• Consult with Tourism Board

Training Seminars with Stabilizing System: Police

Community Forums: Engineered Conflict

Police and Mentor Programs in Jamaican Schools

Advocacy for Stabilizing System (Police) with Prime Minister Michael Manley, Minister of Defense, KD Knight, and Dr. Twemlow

Jamaican GLEENER, 1992

Involving Mayor and High Level Volunteer Contact by US Police Superintendent : Community Felt a Part of Prevetion Effort

A Simple Show of Thanks From the JCF: 100 hours with 92& Return over 5 Sessions

Activating the BystanderEarly Intervention

• Identify High Risk Group

• Create a Way to Be Valued for Helpful Bystanding

• Create Hope

Ongoing Research Project at Sheffield All Age School, 2006

Developing Natural Leaders

Activation of Helpful Bystander by Finding and Supporting Natural Leadership

Establish a Reliable Liaison

When working abroad, supervision can occur from afar, but local presence under analytic direction is a must.

Follow Through

Create a Self Sustaining Source of Revenue by Connecting US Students and Teachers Using the “FRIEND BRACELETS”

Labor Disputes as Power Struggles

• For the sake of clarity we will define “negotiation” as a two-person process of interactive decision-making and “mediation” as a technique using a third person recruited to help the negotiation process reach a mutually satisfactory outcome. That is, negotiation refers to the process and mediation to the technique

Dispute Mediation for Fire Department

• Used Power Dynamics as A Model to Resolve a Labor Dispute: No Confidence

• Bion’s Group Theory Used with Leader to De-Personalize Conflict

• Shuttle Diplomacy on Issues Between Chief and Deputy Chiefs

Evil Chief• The chief is supported by upper management but forced to implement

unpopular fiscal policies.• Upper manager dumps all negative decisions on the “evil chief.”• The chief micromanages personnel and is personally blamed for all difficult

and unpopular decisions.• The chief becomes alienated from upper management who tend to side with

the line workers• Upper management forms a tight group and amplifies the negative feelings

towards the “evil chief” who then bullies and engages in a self-fulfilling prophecies.

• The chief is privately and publicly humiliated and threatened.• The chief reacts with increased coercion and decreased input from upper

management and lower management.• There is an increase in labor disputes and decreased management by

teamwork.• Communications between the worker and management model the

resistance of upper management and reinforce the “evil chief syndrome.”

City Council Intervention

• City Government Unable to Function Because of the Level of Conflict

• Altruistic Intervention

• Retreats Used to Humanize

• Used Power Dynamics to Describe Coercive Activities WITHOUT Blaming

• Improved Community Relations

COERCIVE POWER IMBALANCE IN ORGANIZATIONS

Violent Mind Set Effects on the Individual’s Work Functions

Reduced response options Boredom and arrested growth

Obsessive and perservative thinking Rigidity of view point with inability to anticipate problems

Sleepiness Forgetting procedures, losing track of process

Projective enactments Misjudges people, create victim-victimizer polarizations andmisjudged boundaries

Submissiveness Reduced curiosity and initiative

Dominating Manner Resentfulness and enhancement of submissiveness in others

Stereotyping - oversimplification Misjudges people—both their personalities and the meaning oftheir actions

Northbrook

• Community Mobilization to Prevent School Violence

• 2-Day Intervention with Follow Up

• Prediction of Social Aggression Build Up

• Involvement of a Private Foundation to Fund Peaceful Schools

• Prediction of a National Embarrassment

The Seemingly Ideal Community

• Lakeshore Community

• No Diversity ( Asian and White)

• All Special Education Farmed Out

• Parents Over involved in Achievement

• Hi demand on Children to Excel

• Dismissive School

National News for a Week: Hazing in Northbrook

Mentalization Based Therapy(MBT)

• Implicit Mentalization

• Explicit Mentalization (Autobiographical Agency)

• Attachment and Affective Mentalization

• Secure Attachment Relationship (Therapist)

Mentalization Based Approach to the Multi-Problem Family

• Long term psychotherapy at home and in the school as part of a child protective service plan with medical supervision focusing on the mentalizing approach to psychotherapy, previously described;

• Strong involvement of the community and state agencies in creating supportive and reparative networks to support the multi-problem family;

• Long term expressive play therapy for vulnerable and traumatized children;

• Parenting education and safety planning as part of the therapy;• Multi-disciplinary treatment planning;• Role-modeling of mentalizing and non-coercive power management

in all therapists;• Development of a long-term, non-coercive relationship with the

care-delivery system.

HELPFUL (ALTRUISTIC)BYSTANDING

MENTALIZATION

SOCIAL DISCONNECTION

COERCIVE POWER DYNAMICS

VIOLENCE

Primary Prevention

Secondary Prevention

Tertiary Prevention

Socio-Psychodynamic Model of Community Health

Individual Needs Dominate

Group Needs Dominate