Helping Families with Violence, Incest, Gang Involvement and Many Other Issues Using the Collaborative Change Model

In this episode, Mary Jo discussed her background in community psychology, which lead her to start her career working with child abuse, leading to a lifelong career working with interpersonal violence, family therapy, and community interventions. Mary Jo discusses her Collaborative Change Model (CCM), which is a meta-model, being concept driven , as opposed to intervention based. The two main concepts are how to collaborate and integrate the therapist, clients resources and timing. In timing, she discusses both the timing of what you’re doing session to session, but also the timing in the session, based on whether we need to expand or contract following a rhythm to stay attuned and connected to our clients. She discussed how transparent she is with her clients, discussing the model and direction, and teaching the neuroscience they’re using in the session. She discussed working with clients with domestic violence and incest in a family therapy model, given that most would not do sessions with the offender(s). She discussed how the first phase is creating context, and assessing and establishing safety, then the second phase is challenging patterns and expanding realities, and finally the third phase is consolidation. Mary Jo shared the awareness of the 5 Essential Ingredients for Successful Treatment. We discussed her work with cut-offs between adults and their family members and her specific work with those dynamics, and finally discussed her current project working with gang involved individuals and families on the South Side of Chicago.

Mary Jo Barrett, MSW is the author of Incest: A Multiple Systems Perspective and Treating Complex Trauma: A Relational Blueprint for Collaboration and Change (Psychosocial Stress Series). She is also the Executive Director and co-founder of The Center for Contextual Change, Ltd. and in the past on the faculties of University of Chicago, School of Social Service Administration, The Chicago Center For Family Health, and the Family Institute of Northwestern University. Mary Jo was the Director of Midwest Family Resource and has been working in the field of family violence since 1974. She focuses on the teaching of the Collaborative Stage Model, systemic and feminist treatment of women, adult survivors of sexual abuse and trauma, eating disorders, couple therapy, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and Compassion Fatigue.