Welcome back for the next journey of The Family Express Podcast with Kathryn de Bruin and Ronda Evans where our destination is resilient and connected families. Today’s guest is Gail Palmer, MSW, RMFT, one of the founders of EFFT. All Aboard !

2:05. (Goal #2) Parental/Caregiver Intent.

4:30. (Goal #1) Parent/Caregiver Buy-In. Clinician advocates for family therapy with parent involvement.

6:40. Stage 1 is about helping the parent to become accessible, responsive and engaged. 

10:10. (Goal #3) - Working with Parental/Caregiver Blocks). Gail and Kathryn talk about why we do the parent work in the order of parental intent first and then parental block(s).

13:00. In Stage 1, we keep the focus on the parent in the parent/caregiving role.

15:15. As Gail says, EFFT is family therapy and it is a child-centered therapy where everything we do with the parent is in service of the child.

19:06. Gail recalls when she approached Sue Johnson with what makes EFFT different from EFCT: there is a power imbalance in the parent-child dyad and children cannot and do not hold equal responsibility for a negative interaction cycle.

19:45. (Goal #4) Parent/Caregiver Accessibility (also called Openness). Once the parent block is processed, then parental accessibility can suddenly show up in session. Gail provides a concrete example of what parental accessibility and openness can sound like in the parent saying "I really want to do this different with you. I really want to listen more."

20:55. Parental accessibility can suddenly show up and can suddenly get blocked again, for example, when once a child shares what has hurt them in their caregiver-child relationship, -- the caregiver can experience shame, grief, emotional pain, their own childhood attachment wounds or negative model of self.

19:55. Ronda slows down the conversation here. Gail describes that when children risk and open up, then the parent can get blocked.

25:15. Gail describes that there is a skill set for catching when a kid risks and opens up and the parent gets blocked. Gail describes skills of making the moment explicit and making sense of how come the block came up at this moment, and co-regulate with the parent, and we differentiate that this parent block is not about the child, and the child needs the clinician to make this transparent.

29:53. Gail tells a story of her relationship with her daughter.

32:15. Family resiliency is about families working through stuff together and getting comfortable with how things dynamically shift and change all the time. 

Thank you for listening! 

Kathryn de Bruin is an ICEEFT Certified EFT Trainer. Kathryn and Ronda are both licensed marriage and family therapists, EFT supervisors and therapists, and AAMFT Approved Supervisors.

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You can follow Gail Palmer

Website:  https://banjo-triangle-m4ym.squarespace.com/