Uploaded : June 2020

Keywords:
Mark Haydon-Laurelut, learning disability, mental retardation, systemic practice, appreciative systemic inquiry, brief solution-focused therapy, respecting, valuing, listening, ability spotting, domain of production, domain of explanation, domain of aesthetics, questions, language, prejudices, society, supporting staff, multiple descriptions, re-writing stories, Social Stories.

Mark Haydon-Laurelut

Dr Mark Haydon-Laurelut, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of Portsmouth. Email: mark.haydon-laurelut@port.ac.uk

Abstract

This video is made of extracts from a ZOOM discussion between Mark Haydon-Laurelut and Fany Triantafillou for the Webinar 2020 presentation.

Mark, with his spontaneous and humorous style, talks about the adult persons with learning disabilities and mental retardation, to which he provides psychological support. To do that, he uses the Systemic approach, notions and techniques of Brief Solution-Focused Therapy and Appreciative Systemic Inquiry. He mainly focuses on the abilities and the resources of the persons and their families, as well as to the staff that support them. He criticises and feels against the prejudices that society in general and the Psy-experts in particular, hold mostly toward any person with a disability. He thinks that his duty of care is linked mainly with supporting his clients to “normalise”.