Listen to this

EDUCATORS

Henry W. Maier (1919-2005)

1. Influences on his life and thinking: An interview by Howard Bath

Through his writing, conference and seminar presentations, and personal interactions, Henry Maier has had a profound influence on a generation of Child and Youth Care practitioners. His emphasis on understanding the needs of children in care and the importance of seeing things from their perspective, stands in contrast to those who would stress the technologies of behaviour manipulation. He persuasively encourages us to do with our children rather than do to them, stressing the interactive nature of our work and the meaning of our relationships. Effective workers with troubled children and youth, he assures us, are necessarily concerned with their own growth and development as well as that of their charges.

For those involved in teaching and writing, Henry models the joy of exploration and discovery – continually thinking and reading and seeking a practical application. Long retired from formal teaching, he continues to be a mentor for others, to lead seminars and to publish articles at a prodigious rate – not from any need to establish credibility or a “publication record” but from an unflagging desire to help the helpers.

Of those who have had the privilege of encountering Henry on a personal level, who has not come away feeling that here was somebody who valued them and who was truly interested in their thoughts and ideas? The lasting impression is of someone who practices what he preaches, yet someone who does not take himself too seriously. The twinkle in his eye, the playful jest, the self-deprecating humour, and the gleeful demonstration of a newly discovered toy, are characteristic of the man. He encourages us to rediscover the best of childhood to better understand the children and youth for whom we care.

Who were those who most influenced Henry, both personally and professionally? I set out to find the answer in a conversation with him in December 1992. Our discussion starts when Henry moved to Pittsburgh after working for a children's residential centre in Illinois. He took a position at the Pittsburgh Child Guidance Center to do what was called therapeutic group work, working there for a year and part-time at a university-affiliated residential centre for autistic youngsters. Discovering that his heart was much more with the residential program, he requested a change and the university “bought” him from the clinic. There he worked for three years in program development and staff training under the direction of Dr. Earl A. Loomis.

HM: At the Child Psychiatry and Child Development Department of the University of Pittsburgh we started a training program for the staff which attracted direct care workers as well as those in psychiatric residence. Dr. Benjamin Spock was the director of the department so it had a child development focus. What was initially an in-house training initiative soon became a popular Master’s program in child care and child development, at that time the first of its kind in the United States. Today, the program is a vital part of the University of Pittsburgh School of Social Work.

I slipped more and more into teaching courses and discovered how much I still needed to know. This led me to the University of Minnesota where I took more advanced courses leading to a doctorate. After three years in Minnesota I moved to the University of Washington in order to build up a program in social group work; but my only claim to fame is that I abolished it after a short period as I believed that the – then – distinction between casework and group work was inappropriate and that social workers should acquire competence in both forms of working with people.

HB: Who influenced your thinking during this early phase of your career?

HM: In terms of my orientation for working with people, aside from my practical experiences, I was initially influenced during my undergraduate years by two thinkers – John Dewey, who I hadn’t heard of before and whose work I read assiduously, and Kurt Lewin, one of the leaders of the (German) Gestalt School. They turned me on. Lewin's Field Theory furthered my interest in groups with the emphasis on the therapist’s direct involvement, in contrast to the implied “neutral” stance in the teaching of the psychoanalytic school.

In Pittsburgh, not only did I get into a department with Dr. Ben Spock, I was also able to see him teach and I learned a great deal from his very personal style of interacting with his medical students. It was a very alive department. Fritz Redl came about every other month for a day with students and faculty. There were a number of notable guest lecturers, people like Erik H. Erikson. That’s where my association with him developed. While he was there for his two days a month, Ben Spock had a gathering of the faculty in his house. I was the “lowest of the low,” being only an instructor, and sat in a comer, but those evenings were exciting times where Erikson tried out some of his ideas – it was great learning. I witnessed his brilliance, although he remained extremely impersonal. His theory was his own life: “identity” continued to be his own struggle.

Earl A. Loomis, another key influential person whom I wish to cite, was in charge of Child Psychiatry and we eventually became close friends. He was a real people person. He was also a scholar of Piaget and his lively interest in Piaget’s writings began to take hold of me. It was Earl Loomis who got me to write (and publish) rather than just talk about my ideas.

So who influenced me? I would put Fritz Redl first. He had an analytic base with an extremely hands-on, positive approach, much less centred in the dynamics of transference and counter-transference than upon the interaction between people. He was constantly challenging us to think of the kinds of experiences we can have where the kids and the workers have a chance to get close. Today we would call it attachment. He always challenged us to think about what activity we could have to create the essential ingredients for growth and development; to build links for kids and staff interacting together, and positive excitement that would spin over into other life events. Not only activity to make things run smoothly, but to teach things like frustration tolerance. He taught me the notion of the “little things” which make up life’s progress. His emphasis was on doing.

Theoretically, I think Erikson also had a great impact. I got much more involved when I focused on Erikson and Piaget in the course of my dissertation research. I thoroughly enjoyed reading all of Piaget’s work. Piaget is difficult but exciting and I was so interested in child development. Robert R. Sears was included on the advice of my chairperson because he was an emerging behaviourist. He had a major book, Patterns of Child Rearing, in 1957, but he didn’t really gain a significant following. Today I would use Albert Bandura. A fellow doctoral student with whom I shared a study cage once remarked, “Henry, can you imagine being here every day of the week, reading and reading and being paid for it!” He said it with such delight, verbalizing what I felt.

HB: Can you outline how your thinking developed while at the University of Washington, particularly with respect to child development and care work?

HM: My thinking has been largely developed through the literature and no longer through direct experience with kids, apart from my own three boys, that is. After some years, systems thinking impacted me. I also gave a few courses in systems thinking which fit well with my earlier work. I moved away from psychoanalytic thinking but was still influenced by some of Erikson's work. In my changes over the past 30 years I have become an interactionist. Furthermore, I now try to include the impact of the environment and try to think contextually. Essentially, I shifted from a hierarchical perspective to an interactional (lateral) one. You might call it “Kurt Lewin revisited.”

In the mid-sixties I became interested in working with families as a group. For a time I did some direct practice, again using a family systems approach. In 1979 when Bronfenbrenner came along with his Ecology of Human Development, I found a resource which helped me to organize my thinking.

Then Bandura again. I knew his earlier work on anger and aggression, but in 1977 he had a powerful article on learning in which he maintained that one has not really learned until one is aware of what has been leamed – that’s different from regurgitation of the supposedly “leamed” information. His formulation and the accompanying empirical research impacted my teaching. I saw the importance of helping the learner to get hold of what s/he is learning. It’s a little like the “Aha, now I’ve got it” moment in Gestalt psychology. That’s where Bandura got onto my shelf of “saints.”

Most recently, of course, it has been M.D. Ainsworth and A. Sroufe with their attachment formulations. This was in the late 1970s. (My article, “To be Attached and Free,” was published in 1982.)

HB: What about John Bowlby?

HM: I’ve read his stuff but I had difficulties with his stark emphasis on separation. I’m not denying the difficulty of separation, but after each exit there’s an entry. I’ve always thought that development depends a lot more on the experience of entry; on the nature of personal linkages than intermittent disruption events. In my consulting in residential work, I urge care workers to consider the kids' experiences in making new connections and attachments. Spitz, Bowlby, Robertson and others who studied the “trauma of separation” are important because they really changed our modalities of child rearing, but I think the main issue is not separation but rather what happens after separation – namely, attachment maintenance and the furthering of attachment development.

You can see a bit of my life story here. I did have a number of separations. Maybe I am denying these. I’ve talked much more about my new connections than I have about leaving Germany and losing my parents and so on. I am aware of this. When I have a good seminar with good connections with people, on the last day I am more preoccupied about what I am going to next and when I get home, than with the pain of leave taking. I’ve no question that Erikson is right when he suggests that one’s personal history becomes, in great part, one’s psychological orientation.

HB: That may be the case, Henry, but you are always very aware of what people are feeling when they are in your seminars, and you go to great lengths to make them comfortable.

HM: I hope I can identify with others in regard to their experiences, but eventually I have the urge to steer them ("help” them?) to my concern: What are they going to do now?

HB: There was another person you mentioned to me the other day – Carol Gilligan.

HM: Yes, her book, In a Different Voice, had a great impact. I had read Kohlberg, but always had reservations. She came out with her critique of Kohlberg pointing out the developmental differences between males and females and this got me interested in her writing. If I were to write about different theories again, I couldn’t only use male theorists.

To conclude our discussion, the focus shifted away from the professional towards the personal.

HB: Henry, who would you say has had the greatest influence on you as a person and how you basically feel about and act towards other people?

HM: Well, I hinted before, as a young child there is no question that I was strongly influenced by my mother. I was very close to her. Whatever sensitivity I developed I think I got from her. Plus, my early childhood was impacted by things we did at home – the arts projects and playing games. This has continued to today when I like to play with clients, children and adults, colleagues and friends. It can be traced to the solid and happy times at home, particularly at Christmas time when everyone worked on hand-made gifts for each other. With our own family, with Jeanne, we have continued to do this.

I really must stress that much of my life and development is anchored in my partnership with Jeanne and our close, solid experience as an active family of five. Also throughout my life I have had close friendships which were sustaining for me. Among others I would especially honour Ed Crane, Earl Loomis, Lucille Meyer, Karl Olson, Hy Resnick and Faith Smith.

Coming from an intellectually oriented extended family, I think I also had some unconscious push towards academia. It’s no coincidence. So when I worked at Maine for $5 per week during my first year in the US, I’m sure I never thought that I would do that for the rest of my life.

HB: Henry, there you were, a recent arrival in America, taking a moral stand to be a conscientious objector. Is there something to the pacifist Quaker connection which has been a consistent thread throughout your life?

HM: Yes, my family had Quaker connections, although they were never members. I was on two short student exchanges in England – one of those with a Quaker family that I admired and I am sure influenced me. Then I was in a Quaker college for the first two years. I was really struggling. I knew that Germany and their aggressive policy was something that should not be tolerated. I was very torn. There was strong opposition to this move from my sister and another family friend. There were others who were shocked. At the college, we were strongly on the peace side.

There was the issue of whether I could ever become an American citizen. This did turn out to be a problem later, and I was initially refused because it was claimed that I could not defend the country “without mental reservation.” I later won the case in an appeals court when the statement “to defend” was held to be applicable to non-violent forms of resistance.

For a long time Jeanne and I were active with the Quaker Meeting. Since our youngsters grew up we have been less active but are not estranged from the meeting.

During the interview a number of books were mentioned and I felt it would be helpful for readers to know which books Henry remembers as being particularly influential. He later sent me the following:

Early in my young adulthood, two specific books had an especially strong influence on me in addition to the likely impact of the thinking of my parents and their friends: Erich M. Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front and Howard Spring’s My Son, My Son.

Early in my educational and professional career there was the writing of ]ohn Dewey, Kurt Lewin and Maria Follett. No specific books stand out.

In my mid-career development I would list a whole handful of resources: Erik H. Erikson, Childhood and Society (1950), and many others: ]ean Piaget, Biology and Knowledge (1971); R.G. Barker and H.F. Wright, The Midwest and its Children (1954); R.J. Dubois, The Mirage of Health (1961); H.W. Polsky, Cottage Six (1962); and Robert White, Motivation Reconsidered: The Concept of Competence (1959).

In my more recent and ongoing development: M.D. Ainsworth and her team – a good number of research articles on attachment. Most outstanding, “Attachment: Retrospect and Prospect” in Parkes and Stevenson-Hinde (Eds.), The Place of Attachment in Human Behavior (1982); Urie Bronfenbrenner, The Ecology of Human Development (1979); Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice (1982); Albert Bandura, Self-efficacy: Toward a Unifying Theory of Behavioral Change (1977); and R. Eisler, The Chalice and The Blade (1988).

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2. Listen to the silence:
The multigenerational influence of the work of Henry Maier

by Thom Garfat

Much of the literature in Child and Youth Care and family work places emphasis on the multigenerational aspect of systems dynamics. It demonstrates how an intervention into a system, at one point, will have an effect on other areas of the system both in the present and over time (Garfat, 1990), as the influence of the action continues to impact the system across generations. Given that a system-of-care, such as a treatment program or organization, is subject to the same systemic dynamic as any other system (Garfat, 1992), then an intervention into one point of the organization, or the organization's interpersonal-interactions subsystem, can also have influence in other areas across time.

Henry Maier has argued that regardless of a worker’s theoretical orientation, the “minutiae of daily life” may be the most important area of focus for the effective Child and Youth Care worker (Maier, 1971, 1987). By attending to the “minutiae” the worker can stimulate, or facilitate, important change which acknowledges the reality of the context within which the interaction occurs. These “naturally occurring therapeutic opportunities” (Peterson, 1988) represent the most powerful of therapeutic occasions with children and youth in care. Maier points out that by attending to these moments as they occur, the child care worker co-creates the opportunity for lifelong impact for “it is within the minutiae of life and not in the big events that one’s personal pursuits and direction are determined” (1987, p. 67).

ln 1987, Henry Maier delivered a training workshop to treatment program supervisors at Youth Horizons, a Child and Youth Care agency in Montreal, Quebec. In the middle of the session there came one of those moments which occur frequently in training programs after the facilitator has made a proposition, or posed a question, which requires response from the group: the room fell totally silent. No one was prepared to respond to the question which he had proposed.

Rather than try to generate energy, as many trainers might do in order to move the group beyond this uncomfortable moment, Henry let us rest in the awkward silence: he didn’t rescue us. He didn’t attempt to save either himself or the other workshop participants from the discomfort we were feeling. After a few minutes, when it was clear that no group member was going to be the first to speak, he offered the following: “Listen to the silence. What is it telling us?”

Henry had a reason for “listening to the silence” that was not yet obvious and needed to be clarified. Something happens when people are caught together in a period of silence, whether that moment is intentionally created or comes about for other reasons. Properly handled, “the mutual silence ... binds us. It is not the issue that one tames one’s mouth, but rather that one joins the other.” People can “attempt to find each other in silence, hopefully, potentially, discovering a joint rhythm in breathing and becoming aware of each other in the world around them ... listening to the silence enhances the possibility of becoming more aware of each other.” (Henry Maier, personal communication, April 12, 1993). In short, silence, properly handled, creates the opportunity for effective joining with the “other” in a powerful mutually shared moment. Rather than seeing silence as a threat, we can choose to see it as an opportunity to begin our interactions from a basis of shared experience.

How we, as a group, responded to Henry’s invitation to explore the meaning of the silence is not important to this discussion. What is important is how the phrase, “listen to the silence,” has become a part of our practice vocabulary and how listening to the silence is operationalized in so many aspects of our work within our organization. It demonstrates clearly the importance of attending to the minutiae of everyday life, regardless of where that moment occurs within a system. As a demonstration of the multigenerational contribution of Henry Maier to the development of Child and Youth Care, the following examples represent some of the areas in which “listening to the silence” has become important to us as it has moved through our organization, across both subsystems and time.

Supervisor’s group meetings
In a recent supervisors' group meeting we were discussing an area which we had not approached before; one which offered the opportunity for us to be harshly self-critical of the quality of our work with Child and Youth Care staff. Following the creation of this opportunity for self-criticism the group fell into one of those uncomfortable silences referred to above. No one wanted to begin the process. As Henry had modelled some five years earlier, the facilitator allowed the silence to rest in the room. After a few minutes, one of the members, who had been present during the original training session, offered the following observation.

I remember when Henry Maier was here for our training program. He told us that we should “listen to the silence” and question what it means. It seems to me that this is one of those moments he was talking about and I think we should pursue this. What is the silence telling us?

That person's risk-taking in opening up allowed us as a group to pursue what the silence meant. As a result, we were able to discuss our feelings of safety and trust as individuals in the group. By joining together around the silence, and exploring what it meant, we were able to move to a new level of group openness. A single line, a single moment, attended to some five years earlier, was continuing to affect our group, even though the group membership and the momentary context were different. This clearly demonstrates the potential power of such an intervention into the minutiae of everyday life to affect the system over time.

This supewisor’s interjection also led us to a discussion about the relevance of concepts in the field of Child and Youth Care and the importance of explicitly demonstrating new techniques for the leamer; an extremely important facet of the supervision and training of both new and experienced workers (Maier, 1991). But lest the reader of this article think that this is too direct a transference of the leaming inherent in attending to the minutiae of everyday life, regardless of what life that is, the following example should serve to demonstrate how some supervisors have integrated this concept into their work with staff.

Listening to the silence in supervision
Recently, a supervisor, who has been part of our group for some time, but was not a participant in Henry’s training, was in supervision with a child care worker. They were discussing why the worker was experiencing difficulty in working with a young girl who had recently been suspended from school for the fourth time in the same term. When the supervisor posed the question, the worker, normally quite vocal, fell silent. The silence created an awkward moment for both of them. The supervisor, after allowing the silence to rest for a moment in the air between them, then proposed that they explore together the meaning of the silence.

As they listened to what the silence was telling them, and shared that with each other, they were able to explore the quality and limits of their relationship. Together they examined the strengths, weaknesses and fears they experienced in their work, thereby opening up the possibility of defining what they wanted their relationship to be. As a result, they had a clearer understanding of the expectations each held of the other and an idea of the possible benefits of their work together. Because they “listened to the silence” they were able to move their experience to a different level.

This supervisor, who was not part of Henry’s original training, had learned the importance of attending to the silence through the sharing of experiences in one of the regular supervisors' meetings. Thus, indirectly, the attention that Henry had paid to the silence which had occurred some five years earlier had affected this supervisor’s work with staff. In many respects, this parallels the multigenerational possibilities inherent in attending to the momentary events of everyday life with youth in care (Garfat, 1988). But the impact of attending to the minutiae of daily living is not limited to the first generational transfer as the following will demonstrate.

Silence in the interactions between youth and staff
Of all the relationships that are developed, and the interactions which occur in a treatment organization, those between youth and front line workers are undoubtedly the most intimate and intense. Consequently, they offer the greatest number of opportunities to “listen to the silence,” as in the following exchange, which occurred in a residential unit between a staff who had been there for years and a youth who had only been admitted some two weeks previously.

The child had just finished a “blow” which had necessitated the physical restraint of the youth by the child care worker, and the youth was cooling off on the steps. The child care worker moved to the steps beside the child and sat there without saying anything. Rather than try to fill the silence with other appropriate counselling techniques, she let the silence rest between them. After a few minutes, when they were joined together in the silence, this dialogue occurred:

CCW: “We've been sitting here now for a few minutes without saying anything. I think we both feel a bit awkward and that’s why we’re not talking. Can we talk about what we’re not saying to each other? Can we talk about what the silence means?”

Youth: “I’m thinking!”

CCW: “Me too. I’m thinking about how I can connect with you right now and I’m worried about making contact with you. What are you thinking about?”

Youth: “About what an asshole my old man is. Satisfied?”

CCW: “Very. What else are you thinking about your dad?”

Youth: “About how he used to ... ”

The content of what followed is not relevant at the moment. What is important is how the worker had taken the time to join with the youth around the silence and rather than interpreting what it meant, she had created the opportunity for the youth to define its meaning. By doing so, the process which followed was based on listening to the child and allowing the child to define the content of the process, after having modelled, herself, that risk-taking was safe by telling the youth that she was worried about how to make contact with him. By identifying her own anxiety about the silence, she gave permission for the silence to be filled by risk-taking.

The child care worker had no formal training in therapeutic process. When her supervisor explored this interaction and where her learning had come from, the worker was able to identify an interaction which had occurred with a previous supervisor as the forum within which the learning had occurred. The previous supervisor had been part of Henry’s original training. Thus, a moment which had occurred five years earlier was being translated into practice in an interaction twice removed from the original learning situation. The parallel with multigenerational learning and impact are obvious and will be noted by all Child and Youth Care workers concerned with the long-term impact of their interventions.

On the curculatory nature of learning within systems
The impact of interventions into the moment which result from attending effectively to the minutiae of everyday life are not linear. As in all systems, the nature of the feedback process allows for learning in one area to affect the process of growth in another (Garfat, 1992). Thus, while a supervisor’s learning may naturally be expected to affect interactions with staff, it is also true that interactions between child care workers and youth may affect the supervisor’s experience, as the following example demonstrates.

A child care worker had been involved in an interaction with a youth where she had created the opportunity for the youth to define the meaning of the silence which was momentarily existing between them. The moment followed a confrontation between them regarding the youth’s avoidance of participation in group discussions. When the worker, who was expecting the youth to reveal some aspect of her relationships with others, posed the question, the youth talked about how important silence and being separate was, and asked the worker to not talk. After a period of time just sitting together quietly, the worker and the youth did begin to talk and the worker asked the youth to share with her what there was about the silence that was so important; what it meant to her. The youth shared with the worker the beauty she found in silence and how silence had always been a place of peaceful sanctuary for her. The worker shared with the youth how she felt threatened by the silence.

Together, they explored a territory the child care worker had not known existed for either the youth or herself. The unity that the worker experienced during this exchange was, according to the worker, one of the most profound experiences of being connected she had encountered in her work with children. She had the sensation of truly “being there” (Fewster, 1990) with the child.

She shared this experience with her supervisor who, in turn, brought the incident to the supervisory group. It created the opportunity for us to discuss the importance of allowing youth to lead the process and how sometimes our expectations or interpretations can get in the way of effective interactions. It also helped us to re-appreciate the importance of “listening to the silence.”

Thus, an interaction between a youth and a child care worker, which had been influenced by a moment that occurred some years earlier when someone else “listened to the silence,” was still having impact on the group. Henry's intervention into the minutiae of daily life in our organization had moved back and forth across three generational subsystems over a period of five years.

Conclusion
Henry Maier has argued that attending to the minutiae of everyday life may be one of the most important Child and Youth Care tasks. Such a focus has the power to affect future interactions within a system. The foregoing has attempted to demonstrate this concept in the interactive life of a treatment organization. Additionally, it has demonstrated one aspect of the multigenerational impact of Henry Maier and his work on the field of Child and Youth Care.

Henry’s work has influenced the practice of Child and Youth Care. Through his writings, his training and his presence in the field, he has impacted on the quality of care which troubled children receive in organizations such as ours. The reality of systems dynamics suggests that his influence reaches far beyond his direct contacts.

The implications for Child and Youth Care supervisors is self-evident. The implications for attending to the minutiae of daily life are profound.

References

Fewster, G. (1990). Being in child care: A journey into self. New York: Haworth Press.

Garfat, T. (1988). Today’s children–tomorrow’s adults. In B. Gannon (Ed.), Today’s children–tomorrow’s adults: Child care in South Africa (pp. 6-12). Capetown, South Africa: National Association of Child Care Worker Associations.

Garfat, T. (1990). The involvement of family members as consumers in treatment programs for troubled youths. In M. Krueger and N. Powell (Eds.), Choices in caring (pp. 125-143). Washington, DC: Child Welfare League of America.

Garfat, T. (1992). S.E.T.: A framework for supervision in Child and Youth Care. Child and Youth Care Administrator, 4, 1. pp. 12-18.

Maier, H.W. (1971). The child care worker. In R. Morris (Ed.), Encyclopedia of social work (pp. 111-114). New York: National Association of Social Workers.

Maier, H.W. (1987). Developmental group care of children and youth: Concepts and practice. New York: Haworth Press.

Maier, H.W. (1991). Role playing: Structures and educational objectives. Journal of Child and Youth Care, 6, 4. pp. 145-150.

Peterson, R. (1988). The collaborative metaphor technique. Journal of Child Care, 3, 4. pp. 11-28.

These features:
Bath, H. (1993). Henry Maier: Influences on his life and thinking. Journal of Child and Youth Care, 8, 2. pp. 11-16.
Garfat, T. (1993). Listen to the silence: The multigenerational influence of the work of Henry Maier. Journal of Child and Youth Care, 8, 2. pp. 105-110.