Breaking free: Secrets to transforming criminal thinking

Welcome to today's presentation. We're going to be going over criminogenic thinking. So over the course of the next hour, we're going to define criminogenic thinking patterns, compare and contrast criminogenic and addictive thinking patterns. We'll identify behaviors employed because of these thinking patterns and explore the benefits to these behaviors and thinking patterns. Then we'll identify interventions to address these patterns and try to help our clients move from relapse and recidivism to recovery. So some of the characteristics that we've talked about in our previous discussions of people who either are involved in the criminal justice system and or have addictions, low self control. And we use that term, we define that term when we're talking about theories of criminal behavior referring to impulsivity and inability to delay gratification. They want what they want and they want it now. There's not a whole lot of thinking between wanting and getting. So this ability to delay gratification, to ride the wave, whatever you want to call it, is one of the characteristics. And we're going to go over these. I want you to kind of put yourself in the mindset of this person so you can understand why he or she may behave this way. Defensive and. Or manipulative. And I put those together for a reason. Because our clients, who are smarter, and it's not necessarily IQ smart, it may be street smart, can be a lot more charming and manipulative when they feel like they're getting backed into a corner or being criticized and they can kind of work their way out of situations. Whereas some of our other clients who are not as savvy may become more defensive and aggressive and push people away instead of finagling out of the situation. So defensive or manipulative here and now, orientation, not really thinking about what the consequences are going to be a week from now, a year from now, or thinking about what the consequences have been in the past. Poor interpersonal skills, especially when it relates to the willingness to employ empathy and healthy communication skills. Some people have the ability for empathy and they've just locked it down because they feel like they've been done wrong so many times and they feel like they've been hurt so many times, they're just like, you know, heck with it, I'm done. And communication skills. Some people have them and don't employ them, others just don't have them. But it's important to understand that we can teach people how to empathize. It's something that we see in preschool classes when teachers are Helping the children learn how to take someone else's perspective. And they say, you know, how do you think Johnny felt when you hit him? And the little kid goes, I don't know. And she says, okay, well how would you feel if Johnny hit you? Well, then he knows how that would feel. Empathy is helping the person figure out how to take that perspective. Like I said, some people just never learn that skill. They're never really taught that skill. And it's kind of there, but it needs to be developed as we develop low self esteem. You know, if you've got poor interpersonal skills, you don't feel good about yourself, you're impulsive, you have an inability to delay gratification. And we'll just jump down to your coping skills are ineffective. You may feel hopeless and helpless and frustrated a lot of the time, which may contribute to low self esteem. Very few of the clients that I've worked with in the past two decades have come in and had great coping skills, great communication skills, and great self esteem. You know, the communication skills may be there and they may be used for manipulation as opposed to actually stating what they're feeling. So that self awareness is another thing we're going to talk about. So kind of getting into the mind of how our clients feeling when they come to us. In the last presentation, I made the point that for many of our clients, even if they haven't been caught, they are breaking the law. One way or another, they're breaking the law. DUIs, using illicit substances, there's a whole laundry list of things they may be doing. So I don't want to draw an artificial line between addicts and lawbreakers because these are people who are engaging in the similar behaviors. And we're going to talk some more about that. Whoops. Oh yeah. So when we talk about criminal thinking patterns, we think about closed channel thinking. And the same thing with addictive thinking patterns. And I'm going to go through and define each one of these as we go through the presentation. Now, a criminal thinking pattern. The person who is using this thinking pattern has a victim stance. Everybody's against them, there's nothing they can do, but they feel more angry and irritated sometimes. Whereas the addict has more of a self pity stance. Oh, poor me, you know, look what happened to me, as opposed to look what you did to me. The good person stance, the criminal thinking pattern says I'm a good person. You know, I may have done a whole lot of bad things, but overall I'm a good person and I'm going to focus on all the good things I've done and ignore any of the bad ones. Same thing with the person who is really into their addiction. Both of them tend to think they are unique. They can get away with things other people can't get away with. They're smarter than other people are, they are different. You just couldn't possibly understand what they've gone through. And they justify a lot of their actions by being so unique. Fear of exposure is prominent in both of them, both the addict and the criminal, if you will. Really have a very low self esteem, a very, very little ego strength. So this fear of exposure is the fact that somebody may realize that they are vulnerable. Vulnerability is not acceptable in criminal thinking patterns in criminal circles. And fear of exposure in the addiction may be fear of exposure of the addiction and you know, potential loss of that, but also fear of exposure for all the things the person has done because they feel really bad about all the things they've done. But they're not going to tell you about them because they're going to try to put on this facade being perfect. Lack of time, perspective. That's the. I need it, I need it now and you need to do it for me now. Thank you very much. Not being willing to take perspective of what's going on for other people. Selective effort. I'm going to put effort into what I want to. In criminal thinking patterns, there's the use of power to control. I am going to sort of bully you into doing this, that and the other, or I am going to manipulate you through the use of money, drugs, sex, you know, something that provides power in that particular social circle. Use of deceit to control is more of the way the addict goes about getting control. Lying, manipulating, rationalizing, justifying. There's not as much power exertion. The criminal seeks excitement and sort of that rush, that power again, we're back to power. They're wanting to feel like they're dominant. The addict wants the pain to stop. And so, you know, in this particular presentation, we're going to talk about seeking pleasure first. They want the pain to stop. They want to feel, they want to feel normal. For a lot of our clients, it's not feeling good, it's just feeling normal. And both tend to take an ownership stance at a certain point of everything, relationships, people, events, it's just, it's all about a transaction because they've divorced themselves emotionally from so much of what's going on. So closed channel thinking, which is common to both people are not receptive to constructive feedback and they're not self critical so you can't provide. And I mean think about in a treatment setting, in a residential treatment setting with someone who has closed channel thinking and they're not receptive to constructive feedback and they're not able to give them self contrast constructive feedback. So the counselors are really kind of in a quandary because it's really hard to work with a person who's not willing to look at anything and there's no disclosure. It's like I am. Remember we talked about the good person. I'm going to tell you about all the good stuff I've done, but all the stuff that I'm ashamed of or all the stuff that I don't feel so good about, I'm not going to tell you. Which goes down to lies by omission. I don't remember what I got pulled over for, I don't remember why I lost my license or you know, when you ask about trauma or being the victim or perpetrator of a traumatic incident or abuse, that's none of your business. If you have someone and this happens in residential treatment, I can tell you I experienced it when people would come home from either work phase or they would come home from being out on furlough and they were late or when we called in to check up on them, they weren't where they were supposed to be. And the response was always something like, well, I didn't lie. I told you I wasn't at X, Y and Z. I just didn't tell you what I was really doing. So these lies by omission are justified as being truthful. And we need to help our clients understand that lies by omission are still lies and, and lies by omission to others as well as yourself are still lies. So when we're talking about, and we're going to take a little detour to like 12 step philosophy here, when we're talking about step one, when we're talking about getting honest about what's going on, people need to be honest with themselves and they need to tell themselves everything that they want to know and everything they don't want to know. So this lies by omission and lies by commission are really important in the early treatment process. Helping people understand and identify their justification and minimization patterns. Closed channel thinking. These people are good at pointing out and giving feedback on the faults of others. Why? Because they don't want to look at their own stuff. They want to paint this facade of being perfect. And if I'm going to paint this facade of being perfect, you can't look too close. So if I don't want you to look too close, I need you to look everywhere else. So I'm going to point out and give feedback on the faults of others, whether it be staff members or other clients or, you know, Jim Bob that I work with, just to get you talking about something besides me. Some of the ways people exemplify this is by saying, saying to somebody else, well, if you would have done this, that or the other, then I wouldn't have. It's your fault that I did this, or you have no room to talk about me when you fell in the blank. And we hear this a lot in treatment groups, we hear this a lot. You know, even. Even with staff and helping staff understand the function of this behavior is a protective mechanism. When the person starts to feel threatened, when they start to feel vulnerable or exposed, they are going to try to protect themselves, which may mean putting you on the defensive. It may be pointing out other people's fault, it may be trying to distract. It may be lies by omission. There are a whole host of things, but basically this closed channel says, I am going to focus on all the things good about me, not focus on anything that needs to be fixed because there's just so much there, it's overwhelming. And if you try to go there, I'm going to make sure to, you know, throw up as many hurdles as possible. So the benefit of this behavior is it's protective. Most of our clients really rely on external validation. They rely on other people to tell them you're okay. So if they show vulnerability, if they show that they're less than perfect, it can really be very threatening to their self esteem, which is weak at best. You know, they have no ego strength. They can't say, you know, I'm good, I make mistakes, but overall, I'm a good person and believe it. Now, they may say it, but getting them to say it and believe it are two different things. Victim stance, viewing themselves as victims, they have this extremely external locus of control. They're going to blame everybody else for their problems. What's the benefit to this? They don't have to look at their own part in it. They don't have to accept responsibility. Why? Why would somebody do that? Because if they accept responsibility for making a mistake, it means they're not perfect. You see, we keep going back to, I have this very, very thinly veiled facade of perfection that I want to show to you because I want you to approve of me and I want to, you know, not feel vulnerable. So if anything starts to unveil any vulnerabilities, I am going to try to react, to protect myself. So this is the benefit. Sometimes it's true, you know, nobody will give me a chance. Well, you have 17 felony convictions. So what was your part in that? We need to help them identify all or nothing cognitive distortions. Nobody will give me a chance. Nobody that you want to work for right now will give you a chance. There are places I've never been in a city where there wasn't somewhere where someone with a felony record could get employment. It may just not be what they want to be doing. So, you know, we want to look at finding the exceptions. The fact that very few things ever, always or never occur. We want to identify the things that. That the person has control over. Okay, you have 17 felony convictions. You know, let's say they're all for possession, none for sale, none for violent crimes, none for anything like that. Okay, so let's go with that. What do you have control over? You have control over not getting another criminal violation. You have control over what you do from here on out. Now, what can we do about this criminal record that you have? Can you get your record expunged? Can you get it sealed? You know, with 17, probably not, but we can start looking with pro bono legal counsel at options that the person has. We can also start looking with, like, local workforce development. I was talking on Tuesday about the fact that certain workforce development boards in certain states will actually take out a bond on people who have criminal backgrounds in order to help them get employment. That way, whoever hires them isn't taking a risk that something bad is going to happen and it's going to come back and bite them in the butt. It gives the person who's trying to do the next right thing. An opportunity protects the potential employer, and it also gives the workforce development board the ability to help people not recidivate. Because. Yeah, I mean, if somebody keeps going out and keeps trying and keeps getting smacked back down again, I mean, you know, in my mind, if you remember that game that we played when we were kids, whack a mole. That's how some of our clients, you know, that's how I envision them feeling. A lot of times they pop their head up and they get smacked back down again. And, you know, at a certain point, you just want to come out of the hole. So we need to help them find exceptions. We need to help them identify things that they do have control over. And part of that is linkages or whatever you want to call it. But it is really important for both the person with the addiction who maybe hasn't been caught and has no criminal record, and the person with a criminal record who likely also has some addiction issues, blames others. Well, okay, so what's the motive? What's the benefit? What's the motivation? If I'm blaming you, then I don't have to take responsibility. I don't have to admit vulnerability. I can, you know, try to get away with and get out from under, manipulate you from providing any sort of punishment for whatever it was. So what's the intervention here? And we see this a lot in residential and Iop treatment. It's really important to help change this dialogue that people have. When something goes wrong, the first thing they do is want to blame someone else. Well, when something goes wrong, the first thing you need to do is ask yourself, what was my part in it? Used to drive me bonkers. My first supervisor, and I mean, I love him to death, I worked under him for 14 years. He was really taught me everything I know about supervision. But I would go in there after, you know, we'd get a complaint from one of the clients or something, and I'd have to go in and tell him what happened and our corrective action and yada yada. His response to me was always, you know, I got this complaint. What did your staff do to bring it on? And I'm like, oh, that worked like twice. And then I realized that, you know, I had to answer that question first. I had to look at the three fingers pointing back at me or my staff before I started talking about the two fingers pointing out at the clients. So we want to role play the other person's position to understand their motivation. If you're going to blame this person for whatever they did, let's put ourselves in their position and try to figure out why did they do what they did. And then the three finger rule. When you point out your index finger and your thumb are pointing towards whomever, but the other three fingers are folded back at you. So what part did you have in it? I would never get out of that meeting without identifying what our staff could have done better. Because we all make mistakes. And, you know, sometimes it was very minuscule what staff could have done a little bit differently. But there were always, there's always room for improvement. Likewise, there were generally some treatment issues to be addressed with the client. It wasn't just my staff's fault. You know, I had a really good staff, but it Also wasn't just the client's fault. It was a whole bunch of factors that went together and we had at any one point in time it was a co educational residential adult treatment facility and we had 86 beds. So I mean it wasn't like they were crammed in on top of each other. So there were tensions that got kind of raised a certain point. So we need to look at what's the motivation and benefit. They view themselves as a good person focusing only on their positive attributes. Well, I don't want to talk about my negative attributes. Do you go into a job interview and go, hey, let me tell you all the things that I'm really bad at so we have it all out on the table. No, you try to downplay those a little bit. Same sort of thing. When you have a person who has a low self esteem, who is trying to integrate into a treatment center, into a job, into a social setting, they're going to start focusing on their positive attributes. If you don't feel good about yourself, you're probably not ever going to volunteer the negative ones, which leads to failing to acknowledge destructive behavior. When we talk about addictions, we talk about people trying to cover up and hide what they've been doing. When we talk about criminal behavior, same sort of thing. You don't go home on Sunday to your mama's house for dinner and go, well, I knocked over a liquor store this weekend and no, it's not something you're going to be out and out sharing. You're going to be sharing the fact that hey, I have money to help you pay your rent this weekend. We're not going to talk about where it came from. They build themselves up at others expense. You know, all else fails, push other people down so you look better. Interventions, the constructive feedback sandwich. When we talk with clients or when we have clients talk about themselves, start with something positive. What did you do right in this situation? Then go to whatever needs addressing what could have been done a little bit better and how and then follow up with, you know, overall it sounds like you did these things correctly and, or you know, you're happy about these things, but you could do a little bit of improvement on this. So you want to start with a positive, focus on the construction or reconstruction and then end with a positive. That way the person walks out feeling empowered, not smack back down like the whack a mole. Explore feedback as a specific information about a changeable behavior. A lot of our clients, when we point out a fault, when we point out maybe that they are not participating in group, you know, something, or they don't seem to be engaged in the process. That's vague. Anyway, so we want to give them examples of what makes me think you're not engaged in the process. But we also want them to understand that I know you want to be here for one reason or another. And if a client is in treatment, if a client is in, you know, on papers, on probation and parole and doing the next right thing, they want to be there for a reason. Now, it may not be to get clean, it may just be to get off papers, but they want to be there right now. So let's talk about the fact that I want to help you achieve your goal, whether it's get off probation, get clean, or both. So let's focus on this behavior because it's not you as a person that's a failure. It's not you as a person that I'm saying anything negative about. It's the fact that I'm not feeling like you're engaged because of these, you know, three, three things that I've seen. Always bring it back to a specific changeable behavior and make sure the person doesn't take it as a global, internal, stable character trait. You're stupid, you're lazy, you're sloppy, you're a criminal, whatever. We don't want them to take that away because hopefully that's not how we feel about them. Lack of effort or selective effort, Unwilling to do anything he or she finds boring or disagreeable. Well, you know, there's a lot of stuff that I don't want to do and that I may find boring or disagreeable. And just. If you're a parent, think about when you're working with your kids, trying to get them to do chores or trying to get them to do homework, there's selective effort. We all have it. It's not just a trait of an addict or someone in the criminal justice system. So the question is, why won't you do it? Why is it not rewarding or beneficial to you? And what is it that you have to do? What's the minimum to get by in order to feel okay about it? Well, it's boring. We do things because there's a reward. Let's just be frank about it. We do things because there's a reward. If you're going to work every day, working a minimum wage job, out in the heat, sweating your butt off, working for somebody you really hate, yeah, I can see why you might not want to go to work. So we need to look at what's keeping you from wanting to do this? Some interventions, because there are things that are disagreeable that we just have to do. The pre Mac principle says if you take something that is unpleasant, like homework, and pair it with something pleasant or have that reward available immediately after finishing the task, it's more likely for the task to be done. Now, I'm not going to say that this was the best pairing in the world, but it was one that I did in college. I would do a subject of homework and then I would reward myself with some sort of dessert type treat. Thankfully, I only took three classes at a time or I would have weighed 300 pounds. But the pre Mac principle says, let's pair it with something pleasant. Another example of that is when they've done some studies recently and opened some programs where they take children who have either attention deficit disorder or dyslexia who have a hard time focusing and especially focusing on reading. And they pair that with animal therapy. And so the children read to the dogs or the children have the dog there to pet while they read to themselves. And for a lot of kids, having that animal there and available is reward enough to make it not unbearable. Decisional balance exercises. Go through whatever it is and say, okay, what are the pros to doing this behavior? Because, you know, we're talking about it because there are some reasons it needs to be done, like paying bills. The pros to paying bills? Well, you keep your lights on the drawbacks of paying bills. You may not have the money for it. What are the pros to avoiding paying the bill? You keep your lights on for a little bit longer, but you may have fees or, you know, and then what are the, what are the drawbacks to putting it off? So do a decisional balance exercise with them and help them tip that scale. Help them make it so it's less unpleasant, the more rewarding choice, however you want to put it, is to do the behavior. And finally you can explore what it means to do the task. You know, I said earlier about having a job that you really, really hate. What is it about this job you hate and what does it mean to you? I've worked with clients before who have been adamant, you know, they've been 40, 45, 50 years old, and they've been adamant that they're not going to take an entry level position and doing anything, and they won't work anywhere for less than, you know, $20 an hour. So we have to talk about, well, what does it mean to have an entry level job to you at this Point, you know, and most of the time it comes down to I'm older than most of the supervisors there, I've had jobs that have paid more than that, yada, yada, yada. But exploring what it means to that person, then exploring how they can make it tolerable, maybe viewing it as a means to an end. Sometimes you have to take jobs you don't like just to prove that you're employable. So let's look at this as a job and not a career. You're in it for 18 months and then what can you do? How will that change the picture for you? So help them start looking at what it means to them to do the task. Help them maybe reframe that a little bit, as opposed to being a hit to their self esteem and being embarrassing and shameful. You know, the fact that they're doing the work is good. The fact that they're able to get there and show up and be a good employee is awesome. And they're building up their reputation. Responsible living is viewed as unexciting and unsatisfying. Well, yeah, that's true some of the time. So there's no sense of obligation. We talk about this every single week. That dopamine reward has got to be engaged. Now, it's not going to be the same reward as, you know, methamphetamine or cocaine. We're not going to get that kind of a rush. But we have to have a sense of satisfaction out of whatever we're doing. So helping people identify what responsible living looks like for them and why it's good. It may not be exciting, but let's look at why it might be satisfying to do the next right thing and learning how to defray or delay gratification. Because there's not always an immediate payoff, you know, like we were talking about on the last slide. Sometimes you've got to build up to getting to where you want to be. And how can you do that? How can you endure that 18 months while you're demonstrating that you are employable and you are clean and sober and going to continue to do the next right thing? What's the motivation to living irresponsibly? Well, it's definitely easier and more fun in some ways. Again, we want to look at the Premack principle. How can you make some of the things that you hate less unpleasant? And how can you make some of the things that you enjoy kind of coincide with doing those things? Laundry, for example. I really, really don't like putting away laundry. I don't mind washing it or folding it, but I hate putting it away. That's why I had children. No, I jest. But so now whenever I do laundry, I fold it and then I watch. I have the TV on in the bedroom while I'm putting away clothes. Makes it a little bit more tolerable for me because I don't feel like it's just drudgery. Lack of time, perspective. Now, this is one of my little pet topics, if you will. Some people don't use the past as a learning tool because they just don't choose to look back on the past and go, that was a bonehead mistake. Okay? Those people can use the past as a learning tool so they don't make the same choice. Some people cannot learn from the past and cannot forecast future consequences. They are just not cognitively capable of doing that. And these are our clients who have some level of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. If you look at somebody's rap sheet and it's petit theft, petit theft, petty theft, petty theft. And it's just ongoing. It's like they commit the same crime and they pretty much do it the same way. And they keep getting caught by the same cops. And they don't seem to learn either how to get better at it or the fact that it's not going to be beneficial to them. That's when we start going, okay, let's look at this. What would be the motivation to doing the same thing over and over and over again just to get caught over and over and over again? Sometimes they can't forecast the fact that, oh, if I do that this time, I'm going to get caught this time. As clinicians, you know, a multidisciplinary team really needs to diagnose fasd. But we can do a brief screening. You know, if mom drank while she was pregnant, then we might want to refer to back to a physician who will also refer to a neurologist and yada, yada, yada to get the diagnosis of fasd. But it is something that I strongly advocate people who are working with persons in the criminal justice system or persons with addictions to be aware of. Because guess what? A lot of these people were born to parents or born to moms who were drinking. Not all of them, but there's a percentage there. So let's rule it out. There are ways that we can address FASD and help people with FASD live a higher quality of life. Same thing with things like schizophrenia, but we have to address it first. Lack of time perspective says this person expects others to act immediately on his or her demands. How many times have you been in a session or, you know, just sitting in your office doing paperwork, and a client barges in and just, you know, starts talking and tells you what they need to have done? Right now, my first reaction is go back outside and knock. Setting boundaries. Helping clients learn to delay gratification is really important in recovery, because both in the addicted world, the street world, whatever you want to call it, the criminal justice world that is dominated by power, you know, barging into somebody's office and telling them what you need them to do is the way they. They interact. That is the communication style with people with addictions, Whether or not it comes from the criminal mentality or it comes from the addiction, that impulsivity, inability to. To delay gratification. I want it now, therefore, you need to do it for me. Now, we need to point out that that doesn't work. We need to help them understand that decisions on assumptions and feelings are not facts. A lot of our clients will make decisions. If it makes them angry, they're going to get revenge. If it makes them upset, they are going to get even. Now they're acting completely based on a guttural, instinctual reaction that may be completely overgeneralized. So this lack of time, perspective, we want to say, okay, we need to slow down. You are in this adrenaline rush right now. Let's wait, you know, 90 seconds to three minutes until this passes, and then let's talk about the facts and make a decision based on facts, not just feelings. We want to explore relapses and re offending for commonalities. If they're not learning from the past. We want to point out these commonalities and go, hmm. I worked with one client for a long time who would go through treatment, and he'd do really well for a couple of months, and then he'd get into a relationship. Relationship would go south. He would relapse. Now, we went through this like seven or eight times. And so we pulled him aside and we said, let's look at this pattern. What is the commonality that you see now, how you handle that and how you help him make different choices is, you know, going to be up to the client and what works for them. But we do want to help them identify, you know, what are certain triggers with this particular person? You know, he might be an outpatient. He was in outpatient counseling after he'd get out of residential, and we had a piano down in the day room, and we knew. I mean, it was like clockwork if he went down there and started playing on the piano, that told us that things were going south for him in whatever relationship was happening and he was on his way to relapse. So help him identify relapse triggers. The same thing can be true for reoffending. Reoffending is really relapsing into criminal behavior, whereas relapsing is relapsing into addictive behavior, which are very similar. They don't come from out of the clear blue. People start feeling disempowered, disenchanted, long before they go back to their old way of acting and behaving, which was, guess what? Evidently more rewarding. We want to provide training on problem solving using the wise mind. Help them understand it is not smart to make long term decisions under a short term adrenaline rush. The best thing they can learn to say is, give me a couple minutes and I'll get back to you. When it comes to anything, whether it's helping a friend move or whether you want to take a job or whatever the case may be, and have them practice perspective taking. You know, the example I gave of somebody barging into my office in residential treatment, you know, you're around each other 24 7. So they get used to staff being there. And one of the things we had to set up was the fact that we can't just respond to crises at the drop of a hat. I mean, urgent ones, obviously we can, but clients tend to make crises where no crises exist. So we set up times where they would meet with their primary clinician at the beginning and end of the day so they wouldn't be going into my staff's office constantly, because staff couldn't get anything done. When we first implemented this, obviously there was some blowback because the clients were used to being able to do what they wanted and get their needs met right then and there. So we talked about how that was part of the addictive process, but we also had them practice perspective taking. You know, if imagine that they were in the middle of doing something and somebody barged in and said, you need to do this. It helped them get a perspective on what the counselors were going through. You know, it didn't last for a long time, but at least for a few minutes, they were in the counselor's shoes going, yeah, that can be overwhelming. When you've got demands coming from here and demands coming from here. Fear of fear. If you don't have a strong internal self esteem, a strong internal compass that says, I'm okay, then our basic fears become even more Prominent in our everyday life, fear of loss of control. Loss of control of people. If I don't control you, you may abandon me. If I don't control you, you may see my vulnerabilities and exploit me so I need to control you. Loss of control of situations. If I don't control this situation, you may see that I'm vulnerable or I may become vulnerable and heaven forbid. Loss of control of emotions. Many of our clients really don't like to let it rip. They've gotten used to holding in emotions and everything's just fine. It's all good. When we know good and well is not fine or all good. And if you work in a 12 step sort of orientation, you know that fine is an acronym that represents things that are not exactly fine. I'll let you google what it stands for. Failure and rejection. You know, we all hate to fail. We all, you know, really don't like rejection. For our clients, what they do is who they are. They don't have this internal concept of self that says, I'm okay, I may really suck at this thing over here, but you know, that's all right. So if they fail at something, they fear rejection because they fear it means that they are inadequate. Which leads to this fear of isolation and the unknown. You know, it's hard for someone who needs to control something all the time to be in a situation where they can't anticipate what's going to happen. It makes them very anxious. A lot of this is because they're externally validated. They have low self esteem. They require other people to tell them, you're okay, you're alright, you're a good person. So let's work on self esteem building. Let's work on helping them say, you know, I really actually am a good person and believe it. That's the key. They got to believe it. And they've got to understand, recognize and maybe even celebrate the fact that yeah, they may not be perfect at everything, but that's where, you know, our social relationships are beneficial because there are other people who are good at it. I don't have to be good at everything. I can be good at my stuff, you can be good at your stuff. And you know, we put our stuff together and maybe we can actually get a project completed. We want to help them learn about these basic fears and fight or flight responses. So when you feel like you're afraid of losing control, how do you react? And I mean you as in the client, help them understand what they do. A lot of times, well, I Can't even say that. Some clients will get aggressive. Some clients will start blaming. Some clients will withdraw. Some clients will just drink themselves into a stupor. Help them identify what they do when they start feeling like they're losing control of something and help them figure out what to do differently. Oh, and going back to that, I'm not going to switch back to that slide. I think it's really important when we work with clients and look at their behaviors and look at what they do do to help them understand that, you know what, that is not serving you really well right now. And there are other options that will serve you better. But that was your survival. That's the best you could do with the tools you had until now, helping them understand that. I'm not judging them because they didn't do it a certain way. You know, they did the best they could. I was in school for a really, really, really long time, so I might have a couple other tools. There are other people who have lived longer than I have who have been through similar situations than that to what they have that may have some other tools that they can share. So it's not the fact that the person is stupid. You know, if anything, their behaviors up until now have shown a desire to survive. And so let's help them survive or let's help them help themselves to survive in a happy, healthy sort of way. Power thrust. This need to be in control of every situation is not always going to happen. What happens if you're not in control? You know, and this is what we always come back to asking our clients, what happens when you're in this position? How does it make you feel? Yeah, that F word comes up a lot. How does it make you feel when you are not in control? Tell me about some other times when you haven't been in control and what happened. So we can look at where they get this feeling from by exploring past experiences and what kind of taught them to think that they need to be in control all the time using manipulation and deceit. Well, if you need to be in control all the time, sometimes you got to use power. Sometimes you got to use cunning. Sometimes you just. You got to do what you got to do, which means they're always looking for an angle to get the upper hand. They need to be in control. They need to have people indebted to them. What's the benefit? They've got the power. They're not vulnerable. They're not vulnerable. And they're not vulnerable to being exposed. Uniqueness. Our clients, you know, either we'll just say clients because, you know, there's so much overlap. Sometimes they think they're different or better than others, and they're just like, I've got this. Have you ever worked with a client who is in recovery from an addictive behavior and they tell you, I don't need 12 step. I don't need support groups. You know, I got this. And in the back of your head, you're going, okay, you didn't even develop a relapse prevention plan. You really don't got this. They think, you know, especially because they've been in residential and they've got 30 days clean and, you know, they've been doing the next right thing. Yeah, they may feel like they've got the world by the tail when you point out the fact that a lot of people feel that way and then, you know, it doesn't end up working out. They feel like they're different. They want to believe they're different. They want to believe they're stronger, smarter, better. Who are you to tell me what to do? Well, you know, I am just a person. And really, I don't want a situation where my clinics, where my clinicians are telling clients what to do. I want them to provide a menu of options and help the client figure out what the best option is. Because we're not going to be there on their shoulder like Jiminy Cricket, telling them what to do all the time. They need to learn the skills for how to do it. And they quit at this first sign of failure. Well, if they think they're different and they think they're better than others, then when they start to fail, it brings it back full circle to show them that, you know what, maybe you're not so different after all. And that's really scary. That's really scary for a lot of our clients, partly because they spend so much time pushing other people down and trying to think that they're better than if they're like those people, they can't handle that. So we need to talk about what it means to be like other people who are in the rooms, like other people who are at support groups, like other people who are in therapy, like other people who are. What does that mean to you? Ownership, attitude. Everything's a transaction or a commodity. It's either money, sex, power and connections, drugs. You know, there are probably other things that. That are out there, but everything is done in order to give me power and make sure that I get what I want when I want it. Helping people step away from that into More of a communal attitude is helpful. But of the behaviors that we're going to be working to address in early therapy, this comes a little bit later. So we're not going to spend a whole lot of time on it. So criminal thinking tactics, continuously pointing out staff inadequacies. Well, we don't want to tell them that they're wrong. We don't want to immediately say, well, what was your part in it? Because, you know, like I said, likely staff did have a part in it, but they did too. So we want to thank them for their input. One of the things you might do if there's one staff member that they continuously point out inadequacies about, you know, maybe supervising, supervising chores. And obviously this is in a residential setting, but if you have that situation, maybe the client can be assigned to help the counselor who's on duty supervising chores and they can be assigned to help that person. The counselor is still in charge, but the counselor is able to tell them, tell the client what needs to be done to ask the client for input. Most of the time, clients don't want to be in that position. They don't want to have that extra responsibility thrust upon them. So it doesn't really reward their behavior as much. Building themselves up by putting others down. Have them identify two positive characteristics about the other person and have them explain what they gained by putting the other person down. Sometimes if you don't have anything nice, it's best to not say anything at all. The caveat to that in treatment situations and in criminal justice situations is if you're talking about a behavior that is disruptive to the environment. Focusing on and helping people focus on behaviors, not people. He's being lazy. Well, that I can't fix that. What is he doing that you find disturbing or offensive that we can talk about? Help them identify what specific behaviors it is telling others what they want to hear. Now, it's hard to correct this one because we all like clients who are really agreeable, but in reality, a lot of times they don't agree with us. So we want to discuss what the benefits are to agreeing to this behavior. When clients used to come into our treatment facility and pick up the pace a little bit, you know, one of the things, it was a 12 step facility, so they had to go to meetings and they say, okay, you know, I'm down with that, I'll get a sponsor, yada, yada, yada. And you can just tell by the way they say it and the look in their eyes that they have no intention of Doing it. So we want to talk about what is the benefit to saying you're going to do something you're not going to do. What can you do differently? Because I'm not really interested in hearing what you're not going to do, but I do want to know what you're going to do differently to meet the same needs and how can you communicate that to me in a way that is effective? Lying and distorting the truth. Help them identify facts for and against the truth. Okay, this happened. So tell me about the facts that support your statement. Tell me about your facts that don't quite align with the statement. Vagueness always require details. Who, what, when, where, why and how. It's when people start to lie, they try to keep it vague a lot of times because then it's easier to go back and try to get you a little bit off kilter. Diverts attention and throws focus. Encourage your staff to firmly stay on focus. You know, know that they're going to try to divert you. Help staff learn how to point out the behavior constructively and examine the motivation. Most of the time they were getting near something the client didn't want to talk about. So help them identify how to handle that. To empower the client to say something like, I'm not comfortable talking about that, as opposed to just changing the focus of the conversation. Putting others on the defensive Regularly use that three finger rule. If somebody's put on the defensive, you know, let's look at their part in it, but let's also look at what your part was. Accusing others of misunderstanding or attempting to confuse them. Document or record important conversations or, and, or have a witness for discussions about important things like behavioral contracts, treatment plans, you know, anything that is crucial. Obviously you can't record everything. You're not going to record treatment sessions. I do suggest that you write the progress note together. End with the goals that the client is going to work on for the next week. Both of you sign it. That way there is no confusion about what was gone over in the session and what the goals were for the coming week. When clients minimize or rationalize, point out the discrepancies and help them understand that, you know, you say this isn't a big deal, but you know, in the past I've seen these other things or you've said keeping your kids is important to you, but the fact that DCF is threatening to take away your parental rights, you're saying it's not a big deal. I'm confused. Examine alternatives. You know, when they say I had no other choice. You always have another choice. Choosing not to do anything is a choice. So what were your other choices now that you're away from it and that adrenaline is gone and you can think because Hindsight is always 2020. What could you have done differently and how might you do it differently next time? You know, I'm not going to beat them up over the past, but I want them to identify what they could improve upon. Agreeing without meaning it. We already kind of talked about that. And ask for them to assert their opinions and their solutions. If they did something right once, that is awesome. But behavior change is an ongoing process. Encourage them to write down and keep a log of all the things they do right. That way when they make a mistake or have a bad day, they can go back and look at it. But it also makes them write down these things so they can see the frequency instead of thinking they're perfect all the time. But it also helps them see that they're doing better Criminogenic need constitutes a dynamic risk factor or attributes that offenders use and these can be changed or influenced the probability of recidivism. So we need to look at these needs that need for self esteem, need for validation, need for power and control. Improve interpersonal skills. Improve communication skills and help them develop sane, sober, stable relationships. Complete decisional balance exercises and use motivational enhancement techniques. Examine motivations for antisocial behavior and identify alternate pro social behaviors or tip the scale so it is less rewarding to break the law. Help them develop self control and self soothing skills and develop skills to avoid or cope with high risk situations. Help them learn to develop responsibility for their own behavior and actions and recognize that those are behaviors and actions, not who they are as a person. Help them modify or at least identify their moral code of reasoning, looking at past behaviors and reasoning for why they were okay then and discussing if those same behaviors are okay now, why or why not? When developing coping skills, use the Learn practice review. Discuss it in group, practice it in the real world, review it back in group and identify anything that needs to be adjusted a little bit. Improve problem solving skills and ensure they're able to meet their basic needs like food, housing, medical care. Here are some resources that you can use. Most people who commit crimes have certain shared cognitive distortions, behaviors and needs. Some of these errors include entitlement, all or nothing thinking, impulsivity and that need for validation. Access to basic housing, food and employment is crucial, as are pro social support systems. Healthy communication and relationship skills can help people develop these things as well as a positive self esteem. It is also crucial to help people succeed by helping them develop a written relapse prevention plan or recidivism prevention plan. 1. Why? Because when they're in crisis, when they are stressed out, when they're angry, when they're in that adrenaline rush, they're not going to be thinking back to ooh, what did so and so say and what did we talk about? It needs to be handy because they are in their own state of crisis so they need a written plan. If the criminal behaviors or substance use are serving to help the person escape or avoid pain and continue to be done despite negative consequences produces physiological or psychological withdrawal, then potentially it could qualify as an addiction itself. Okay, hit fast forward on that one. If you have any questions feel free to put them in the text box. Feel free to send me an email to supportce.com otherwise your quiz is open in the classroom and I hope you have a great rest of your day.