The Work of a School Psychologist: Between Science and Intuition

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The Work of a School Psychologist Between
Science and Intuition

• Bernhard Meissner
• meissner_at_ispaweb.org

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Hypothesis 1

• What is the difference between a professional
  therapist and psychological everyday talent?
• The professional knows why he does what.
• Ludwig Pongratz

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Hypothesis 2

• There are two kinds of truths
• One is objective
• It works things you can measure
• One is subjective
• It comprises the universe of an individual human
  being
• Ruth Cohn

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A Biography in Portraits The View of Artists
A Photo Exact Reality
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About Truth

• Ghandi Truth is soft like a flower and hard like
  a diamond
• Niels Bohr A statement ist true if the opposite
  is not true,
• a truth ist true if the opposite is true as
  well.
• Novalis All truth is ancient.
• We are more closely connected with the invisible
  than with the visible.
• Saint-Exupery We see best with our hearts.

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Henri Matisse, The Red Studio Things become
what they are to me when I see them together
with the color red.
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A parable

• A man tried to find the truth
• Tell them I am young and beautiful

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Salvadore Dali The Persistence of Memory
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The goals of psychology as a science

• Tests
• Well designed, following scientific rules
• There are probabilities of validity, reliability,
  objectivity
• BUT
• Results must be interpreted for the individual
• Best one IQ Others less stable and reliebale.
• Reuven Feuerstein

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Joan Miro The Birth of the World
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The whole picture?

• Parable of the Elefant
• Two blind men are holding parts of an elefant.
  One is holding the tail, the other the trunk.
  They need to figure out between them what animal
  they are holding. One man thinks the animal is
  very thin. The other thinks the animal is large
  and thick and makes a trumpeting noise. Between
  them they cannot arrive at a picture of the real
  animal. Each of them knows too small a part.

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Response To Intervention RTI

• An excellent concept
• Scientifically based
• Data based
• Continually surveyed
• Realistic when looking at the work load?
• Can interventions be scientific?
• True
• Do not show me the way but go it with me!

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Gustav Klimt, Hope II
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Counseling - Consultation
Often our interventions are based based on
elements from therapy.

• The lamp post story by Garbarino
• Systematic
• Behaviorist
• Psycho-dynamic
• Educational
• Political

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Claudio NaranjoThe End of Patriarchy

• It is enough to be a seeker to help others on
  their way.
• Education for obedience in patriachic society,
  without teaching how to integrate three persons
  represented in our brains is terribly wrong.
• Universities educate teachers only through
  cognitive channel. But education for teachers
  must be holistic.

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TheThree Hats of School Psychologists

• Teaching
• Counseling consulting
• Organizing work with institutions

If this is true, what does it mean for the most
challenging profession a psychologist can choose?
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Gustav Klimt The Park
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What about Spirituality?

• In science we speak of the brain, not of the mind
  or of the soul.
• Is love the most important power? How can you
  make sure that you love someone, or someone loves
  you? What is love?
• We know how important belief is but what about
  wrong beliefs?
• Self fulfilling prophecy

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Misleading experience

• An example
• Parents are to choose one of three levels of
  education for their children at the age of 10.
• The father had had a very strict and demanding
  father His school career had been rather
  difficult.
• The mother managed to make her way through the
  highest level of education without too much
  trouble

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Wisteria arbor
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A Therapeuts Parable

• The doctor looked out of the side window at the
  pleasant wisteria arbor in the yard. The arbor
  had been planted there so that her patients would
  have something to look at from the office. Over
  the years she had come to use the twisted
  wisteria branches as a metaphor in her therapy.
• The branches have twisted to accommodate the
  obstacle of the woodframe. If you remove the
  frame, the branches will begin to grow straight.
  But they will always bear the trace of the twist
  caused by the obstacle. This is the way our
  character works. Now that our childhood stresses
  and conflicts are behind us, we are free to grow
  in any direction we like. We will always bear the
  trace of those early twists and turns, but they
  need not determine the direction our future will
  take. The purpose of therapy is to teach the
  branches that the obstacle is gone.
• David Zeman, The Pinocchio Syndrom

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Few
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Organizational Psychology

• Can its use change anything?
• Or is it up to coincidence who is in charge of
  administration of school psychology and the
  educational system?
• How can we help schools develop into supporting
  systems in societies which often lack support for
  the weak?

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Feedback after 25 years of inservice training
for postgraduates
They are grateful for
a humanistic model and attitude
good humor
understand different perspectives
It was okay to do some things differently
logic and structure
stimulate self reflection and be a model for it
free floating attention
a teacher who is a supporting colleague
dare open sincere processes
If you are really in empathetic contact with a
client you will find the right words and
interventions.
encouragement
support for growing and becoming self assured
everyone is special
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Concluding questions

• How can you help others without knowing the
  truth?
• How can you gather enough experience in order to
  fill in the gap between known and unknown
  variables?
• Psycho-education tells the client Its your own
  choice.
• How can you teach wisdom you gained?

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Some of my Conclusions

• Be aware of own subjectivity
• Find out about yourself in supervision or
  therapy.
• Inform about probabilties, opportunities, and
  risks, your personal bias.
• Support independent choice.
• Trial (well founded guess) error interventions
• Check effect of interventions.
• Do not teach the truth. Be open to new
  truths.
• Be a model.