Levels of Engagement when Working with Male Clients

Is your client engaged within a visitor, a complainant, or a customer type relationship?

Practitioners have been known to suggest that some male clients are more difficult to work with. Although there has been a noticeable increase in men presenting for support, often for the first time in their lives, challenges often lie in recognising what level of engagement men are seeking and how practitioners can appropriately respond, with a potential consequence of client disengagement.

The various levels of therapeutic engagement relationships (visitor - not identifying a problem or desiring change; complainant - identifying a problem but external to self; and customer - identifying a problem and a desire to change) have been revised in similar formats over the years. This webinar will reexamine and compare these ideas, exploring concrete and practical ways of working with male clients and moving into deeper levels of engagement methods. Clinical practice examples will be provided throughout, including applicable strategies and processes for attendees to consider within their own practice.

Who should attend? Suitable for emerging, evolving and established practitioners working in a therapeutic setting or within goal-based client work.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this program, participants will be able to:

· Understand the various types of therapeutic engagement while working with male clients

· Evaluating types of therapeutic engagement methods male clients are seeking

· To develop context for male clients to move into deeper levels of therapeutic engagement

· To Apply practical approaches working within clients’ current engagement level, as well as moving to deeper levels of engagement.

Presenter

Michael Ellwood (Masters of Counselling, Bachelor SW, GradDipSW) has been working in therapeutic practice for 18 years across a range of settings and client populations, and has run his own private practice for 6 years. The majority of this work has involved working with clients around creating or responding to change. He has a Masters of Counselling as well as a Graduate Diploma of Social Work (Family Therapy & Advanced Counselling) and a Bachelor of Social Work. Michael is also a member of the AASW and a clinical member of PACFA.

As well as his current private practice work, Michael also work as an Associate Lecturer within the University of Queensland’s Masters of Counselling program, within which he lectures in Family Therapy as well as Relationship Counselling, and has previously lectured in Theories of Counselling. He also provides clinical supervision for social workers and counsellors, and supervises Masters of Counselling students during their clinical placement.