MENDS Counsellor Manual: A Structured Approach to Assisting Men in Relationship Crisis

Owen Pershouse

Clinical and Forensic Psychologist in Private Practice



The MENDS program is a very mature and usable tool for the helping professions, a program of world standard in addressing a serious social issue.

— Steve Biddulph

A large and mostly unacknowledged mental health risk in Australia today is among recently separated and divorced men. No group of comparable size is at higher risk for suicide, or for violence, depression or addictions. Their ex-partners and children are also harmed if these men do not manage to stabilise their lives and react with care and insight to the changed alignment of their lives.

Men fare poorly in several measurable areas after a relationship breakdown and appear to take longer to reconstitute healthy and productive lifestyles after separation or divorce. The MENDS program, developed from a firm theoretical basis and trialed with over 1200 men, aims to reduce anxiety and depression, as well as contain anger and enhance client self-judgments and senses of wellbeing by providing valid and practical information, along with effective methods of self-auditing, planning and progress evaluation.

The 12-week program adopts a structured, psycho-educational, and multidisciplinary forum for clients to address areas of psychological wellbeing, physical health, legal/social issues, and relationships. Importantly, the MENDS program focuses on the male experience of key transition issues occurring during separation or relationship crisis, in order to help participants develop a personal and practical 'map and compass'.

The program includes comprehensive easy-to-use session guidelines, a substantial introduction covering the background and theoretical underpinnings of the program, and a data CD containing over 50 handouts covering all session materials.

About the Author

Owen Pershouse is a clinical and forensic psychologist in private practice. He is also a Regulation 7 Officer under the Family Law Act, and testifies as an expert witness in difficult/contested family law matters, particularly those involving allegations of, or actual abuse of children. His practice encompasses consultancy arrangements with various government and criminal justice jurisdictions around Australia, including private providers of custodial services. Owen combines expertise in program development for violent men, substance abusers, sexual offenders, as well as one-on-one assessment and treatment for a variety of psychological presentations. He is the principal architect of the MENDS (Men Exploring New Directional Strategies) program for separated/divorced men and an executive member of the national organising body for that program.

Reviews

From the Foreword by Steve Biddulph

"The largest and most unacknowledged mental health risk in Australia today is among recently separated and divorced men. No group of comparable size is at higher risk for suicide, or for violence, depression or addictions. Their ex-partners and children are also harmed if these men do not manage to stabilise their lives and react with care and insight to the changed alignment of their lives.
First launched in 1996, the MENDS concept developed by Owen Pershouse and Daryl Sturgess has been an impressive success, turning a time of crisis into one of significant personal growth, in men who often would have been doomed to repeating unhappy patterns of dysfunctional relating.
Over 1200 men have completed the program, and its measurable outcomes in reduced conflict, positive cooperation in raising children, and healed and restored lives, are impressive and uplifting.
Thirty years ago, as a beginning family psychologist, I came, like most others to this area, from the starting point of the needs of women and children. It was inviting, and easy, to see men as the villain, and to fall into a blame game around marriage breakdown and its often dangerous and traumatic aftermath for the entire family. We simply did not know how to help beyond the blunt instruments and financial catastrophe of the law.
It soon became painfully clear though that a lack of emotional literacy, and the sheer isolation of men from each other at a level of deep conversation or thinking about their lives, and a lack of support mechanisms or education about family matters, set them up for woeful relationships to women whether they were in or out of marriage. This co-dependency was almost the norm in the marriages of the 20th century, and was the key reason for their failure rate of almost 50%.
Owen and Daryl brought impressive experience in working with men, into a very masculine answer to this problem: a highly structured, well researched, and very comprehensive program that used an educational rather than a pathologising model to which men could aspire with their self-esteem intact. The result was a level of acceptance and utilisation by a traditionally almost impossible-to-reach target population, and outcomes to gladden the hearts of everyone involved. Men who are calmer, kinder, happier, able to get on with their lives, and form future relationships on a completely different basis of awareness and cooperation.
The MENDS program has evolved, and probably will continue to evolve, but it stands now as a very mature and usable tool for the helping professions, a program of world standard in addressing one of the most serious social issues of our time. This book is a milestone in making it available to a wider group of professionals, for whom the difficult work has been done, and the collective wisdom of decades of practice  is available for direct application."


Table of Contents

cd contents

Session 1 materials
HO-1.1 Program Structure
HO-1.2 Program Elements and Relationship
HO-1.3 What Can the Program Do For Me
HO-1.4 Program Agreement
Client Starter Pack materials
SP-1 Welcome Aboard
SP-2 Why Do So Much Assessment
SP-3 Reconnecting With Your Self
SP-4 Reconnecting With Children
SP-5 Reconnecting With Others
SP-6 Statutory Needs Questionnaire
SP-7 Health Issues Questionnaire
SP-8 Men’s Issues Questionnaire
SP-9 A Consumer’s Guide to Engaging a Family Law Practitioner
SP-10 Graduate Testimonials

Session 2 materials
HO-2.1 Client Sessional Summary Report
HO-2.2 Rules for Effective Counselling Sessions
HO-2.3 ‘I’ Statements: Taking Responsibility for Feelings
HO-2.4 Structured Autobiography
HO-2.5 Crisis Containment Strategies

Session 3 materials
HO-3.1 Reconnecting With Self
HO-3.2 Options in Response to Crises
HO-3.3 Hostile Alienation Self-Talk
HO-3.4 The Hostile Alienation Experience
WS-3.1 Reconnecting With Myself
 
Session 4 materials
HO-4.1 Health Issues
HO-4.2 Health Issues Do’s & Don’ts
WS-4.1 Stress Inventory Worksheet
WS-4.2 Stress Management Plan

Session 6 materials
HO-6.1 3D Model: Understanding Children’s Coping
HO-6.2 Children’s Experience of Separation
HO-6.3 Contact: Understanding the Basics
HO-6.4 Contact Guidelines
HO-6.5 Contact Planning Sheet

Session 7 materials
HO-7.1 Social Support Snapshot
HO-7.2 Triggers, Moves and Critical Decisions
HO-7.3 Child Support at a Glance

Session 9 materials
HO-9.1 Relationship Styles
HO-9.2 Traps to Trusting Again (Again)
HO-9.3 Postseparation Pathways
HO-9.4 Established Risk Factors for Relationship Breakdown
HO-9.5 Journalling for Change
WS-9.1 Unhelpful Styles of Relationship
WS-9.2 The Four Keys to Rebuilding

Session 10 materials
HO-10.1 Why Get Involved in a Peer-Support Group?
HO-10.2 Quality Checking Prospective Peer-Support Groups
HO-10.3 Questions and Ideas

Session 11 materials
HO-11.1 Letter From Future-ME

Session 12 materials
HO-12.1 Counselling Program Evaluation
HO-12.2 Certificate of Attendance
OR-12.1 Counsellor Program Summary Report