Sasha the Trained Seal & the Fish!
Clients who conform in order to get through treatment, just do what they have to do and parrot back what they believe the therapist wants to hear, are sometimes referred to as TRAINED SEALS!! Most therapists in the field have entertained this phenomena, tried to work around it. Makes me think of what I called the PATHFINDER PARADOX. When I worked in outpatient sex offender treatment as the Clinical Director, administering and interpreting psych testing, I noticed a strange phenomena which seemed counter-intuitive at first. The tests administered at both the beginning and near the end of treatment were the MMPI-2 and MCMI-3. I started to notice that clients I thought were doing well in treatment, really learning to own and manage their issues, didn’t look better on their completion testing, but actually sometimes significantly worse. On the other hand, clients I had doubts about, but who had jumped through all the hoops and dotted all the “i’s” looked great, even improved!
At some point it dawned on me that a hard-working client who was engaging in core-level change should look worse in their completion testing. After all, they were now acknowledging issues they didn’t want to touch when they first entered treatment, and, they were also now managing those issues - they were accountable! They were owning a much broader spectrum of their psychological and emotional liabilities - taking them seriously - they were developing emotional intelligence and integrity. Many of the clients who looked good or better as they neared completion knew the lingo, what to say and what not to say, and could give the ‘right impression” while cursing out treatment on their way down the stairs after group, where the therapists couldn’t hear them.
Sometimes it pays to just put it out there: “We got Trained Seals in the room folks, perhaps even trying to steer the leadership of the group - set a negative norm!” At that point, you, the therapist, can show the trained seal: wind it up, put it on the floor, let it do its tricks for a minute or so. Then, you can open your bag and pull out the fish and toss it out onto the floor in the center of the group: “If we got trained seals, it’s only right that we feed them!!” Nuff said!!
Available in 3 configurations:
SASHA only!
SASHA with small fish (5 inches)!
SASHA with large fish! (12 inches)!
Clients who conform in order to get through treatment, just do what they have to do and parrot back what they believe the therapist wants to hear, are sometimes referred to as TRAINED SEALS!! Most therapists in the field have entertained this phenomena, tried to work around it. Makes me think of what I called the PATHFINDER PARADOX. When I worked in outpatient sex offender treatment as the Clinical Director, administering and interpreting psych testing, I noticed a strange phenomena which seemed counter-intuitive at first. The tests administered at both the beginning and near the end of treatment were the MMPI-2 and MCMI-3. I started to notice that clients I thought were doing well in treatment, really learning to own and manage their issues, didn’t look better on their completion testing, but actually sometimes significantly worse. On the other hand, clients I had doubts about, but who had jumped through all the hoops and dotted all the “i’s” looked great, even improved!
At some point it dawned on me that a hard-working client who was engaging in core-level change should look worse in their completion testing. After all, they were now acknowledging issues they didn’t want to touch when they first entered treatment, and, they were also now managing those issues - they were accountable! They were owning a much broader spectrum of their psychological and emotional liabilities - taking them seriously - they were developing emotional intelligence and integrity. Many of the clients who looked good or better as they neared completion knew the lingo, what to say and what not to say, and could give the ‘right impression” while cursing out treatment on their way down the stairs after group, where the therapists couldn’t hear them.
Sometimes it pays to just put it out there: “We got Trained Seals in the room folks, perhaps even trying to steer the leadership of the group - set a negative norm!” At that point, you, the therapist, can show the trained seal: wind it up, put it on the floor, let it do its tricks for a minute or so. Then, you can open your bag and pull out the fish and toss it out onto the floor in the center of the group: “If we got trained seals, it’s only right that we feed them!!” Nuff said!!
Available in 3 configurations:
SASHA only!
SASHA with small fish (5 inches)!
SASHA with large fish! (12 inches)!
Clients who conform in order to get through treatment, just do what they have to do and parrot back what they believe the therapist wants to hear, are sometimes referred to as TRAINED SEALS!! Most therapists in the field have entertained this phenomena, tried to work around it. Makes me think of what I called the PATHFINDER PARADOX. When I worked in outpatient sex offender treatment as the Clinical Director, administering and interpreting psych testing, I noticed a strange phenomena which seemed counter-intuitive at first. The tests administered at both the beginning and near the end of treatment were the MMPI-2 and MCMI-3. I started to notice that clients I thought were doing well in treatment, really learning to own and manage their issues, didn’t look better on their completion testing, but actually sometimes significantly worse. On the other hand, clients I had doubts about, but who had jumped through all the hoops and dotted all the “i’s” looked great, even improved!
At some point it dawned on me that a hard-working client who was engaging in core-level change should look worse in their completion testing. After all, they were now acknowledging issues they didn’t want to touch when they first entered treatment, and, they were also now managing those issues - they were accountable! They were owning a much broader spectrum of their psychological and emotional liabilities - taking them seriously - they were developing emotional intelligence and integrity. Many of the clients who looked good or better as they neared completion knew the lingo, what to say and what not to say, and could give the ‘right impression” while cursing out treatment on their way down the stairs after group, where the therapists couldn’t hear them.
Sometimes it pays to just put it out there: “We got Trained Seals in the room folks, perhaps even trying to steer the leadership of the group - set a negative norm!” At that point, you, the therapist, can show the trained seal: wind it up, put it on the floor, let it do its tricks for a minute or so. Then, you can open your bag and pull out the fish and toss it out onto the floor in the center of the group: “If we got trained seals, it’s only right that we feed them!!” Nuff said!!
Available in 3 configurations:
SASHA only!
SASHA with small fish (5 inches)!
SASHA with large fish! (12 inches)!