Published: December 2020, Issue 38


Keywords:
Elspeth McAdam, Peter Lang, Diana Henoa, The Smoke, Appreciative Inquiry, sexual abuse, new moral order, dignity, respect, perpetrator, protector, Above-Suspicion Interview, multiple stories, Interviewing the voice of the child, confession, awareness, empathy, reflection, acceptance of responsibility, possible temptations, social consequences..

Elspeth McAdam

Child and Family Psychiatrist, and systemic therapist retired now from the UK National Health Service (NHS) after 30 years of service. With her experience as a systemic therapist and consultant psychiatrist, she has been on the cutting edge of developments in both the therapeutic and organizational world. In her NHS work, she has used systemic, narrative and appreciative practices in working with tough situations. She has specialized in working with children who are on the criminal edge and also families in which there has been violence or child sexual abuse. With her collaborator, the late Peter Lang, she has developed some unusual and very effective ways of working with these situations. She now supervises all over Europe in complex situations, where therapists or families have felt unable to move forward. Elspeth has worked as an Organizational Consultant in Sweden, Denmark and Finland as well as in Southern Africa and Columbia. She has been involved in organizational development programs of the public and private sector organizations. Her style of working is to validate and appreciate the strengths and skills within the personnel of an organization, recognizing what each person can contribute and using these strengths and abilities to create dreams of an ideal working situation. Practical plans are created as to how these visions can be actualized. Among her activities has been her involvement in the rethinking of three towns in Sweden where there had been a considerable degree of violence and vandalism. School children were invited to interview all members of the community, generating energy and enthusiasm to create the community in which they would choose to live. A sense of autonomy and pride and personal responsibility resulted. Similarly, she was involved with Peter Lang in working with communities in Helsinki to create more integration and community spirit in deprived areas of Helsinki. She has done similar projects in Columbia, Brazil, Chile, Zimbabwe and South Africa. She has also been involved in an HIV Prevention program in Tanzania, where HIV positive people are being trained as the agents of community change. Additionally, she is involved in a research project on effective ways of working in situations of drugs and alcohol misuse in young people, involving their communities and families. Working both organizationally as well as therapeutically, she draws on both her systemic and appreciative inquiry skills. Appreciative Systemic Inquiry has been used extensively in the organizational world. Elspeth McAdam together with Peter Lang has enriched the process by adding her extensive psychotherapeutic experience to motivate and get the very best out of the people with whom she works. Elspeth co-authored with Peter Lang the book: Appreciative Work in Schools. Her latest (unpublished) book (that is a life book for her, and she wrote with Peter Lang and Dianne Henoa) is titled: The Smoke that Thunders: Releasing the Tangled Web of incest: a Dignifying Way Forward for the Child, the Family and Professionals. (This book has been uploaded in Greek and English, in series, onto Metalogos, since 2018. It’s uploading approaches its completion by the end of 2020).

Peter Lang

Co Principal Kensington Consultation Centre

Dianna Henoa

Social Worker

Abstract

Creating a new moral order: no blame or shame only dignity and respect; identifying as protector rather than the perpetrator; using above-suspicion interviews to allow above-suspicion behaviour and freedom to live multiple stories not just that of the perpetrator; overcoming denial by interviewing “the voice of the child”; moving from secrecy to awareness, openness and acceptance of responsibility; leading to safety for the abused and empathy on the part of the perpetrator; and to relational responsibility, addressing risks of fantasising and temptation; with acceptance of social consequences and the gift of dignity to the abused.