The Needs ABC Therapeutic Model for Couples and Families: A Guide for Practitioners

265 Pages·2010·4.95 MB·English

by  Tom Caplan

The Needs ABC
Therapeutic Model for
Couples and Families
A Guide for Practitioners
Tom Caplan
New York London
Routledge Routledge
Taylor & Francis Group Taylor & Francis Group
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Library of Congress Cataloging‑in‑Publication Data
Caplan, Tom.
The needs ABC therapeutic model for couples and families : a guide for practitioners /
Tom Caplan.
p. ; cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary: “The Needs ABC Therapeutic Model for Couples and Families: A Guide
for Practitioners shows readers how to successfully tailor a therapeutic approach to meet
the needs of couples and families. It has been preceded by Needs ABC (Acquisition and
Behavior Change), a model for group work and other psychotherapies published in the UK
by Whiting and Birch. Beginning clinicians will come away from this book with concrete,
practical skills and expanded theoretical base for their practice, and they’ll be able to apply
their new knowledge directly and in ways that will help them create long-lasting change in
clients who present with difficult behaviors. The book explains the concepts and theories
behind the Needs ABC approach and provides tangible methods with which to perform as a
Needs ABC therapist or integrate aspects of the Needs ABC approach into the reader’s own
therapeutic techniques. Practitioners will find that the Needs ABC model complements
cognitive-behavioral, integrative, and other therapeutic models, as well as general guides to
couples and family therapy”--Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-0-415-87305-5 (hardcover : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-0-415-87306-2 (pbk. : alk.
paper)
1. Couples therapy. 2. Family therapy. I. Title.
[DNLM: 1. Couples Therapy--methods. 2. Family Therapy--methods. WM 430.5.M3
C244n 2010]
RC488.5.C362 2010
616.89’1562--dc22 2010018616
Visit the Taylor & Francis Web site at
http://www.taylorandfrancis.com
and the Routledge Web site at
http://www.routledgementalhealth.com
ISBN 0-203-86557-X Master e-book ISBN
For my children and their children

Contents
Preface: The evoluTion of The needs acquisiTion and
Behavior change Model vii
acknowledgMenTs xvii
chaPTer 1 inTroducing The needs aBc Model 1
chaPTer 2 couPles TheraPy 31
chaPTer 3 inTroducing The needs aBc relaTional
needs and eMoTion-focused coMPonenTs 75
chaPTer 4 exPecTaTions for an oPTiMal TheraPeuTic
seTTing 105
chaPTer 5 using The needs aBc Model in couPles
and faMily TheraPy 125
chaPTer 6 unconscious facTors and relaTional
needs 141
chaPTer 7 Power and conTrol in couPles TheraPy 153
chaPTer 8 life sTages and couPles 175
chaPTer 9 addiTional Techniques 201
chaPTer 10 afTer TreaTMenT 211
chaPTer 11 conclusion 217
v
vi Contents
references 227
index 235
Preface: The Evolution of the Needs
Acquisition and Behavior Change Model
The thought manifests as the word.
The word manifests as the deed.
The deed develops into habit.
And the habit hardens into character.
So watch the thought and its ways with care.
And let it spring from love, born out of concern for all beings.
Buddha
The Needs Acquisition and Behavior Change (Needs ABC) model
emphasizes working with what clients are asking for in their interper-
sonal relationships rather than focusing without exploration on the
“bad” behaviors that ultimately bring them into the treatment setting.
It also proposes that the way clients feel when they are frustrated in
the realization of their relational goals will predict either more or less
useful strategies for relational problem solving.
This model evolved and developed as a result of my experience
working in a number of treatment settings. My background in psy-
chotherapy initially had a strong focus on group work along with an
active private practice where I worked with individuals, couples, and
vii
viii PrefaCe
families. I started learning about groups as a treatment modality when I
did my master’s placement in the School of Social Work at the McGill
Domestic Violence Clinic. At that time, the clinic was directed by
two professors, Judy Magill (who passed away shortly after my gradu-
ation) and Annette Werk. They both commented that, even though
I had a lot to learn, my style seemed to be very encouraging to the
clients—men who were perpetrators of abuse—and seemed to help
them to discuss their problem more openly and honestly. Interestingly
enough, this was the same style I used in all my work; it was just the
way I did things, though I wasn’t sure exactly what I was doing. At
the McGill Clinic, we did a lot of feelings work (“reaching for feel-
ings”), and when I graduated and Annette, who surely felt a void with
Judy’s passing, asked me to join the supervision team, I began to take
my position seriously. Harle Thomas, a former student just a few years
younger than myself, encouraged me to present at the next Group
Work conference as he had done the previous year. The subject of my
first paper, “Safety and Comfort, Content, and Process: Facilitating
Open Group Work for Men Who Batter” (Caplan & Thomas, 1995),
which I wrote and copresented with Harle, was the beginning of the
deconstruction of what was to become my Needs ABC Model.
When I started working at the McGill Domestic Violence Clinic
in 1980, the therapeutic approach we used involved a twofold meth-
odology: (1) the use of “process-oriented” interventions (looking past
the concrete content of what a client was saying to what was implied
in what was being said—or meta message); and (2) reaching for feel-
ings (helping clients express how they were feeling with regard to
what they were saying, often with the use of a “feelings chart”). In the
men’s group, composed of male perpetrators of domestic violence, the
chart had no “anger” column in an attempt to help them to recognize
other relevant emotional components to what they had said—that fear
or sadness, for example, could possibly be hidden behind their anger
and that an understanding of this would be very helpful in address-
ing their less than useful behaviors. We had no specific explanation
of why this was important, but it was recognized that when the men
were able to connect with these “softer” emotions they were also bet-
ter able to communicate with their partners.
PrefaCe ix
In those days, the interpretation of the meta message, or the overall
impression given by the client through his narrative, was quite general
and concrete. For example, if a client stated that he was angry at his
partner for scolding him about the way he tied the garbage bag for
pick-up, the intervention used would be something like, “It must be
pretty scary to be criticized by your wife,” with the focus more on
the appropriate emotion than on anything else. The concept used was
fairly simple: the facilitator would think about any emotion other than
anger, with “fear” and “sadness” being favorite picks; any less dramatic
or “dangerous” emotion would do. They then would do a “reaching for
feelings” exercise with the group or group member, using the afore-
mentioned chart. There was no thought about what else might be
implied in the client’s statement.
Even though I had a fairly good handle on Family Systems Theory,
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), “feelings work,” and the tra-
ditional social work skills (e.g., joining, mirroring, paraphrasing), I
was exceedingly interested in learning all I could about therapeutic
models and strategies. As time went on, my work gradually came to
be influenced by Michael White’s Narrative School, especially his
concepts of therapist “curiosity” and “externalization of the problem,”
which allowed clients to look at what they were doing with more
objectivity (White & Epston, 1990); de Shazer (1985, 1991) and De
Shazer et al.’s (2007) Solution-Focused Therapy, where the “Magic
Question” is a point of interest with regard to what the client was
hoping to happen that would be curative for the situation at hand;
and especially Greenberg and Johnson’s (1988) Emotionally Focused
Therapy (EFT). I had taken a workshop with Leslie Greenberg, who
seemed to validate the concept of various levels of emotional states
he had described as primary, secondary, and tertiary. This led me to
consider that there were, in fact, different levels of emotions and that
some emotions were more easily expressed than others, depending
on the context. This was also the precursor to my definition of vari-
ous levels of relational needs. Because I sensed that parts of each of
these models, including the ones I had initially been taught, pro-
vided opportunities to help clients in ways a monolithic model never
could, I began to integrate these into my work with groups and with
my individual, couple and family work. This led me, eventually, to