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Article 41

Life Space Crisis Intervention:New Tools for Staff and Troubled Youth During Troubled Times

Keith Brown

Traditional educational treatment paradigmsframe problems as pathology or deviance and relyheavily on coercion, punishment, and exclusion. Thesereactive strategies are challenged and contrasted withLife Space Crisis Intervention (LSCI), whichcapitalizes on problems as opportunities for learningand growth. LSCI provides staff with specificcompetencies for successfully managing crisis withstudents showing common patterns of self-defeatingbehaviors.

The pattern is familiar. A young person hasincreased conflicts with family, school, or in thecommunity. Adults in his or her life space are unawareof the nature of the youth’s inner turmoil and becomefrustrated by chronic, escalating, troublesome behavior.Punishment or exclusion only drives these youth furtherfrom the social bond, and makes them resistant totraditional counseling strategies. Increasingly cut offfrom supportive mentors and prosocial peers, the youngperson gravitates to other alienated youths who share ahatred of adult authority and institutions. These youthsmay retreat in lonely isolation or explode in violentacts, evoking further rejection and punishment. Manyprofessionals and agencies may see them, but they areknown by none. The children and youth being sent topsychotherapists arrive with multiple problems ofdevelopmental neglect, abuse, and rejection. They oftenlive in a hostile environment comprised of fragmentedand overbearing families, alienated schools, and thedestructive social forces of guns, gangs, drugs,promiscuity, and poverty. The many needs of troubledchildren and youth cannot be squeezed into abehavioral, psychodynamic, cognitive, or sociallearning modality, except for narrow types of help.

If mental health services for troubled children andyouth are to survive, programs must reevaluate theillness model of treatment and develop a comprehensivestrength-based model. Young people must be seen asresourceful participants in their own healing, notpassive patients who need fixing.

At-risk and troubled students are also bringingall the social ills of our society into the classrooms,

causing teachers to feel overwhelmed and helpless.When schools separate these youth into alternativeprograms, the programs often become little more thancurriculums of control. The legal principle of zero reject(i.e., all students are entitled to an appropriate education)is being overridden by the political policy of zerotolerance (i.e., hold kids fully accountable, but allowstaff to give up on difficult youth).

Instead of providing special services, someschools are criminalizing misbehavior by transformingunfortunate schoolyard conflicts into violations of thecriminal code. This type of system makes one believethat there are educators who think that the criminaljustice system can raise kids better and educate thembetter than schools. Since problematic behavior is oftenrelated to emotional disturbance, schools that want todump their troubled kids need to keep these studentsfrom being identified as disabled. In some states, school-based services for seriously emotionally disturbedstudents are truncated by consultants who show schoolboards clever tricks for keeping special education offlimits to conduct problem, oppositional, and attentiondeficit/hyperactivity disorder children. Strikingly,children with these disabilities constitute a majority ofyouth who end up incarcerated in the juvenile system(Garfinkel, 1998). Thus, many seriously emotionallydisturbed children are being deprived of appropriatespecial services with the rationalization that theseyouths don’t have a “real” disability, but are justchoosing to act in a socially maladjusted manner.Traditional strategies for discipline fail dramaticallywith a significant portion of highly troubled studentswho do not benefit from either punishment or exclusion.Students with emotional and behavioral disorders arethe most likely to be suspended and expelled, andultimately, to become dropouts or push-outs fromschool.

As the mental health and educational systemswash their hands of troubled children, the justice systembecomes the placement of last resort. Experts in juvenilejustice are calling for reforms based on positive youthdevelopment and restorative justice, which builds

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competence in offenders. However, many politiciansprefer to serve out just desserts as they continue to shiftresources away from prevention and treatment, andtoward warehousing responses. There is not a shred ofscientific evidence that these punitive measures makeany sense. As Wylie (1998) concluded,

It seems horribly appropriate that, havingdenied children the kind of care and protectionthat all human animals must have, we decide topunish them, in essence, for our failure to raisethem in the first place… and all the fancyrationalizations for adult sentencing of childrenforeshorten not only their future, but ours. Whatdo we think these 11- and 14- and 16-year-oldjailed felons will do when they are released?Become insurance brokers? Has there ever beena plan so exquisitely calculated to visit the sinsof the fathers upon the children— and theirchildren’s children? (p. 37)

LSCI is designed to be an alternative to reactivestrategies. Traditional approaches to troubled youthsare inherently pessimistic and reactive, and keyed tothe deviance and dysfunctions of youth. Youth whoprovoke hostile encounters with others often import toschool dysfunctional attitudes developed in the familyor on the street. While judicious use of wise punishmentdoes not convey rejection or disrespect for youth, apunitive climate does, and it is destructive to groupmorale and discipline. Certainly, school rules andcommunity laws require sanctions for seriouslyantisocial behavior. However, one cannot assume thatthe punishment alone will teach them a lesson. Ifpunishment is indicated, then the crisis surrounding thepunishment may itself provide an excellent opportunityfor learning and growth.

Many troubled youths distrust all adults andengage in patterns of coercive interactions and conflictcycles. Instead of using adults for guidance, they opposeor manipulate persons in authority. They also becomevery skillful in avoiding or resisting counselors whouse traditional deficit and disease models of mentalillness. In contrast, LSCI employs a strength-basedapproach of problem solving. Instead of an adultapproach of searching for deficits or disease, causingincreased resistance form the youth, LSCI-trained adultsuse the crisis to search for strengths and solution,increasing cooperation from the youth. The focus ofLSCI is on understanding the reasons forcounterproductive conflict cycles. This entails enlistingyouth in a careful analysis of crises that negativelyimpact the youth. An analogy is a coach guiding playersin reviewing videos of a losing game to identify what

went wrong.In studying the use of LSCI in schools, five main

findings were discovered:

1. School crises do not happen by appointment.School crises happen at the least convenient time forthe staff. These crises most commonly happen duringthe first 40 minutes of a school day; during transitionalperiods when students are changing classes; and whenstaff do not see the initial precipitating event, but haveto intervene and stop some dangerous behaviors.

2. During a crisis, teachers rely on theirpersonal authority. When school staff foundthemselves in a confrontational situation with students,they frequently relied on the powers of their authorityto encourage a student to change his or her behaviorand conform to school rules. Unfortunately, thesestudents had little respect for authority and were noteasily intimidated. The use of authority and teacherthreats as a management technique escalated theconflict. These students needed to understand and takeresponsibility for their behaviors rather than simply becoerced into superficial behavioral compliance.

3. School crises are triggered by a minorincident. Typically, school crises began with minorinappropriate student behavior such as not staying ontask, walking around the classroom, teasing peers, andarguing over the fairness of modification point systems.In most situations, the staff did not start or initiate theconflict, but they often responded in a style that fueledthe conflict and kept it going.

4. Staff become caught in the conflict cycle. Theconflict cycle is a basic paradigm that explains whynormal, healthy, reasonable staff can behave in waysthat are significantly different from their personalities.If staff are not trained in understanding the dynamicsof the conflict cycle, they will end up mirroring thestudent’s behavior and escalating the student’s conflict.The dynamics of the conflict cycle demonstrate how astudent in a stressful situation can create identicalfeelings in staff. Adults who act on their own feelingsand do what feels natural inadvertently mirror studentbehavior and make the crisis worse. During theseincidents, staff are programmed to respond likethermostats, and reflect the emotional fever of thestudent. For example, an aggressive student shouts at ateacher and says “I’m not going to do it!” The teacherbecomes counter aggressive and impulsively yells back“Yes you will!” Or, for example, a depressed studentmay tearfully say to her teacher, “Please leave me alone!There is nothing you can do to change anything.

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Nothing in my life has meaning or is interesting.” Theteacher initially feels sorry for the student and tries tocomfort her. But if this sequence continues, the teacherfeels frustrated and, ultimately, helpless. The teacherfeels the counter depressive feelings and leaves the childalone to fend for him- or herself.

5. Crises arise from three major causes. Theseare identified as normal developmental issues, such asbecoming independent, winning group approval,developing ethical values, and dealing with peerinfluences; situational forces at school, such asmisinterpreting personal comments and being teasedor bullied, frustrated by assignments, falsely accusedof an act or confused by staff directions; and unresolvedpsychological issues, which occur with at-risk andtroubled students. These represent the most severe andcomplicated forms of conflict. These students cannotseparate emotional problems they have experienced athome or in the community from the current problemsthey have in school. Psychologically, a crisis may signalunresolved issues of abandonment, rejection, or abuse.

In this paradigm, a crisis is perceived as a glasshalf-filled instead of half-empty. This approach allowsfor the use of the student’s resources and potentialstrengths instead of dwelling on deficits, dysfunctions,and disorders. A crisis represents a unique time to helpa student come to grips with an important life problem,which is often denied by the youth. When successfullymanaged, a crisis can illuminate his or her self-defeatingbehavior and provide strength-based social skills.

LSCI is an advanced, sophisticated, and effectivestrategy that uses a student crisis as an opportunity topromote insight and change. It uses the curriculum ofdirect life experiences in the student’s natural habitatwith staff members whom the student has come to trust.This is a respectful encounter casting the staff memberin a role as a student’s life skills coach rather than aprosecutor. LSCI does not supplant other behavioral,educational, or therapeutic strategies that have beenshown to be effective. Rather, it begins where otherbehavior management systems end. It providesadvanced interventions designed for specific studentswho show common patterns of self-defeating behavior.

LSCI is comprised of six stages and six reclaiminginterventions. The six stages are broken down into twomain stages. The first main stage, called the DiagnosticStage, includes the drain off, the timeline, and thecentral issue. During this stage, staff drain off thestudent’s emotions, validate student’s perceptions of thecrisis, and determine which pattern of self-defeatingbehavior is occurring. The second stage, termed theReclaiming Stage, includes insight, new skills, and

transfer of training. During this second main stage, thestudent gains insight into his or her personal problemand gains accountability; staff empower the student tolearn new skills to overcome the self-defeating patternof behavior; and the learning is transferred andgeneralized into the student’s life space. There are sixreclaiming interventions that have been identified,including social skill training that span self-defeatingbehaviors, such as lack of guilt or emotion, distortionsof perceptions due to anxiety, behavior due to beingovercome with guilt (self-injurious), and manipulationof others for gain.

While LSCI is competency-based, it is more thana set of techniques. At its core is a new mindset aboutproblems as opportunities, and about troubled youth aspossessing strength and resilience, which can be tappedfor their own healing. Such programs cultivate a positivepeer culture among students and staff, and mutualrespect between adults and youth.

References

Garfinkel, L. (1998). Children with disabilities in thejustice system. Reclaiming Children and Youth, 6 (2).

Wylie, M. S. (1998). Public enemies? Family TherapyNetworker, 22(3), 24-37.

Note: The majority of information in this article can be credited tothe works of Nicholas Long and Frank Fescer and can be found inthe book titled: Life Space Crisis Intervention.