From the Therapist's Chair: Colleen Maher on Trust-Based Relational Intervention
At Ensemble Therapy, we care deeply about the “why” behind our practice of counseling. We believe there is not a “one-size-fits-all” approach to counseling; each therapist views the counseling process and their clients through a unique lens formed from years of education and experience.
This means that as a client, you can choose the counselor who is the best fit for you or your child. While this freedom to choose the best-fit may sound nice at first, it can be difficult to know how to choose when there seem to be so many ways to do therapy. Not only are there lots of theories on how to practice counseling, often the language behind counseling theories is difficult to understand and apply without any previous background knowledge.
As the client or the caregiver of a child client, you deserve to know and understand how your counselor practices therapy. Counseling exists for the growth and well-being of you, your family, and your community; therefore, counseling should be accessible and easy to understand for the greater public. In an effort to make our counseling practice more accessible and easy-to-understand for our clients, we want to introduce you to our counselors and their respective approaches to counseling.
Throughout the next several months, we’re going to take you through interviews with each of our therapists so you can learn the “why” behind their practice of counseling. This week, you’ll get to know a little more about Colleen Maher, Senior Therapist at Ensemble Therapy. We hope you enjoy getting to sit a moment in the therapist’s chair and learn a little bit about counseling from our eyes.
About Colleen
Colleen is a Senior Therapist at Ensemble Therapy and has been on the ET team since the summer of 2019. Originally from Illinois, she moved to Austin for warmer weather ten years ago. She received her Master of Science in Social Work from the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to working at Ensemble Therapy, Colleen worked extensively with children impacted by the child welfare system and as a school counselor. This gives her a systemic lens when working with children in the counseling room.
Colleen takes a whole-family, attachment-based, and trauma-informed approach to therapy, acknowledging that the family system is the most salient source of support and healing in a child’s life. Her training in Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI) also guides her to create a safe and warm relationship with the child in which they can learn to regulate and be their fullest, most authentic selves, even in the aftermath of trauma.
For Colleen, the best part of being a counselor is getting to be with her clients as they ride the waves of childhood and adolescence. She loves helping them find coping skills that resonate with them and watching them grow as resilient, amazing people.
What is your theory/approach to therapy?
There are a few theories that drive my work with clients and ground my practice. The first is person- or child-centered theory which assumes that the client is the expert in his or her own experience and healing and it is my job to walk alongside the client, as opposed to trying to “fix” their experience or the coping skills they have developed in response to their experiences and environment. This is also a tenant of social work that views the client with unconditional positive regard, respect, and non-judgment.
The second theory that grounds my practice is that of attachment theory. Attachment theory looks at the quality of attachments, or relationships, in a person’s life and the impact those relationships have on the person’s worldview, self-concept, and other future relationships. The very first attachment, and most influential through a person’s life, is the attachment a child makes to their primary caregiver(s) in their foundational years. The work of John Bowlby, Mary Ainsworth, Mary Main, and Harry Harlow, have been long studied and replicated and focus the lens through which I view my clients’ experiences and reaction to those experiences.
Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI) was founded by Drs. Karyn Purvis and David Cross and is rooted in attachment theory. Though this intervention was originally tailored to children who had been adopted and suffered attachment-based trauma, I have found this intervention is applicable to many other children with attachment trauma unrelated to adoption or even without attachment trauma. TBRI approaches the caregiver-child relationship to enhance and improve the connection within the relationship, empower the child through physical needs (sleep, hydration, proper nutrition) and the environment (sensory input and preparing the child for what is coming next in a developmentally appropriate way), and focuses on the corrective piece of parenting and caregiving.
In many homes with attachment ruptures, there is a disconnect between the child’s need and the caregiver’s ability to meet the need, often because the caregiver does not have the right tools. This can lead to frequent misbehaviors and consequences that don’t change the behavior and result in overall discord.
TBRI was specifically designed to see the misbehavior, look for the attachment-based cause of that behavior, and correct the behavior while also building trust and felt security in the relationship. There cannot be real change without trust. Any caregiver knows that big behaviors and big feelings are certainly not unique to children who have experienced attachment-related traumas. That’s why I love incorporating elements of TBRI into all my work regardless of history of attachment trauma because all healing occurs within relationships, and the caregiver-child relationship is the most important relationship any of us will ever have.
How did you come to practice from that theory? What drew you to it?
I had the incredible fortune to be trained by Drs. Purvis and Cross in 2013 when I was involved with the Travis County Collaborative for Children. This Collaborative united all parties who worked with children involved with the child welfare system to have the same attachment-based understanding of the needs of those children and trained many of us in TBRI. This is where I got my first deep dive into attachment theory since my undergraduate years, and I found that it viscerally resonated with me. Because I was working with children involved with the child welfare system at the time, I had a lot of time to practice this intervention one-on-one with children with varying levels of attachment rupture. I saw firsthand, over and over again, how much easier it was (but still not easy!) to redirect or correct when (and only when) the child felt safe and connected to me even while working through their poor choices or negative behavior.
What is your favorite thing about this theory?
So many favorites. In short:
TBRI looks beyond just behavior or misbehavior. TBRI looks for what is lacking (Are you hungry? Are you getting too much or too little sensory input from your internal or external world? Do you have the skills to manage this difficulty?) and helps the adults meet the need instead of feeling resentful or angry towards the misbehavior.
TBRI incorporates “scripts” or short phrases that are practiced in a regulated state. This is beneficial because humans (and especially little humans) are not capable of processing a lot of words when they become dysregulated. So these two- or three-word scripts prompt a quick reminder in the moment such as “with respect” or “gentle and kind” while maintaining the positive connection with the caregiver.
TBRI helps caregivers understand the relationship between external regulation, co-regulation, and self-regulation. Children can only learn appropriate and prosocial self-regulation when they’ve received appropriate external and co-regulation. The goal is always self-regulation, but kids aren’t born with that capacity! They have to be taught and shown through external regulation and co-regulation until they have the tools to regulate themselves! We show them this by providing only external regulation through their early years. They cannot self-regulate anything, not even their body temperature! We must be attuned to their needs and meet them through changing them, soothing them when they are distressed, feeding them, keeping them safe, and putting on or taking off layers for them. As they grow, we help them to co-regulate. They might be able to express a need such as, “I’m cold,” but they still need our help to problem solve that a jacket will help them feel warmer or to physically help them put it on. Only with that consistent foundation of having a need and getting that need met can we build on with self-regulation.
What client is your theory best suited for?
TBRI is a hopeful approach that believes all children and families can grow and heal. TBRI helps parents and caregivers cue into needs and deficits and help to build skills in those areas before raising expectations. The founders of TBRI consider this “investment parenting” and acknowledge a high degree of investment from the parent when the full model is incorporated.
TBRI is especially suited for children with attachment trauma, specifically those who have been adopted or are being cared for by caregivers who are not their biological parents. However, TBRI concepts and interventions are appropriate for any child pre-k through elementary school and even up to middle and high school with the right accommodations and their invested caregiver(s).
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Interested in booking a session with Colleen?
WRITTEN BY COLLEEN TURNER, LCSW (SHE/HER/HERS)
Colleen Turner is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW). Colleen received her Master of Science in Social Work degree from the University of Texas at Austin and her Bachelor of Science in Human Development and Family Studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign. Colleen is currently working towards her Registered Play Therapist™ (RPT™) credential. Colleen has clinical experience working with children ages zero through elementary school and their families and has worked extensively with children impacted by the child welfare system. Colleen is a Trust Based Relational Intervention (TBRI) Educator trained by the Karyn Purvis Institute of Child Development at Texas Christian University.
