I need to be straight with you, here.  I’m not entirely sure where my head was while writing and revising this chapter, but the tone is ENTIRELY different than Chapter 1.  Same person.  Different voice.  I’m assuming that I wanted to sound credible, or intelligent, and thus walked a road of pretention and verbosity.  It’s as if Charles Dickens crept into my neurology and demanded to produce words.  More words.  Large words.  Circuitous sentences.  A plethora of commas and semicolons.  I listened well.  And this will prove, to an extent, a detriment to you, reader, having turned from the last chapter to this one, expecting more of this…but getting…what you are about to get.  I appreciate you being here.  Okay, here we go.  Are you ready?  (This is really important, actually.  It’s just, the language gets complex and indirect at times.  What was I afraid of?  Shoot.  I know…I was afraid of not pleasing somebody.  Of not making somebody proud.  LOL.)

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(…yes, I encourage taking a nice, restorative breath here, and maybe another…)
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—SEVERAL HOURS LATER—

Okay, lol, I’ve just reread the first paragraph again and again and again until I’m certain that I am just talking about neurodivergent folks.  And further, I’m crawling down a tunnel of what I now know to be a neurodiversity-affirming framework in opposition to a pathology or medical framework.  I’m also tap-dancing around trauma-informed care. Basically, the fact that what I’m saying is anti-paradigmatic.  It’s counter-cultural.  Because it is.  Person-Centered. Actively-Listening/Processing. Impact-Regarding. Neurodiversity- and Neuroqueerness-Affirming. Trauma-Informed.  PAINT, as I’m now thinking about things.  I didn’t know how to say any of this back then.  I wasn’t really in a safe space.  At Shady Lane.  It was never really a safe space, and I wasn’t taking care of myself, either.  So here I am sounding all smart and shit, actually KNOWING wtf I’m talking about…but with attenuated confidence or joy.  The spirit of gravity burdening the spirit of levity.  Out to prove something.  LOL.

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(The invented symbol just above is intended to guide the reader, should they want, to breathe in, intentionally… hold… and breathe out, intentionally.  A moment of mindful grounding.  Okay, now onto the main body of the chapter.  I appreciate you.)

For people who struggle to consistently engage in the myriad forms of play, work, sensory and emotional self-regulation, and communication with others in community (i.e. neurodivergent and other disabled people), there exist numerous methods (e.g., curricula, programs, & techniques) that claim to offer support.  Methods abound across all human-influencing fields including medicine, health-and-rehabilitation-sciences, education, behavioral- and mental-health, and caregiving. Considering the truism that all human knowledge which informs human praxis[1] is human-created; and the existential reality that each era or timeframe offers unique, contextually-relevant, and distinctly human-impacting paradigms; assuredly additional support frameworks and pedagogies await discovery or creation.  I will here begin the process of building the framework for what I anticipate will prove an efficacious pedagogy, named above in the title of the chapter, and proposing a plausible support framework of impact-centeredness and interpersonal-influence on which it is founded.

I will begin with a basic single spectrum of support and place on either side of a dividing line, “supportee-centered” and, “supporter-centered.” 

*encompassing functional and naturally-emerging supportee self-motivations and lived-experiences within their immediate environments, including but not limited to home, family, school, or other caregiving/neighborhood contexts.

** encompassing assessments and therapies emanating from standardized and/or criterion-referenced (e.g., developmental charts, curricular benchmarks) tools which aim to assimilate supportees to prescribed norms in compliance with dominant-culture social constructs, legislative and funding mandates, and/or supporter-centered definitions of acceptability.

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Breaking the spectrum into four sections, the rightmost portion of supporter-centered techniques is what I am calling maximally impact-disregarding behavioral (IDB) and includes very rigid rules and teaching strategies.  Supporters attempt to control supporter-defined aspects of supportee-behavior, systematically applying punishments and rewards, reinforcements and schedules, constraints and restraints, environmental as well as social manipulations and intentional obstacles to ensure increased compliance and assimilation to stated or preordained rules and expectations.[2]

Supportee-Centered  —————————————-Supporter-Centered

At this far end of the supporter-centered spectrum, a supportee’s feelings, previous experiences, traumas, and all other non-behavioral information must be ignored or minimized. Supporters will at the very least quantify and standardize feelings so they can be reliably controlled and manipulated.  In other words, so the inner-world of the supportee has minimal to negligible impact on supporters’ endeavors and stated outcomes.  All human experience, including the perceivable (i.e. measurable) expression of emotions and even interpersonal relationships and communication, must be conceived as distinct variables that supporters can manipulate to ensure supportee compliance. Of note, a reader might be reasonably tempted to think, “At this extreme, there is absolute regard for impact, but that impact would entail intentional social and emotional harm for the sake of behavioral compliance,” which is both true and deserving of consideration.  Underlying and informing such consideration are the operational definitions of terms such as: impact, harm, and behavioral, which I will continue to elaborate in this chapter and throughout the book.[3]  For now, I will continue with the opposite extreme of our spectrum.

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The leftmost quadrant of the supportee-centered paradigm includes what I am calling maximally impact-regarding social-and-emotional (IRSE) endeavors.  Here, the supporter relinquishes standardized, criterion-referenced, funder-dictated, assimilation-focused, and/or compliance-driven expectations and enters the world, or experiential space, of the supportee.[4] 

Supportee-Centered—————————————Supporter-Centered

At this extreme, a supportee’s entire existence, including experiences, traumas, feelings, and states-of-being, is most critical in considering supports.  Any behavior a supporter judges as ‘undesired’ to them, or, considering dominant-cultural social norms, ‘inappropriate,’ is occurring because of a variety of external and internal factors to the supportee.  That is, the behaviors that supporters perceive, judge, and endeavor to act upon are regarded as symptoms, or outcomes, of underlying states of supportee-being. A supporter’s goal, informed by IRSE pedagogy, is to regard and support the social and emotional underpinnings and experiential frameworks from which the supportee’s behaviors emanate.

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If supporters only attempt to modify supportee behaviors without identifying, processing, and at least considering underlying supportee feelings and emotional reflexes, they risk traumatizing supportees and teaching, if not demanding, or worse, non-consensually forcing supportees to suppress, ignore, and/or be ashamed of natural human feelings.[5] Furthermore, and in fact fundamentally, a predictable causal outcome, or impact, of these kinds of unrelenting supporter behaviors are developmentally-understandable and biologically-adaptive supportee experiences of sympathetic nervous system (SNS) responses (i.e., fight, flight, freeze, or fawn/appease[6]), self-protective or even self-defensive behaviors, and/or trauma.

The public relations voices of school districts, religious nonprofit organizations, universities, hospitals, corporations, governments, and private multi-discipline educational/therapeutic franchises transparently communicate guiding principles and values indicating how, why, where, when, and which supporters will interact with supportees. These messages can be quite rhetorically-polished and are often adorned with phrases meant to inspire, awe, and attract funders and potential-supportee families. Communication often serves to ensure such negligible liability so as to functionally erase any responsibility with regard to supportee social, emotional, and psychological outcomes. A generalizable reality has become evidently clear to me in my experiences across caregiving, educational, medical, therapeutic, religious, work, and both online and offline social contexts and systems.  Specifically, the communities and, if my evidence gathered is representative, the city, state, country, and dominant society in which I exist and experience…is dominated by supporter-centered, or impact disregarding behavioral (IDB) endeavors; not necessarily, but often, to the extremes of significant-to-maximum IDB.

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A complete spectrum, including maximum to minimum scales, follows:

Supportee-Centered————————————-Supporter-Centered

Again, all Supporter-Centered methods disregard, to some extent, the supportee’s inner social and emotional (as well as sensory and nervous system) experiences while prioritizing predetermined or supporter-prescribed outcomes.  IDB methods treat relationships and community-building as predominantly predictable and controllable behavioral endeavors with minimized attention to emotional complexity and various external-to-supportee (e.g., sleep disruptions, family inputs, traumas, toxic stress, etc.) and internal-to-supportee (e.g., sensory processing functioning, cognitive functioning, brain differences, hunger, thirst, toileting experiences, etc.) factors.

A Supportee-Centered pedagogy aims to reduce supporter-controls while simultaneously considering the impact supporter behaviors have on supportees’ social, emotional, communicative, and self-perceived functioning and well-being.  A fair question at this point would be: Do researched, peer-reviewed, efficacious, and formally communicated IRSE endeavors exist across not only one-on-one psychotherapy endeavors, such as Carl Roger’s Person-Centered Therapy and applied Humanistic Psychology, but also the myriad existential paradigms of caregiving, coaching, medicine, health and rehabilitative sciences, behavioral and mental health, and education?  It is my intention to explore this question and eventually answer the question affirmatively while presenting both a plausible unifying support framework and a core IRSE pedagogy.

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IRSE Fundamentals: Social Bridging and Social Coaching

Impact-disregarding behavioral (IDB) endeavors, most commonly promoted as and/or founded upon the tenets of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), are ubiquitously used in therapeutic and educational interactions with Autistic people.  If one seriously considers the potentially, if not likely, harmful impacts of IDB approaches such as ABA, a reasonable conclusion follows.  Namely, meticulously controlling and impact-disregarding supporter techniques cannot facilitate supportee regulation, social-and-emotional well-being, and/or mutually-desired outcomes in supportees.  However, and as was illuminated above, these outcomes are not generally valued or pursued by practitioners, researchers, and funders of IDB approaches. Nonetheless, Autistic people, as well as other neurodivergent supportees^[7], commonly experience social, communicative, sensory, and emotional dysregulation^[8].  Furthermore, it is developmentally expected that all young children will struggle, to some extent, as they learn and process these endeavors.  Additionally, individuals with a variety of disabilities, differences, and trauma-experiences may contend with significant challenges in the same realms.  So, what methods can IDB-hesitant, IDB-critical, and/or IDB-harmed or -traumatized supporters utilize?

As an alternative, I will introduce social bridging and social coaching as two foundational IRSE techniques indicated for every supported child and; particularly within adult-to-adult contexts including an existential power dynamic (e.g. physician/patient, clinician/client); person.

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What is social bridging? 

Supporters serve as a conduit or guide (i.e., bridge) between individuals struggling with social, communicative, and/or emotional regulation[9] and their immediate social milieus.  The bridge is bi-directional and can include more than two people.  Supporters can meet and guide any person or several people across or on the bridge of relationship toward another person or people, and vice versa.

I often consider social bridging using an expert/novice perspective. This is a modification and expansion of the supporter/supportee convention used exclusively in previous paragraphs.  From here forward, and until otherwise explicitly indicated, I’ll no longer use “supporter” but rather, “expert.”  Also, “novice,” will replace, “supportee.”  Supporters are, ostensibly, experts at playing and talking, negotiating and cooperating, and so on.  Supportees are relative novices.  Additionally, within any group or community of peers, certain individuals, at certain times, will have more or less expertise at certain aspects of play, communication, social and emotional regulation, problem solving, executive organization, etc.  An expert/novice model within an impact-regarding social-and-emotional (IRSE) endeavor urges experts to understand that we, humans, are all interdependent beings with relative strengths (expertise) and needs (unfamiliarity or naivety).  It also importantly discourages adherence to dominant-culture-dictated and/or expert-indoctrinated power-dynamics.  Finally, an IRSE pedagogy requires the cessation of experts’ tendencies to criticize, punish, and disregard novices for not doing or saying what is immediately expected with flawless expert-defined accuracy and negligible latency between expert demands and novice responses.

Experts, acting intentionally as social bridges, serve as the primary play, communication, and relationship models for novices. How might an expert approach social and pragmatic[10]  assessment, treatment, and progress monitoring?  This depends upon the framework, conscious and/or unconscious, upon which an expert bases their expertise and expected/prescribed endeavors. I would offer that a reasonable impact-regarding social-and-emotional (IRSE) approach endeavors to guide the novice toward expertise through targeting incremental goals building to whichever skills/behaviors are mutually-desired.  A question: how do experts support novices in becoming experts?  An answer: certainly not through impact-disregarding[11] and exclusively behaviorally-focused punishment or reward.  Rather, experts, at the very least, bridge, as introduced above, and coach.

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What is social coaching?

Bridging is an essential foundational endeavor on which an IRSE pedagogy premises illuminating expertise and offering novice-centered guidance, as is coaching.  Coaching is what experts do when bridging isn’t enough to support novices in movement toward mutually-desired outcomes.  Coaching is what experts do when they need to make explicit what is not yet obvious to the novice.  They offer tips, strategies, and techniques they have learned, experienced, and researched along the way to gain expertise at being playmates, active community members, communication-partners, or any mutually-desired[12] outcome. The process of coaching novices experiencing social, communicative, and/or emotional dysregulation explicitly supports them.  To the extent that is momentarily possible, experts invite novices to observe, acknowledge, name or understand, process, and then achieve regulation.  Considering novice abilities and disabilities, experts guide them toward gaining self-control of emotions, interpersonal-functioning, words, and non-verbal behaviors.  Coaching also illuminates the reactions, emotions, and behaviors of peers and others, as well as the impacts that each person has on each other. An IRSE-endeavoring expert must aim to align this “meta” work, including a novice’s understanding of empathy[13], with the emotional and cognitive-linguistic functioning of the novice.  One could accurately call this process person-centered co-regulation.

This begs a practical, foundational question. Specifically, are there observable and measurable behaviors that illuminate the novice’s understanding of these existential relational complexities? 

I believe so.

Another question.  Are these behaviors present and contextually consistent across a high enough proportion of novice sub-populations to be considered instructive and guiding for an expert? 

Among the critical purposes of this chapter, book, and my future professional endeavors is to answer that question.  I believe they are, and we shall see if I can accumulate enough confirming evidence to, at the very least, convince the reader that this is a question worth considering.

One additional note in considering expert supports.  Experts should never attempt to bridge or coach with an individual who is panicked, traumatized, agitated, or otherwise in a fight/flight/freeze/fawn/appease[14] state of being.  The first and only goal in this case?  Is to support the individual in regaining regulation; or a movement toward the rest, digest, and process state of being[15]. Then, experts can coach, then bridge, and finally retract as completely as possible, allowing the novice to independently experience and “practice” bridged and coached skills while increasing their expertise.

A reader might recall an incident in their lives which prompted a sympathetic nervous system (SNS) response.  An experience of terror, physiological shock, abuse, or trauma.  It is impossible to problem solve and engage the executive functions[16] of our volitional corteces (i.e., to intentionally think) when our nervous systems are actively engaged to escape danger.[17]  A reader might even recall a time when they were a novice (e.g., a child, student, patient, or client) and experienced an SNS response due to the impact of an expert behavior, and then further traumatized when either the same expert and/or other experts attempted to actively approach, bridge, coach, teach, or even exert impact-disregarding control.  A nervous system that is actively alerting imminent danger is a nervous system that needs to perceive the complete cessation of the causal threat and then sense resolution and as prolonged a period of safety and “cool-down” as is necessary to re-establish calm, regulated (e.g. parasympathetic nervous system [PNS]) engagement.  This is why it is absolutely critical for experts to remain impact-regarding and simply exist with SNS-triggered novices, attempting to process and respond to novices’ social and emotional experiences[18] and communication[19], offering only inputs that facilitate a return to PNS and a sense of genuine safety.

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Here I would like to offer anecdotal evidence and insight regarding two young novices which will highlight functional, practical techniques for bridging and coaching within an impact-regarding, social-emotional (IRSE) framework. These are actual preschool students, though their names have been changed and any identifying information has been removed.  Future chapters will more thoroughly illuminate the praxis of IRSE interpersonal-influence for educators, therapists, and caregivers.  The following paragraphs serve as preliminary examples.

NOWELL:

Nowell, who is 4-years-old, more than anything else, benefits from social bridging.  He tends to play independently with a relatively narrow set of materials.  However, that set includes toys and materials that are commonplace and very popular among same-age peers.  Namely, a. trains, train-tracks, and anthropomorphized-train world-building materials (e.g., the world of Thomas the Tank Engine); and b. dinosaurs, animals, and related world-building materials.  Nowell’s play is generally very structured and concrete.  However, this is incrementally changing.  The social bridging used by Nowell’s education and IRSE team seems to have facilitated a mutually-desired impact, as has Nowell’s natural maturation and existence in an actively supportive family. IRSE expert-inputs include:

1. Engaging in PRIDE+ skills (Specific Praise in the service of celebration and bridging toward mutually-desired outcomes, Reflection of Nowell’s words, Imitation of his play, Descriptions of Nowell’s play and movements, authentic and natural Enthusiasm, and that “plus,” which is an intentional avoidance of all criticism or de facto punishment for him simply being a novice.)[20]
2. Accepting and encouraging other children to enter OUR (“expert”) child-focused play with Nowell.
3. Expanding PRIDE+ to include a bit of coaching…offering suggestions or making comments…and making sure Nowell gets a significant and prescriptive percentage of the “lead” in what emerges from the more cooperative bridged play.  He should feel included and influential but not pressured to do things that he indicates, both verbally and non-verbally, cause him discomfort or dysregulation.  This is the “prescriptive” piece and it’s entirely dependent upon the expert to judge and modify the intensity and frequency of techniques so that Nowell continues to participate with motivation and enthusiasm.  Experts can judge these concepts by child behaviors such as: closer proximity, orienting toward partners, increased visual regard and smiling, amused or otherwise positive or relaxed facial expressions, and no body tension.)  He should FEEL good about what he’s doing.  He should FEEL like he’s more of an expert.
4. While doing PRIDE+, not only describing what Nowell is doing to Nowell, but pointing it out to others and then pointing out to Nowell what others are doing.  There is that multi-directional bridge introduced previously in this chapter.
5. Attend particularly to the R.I.D. in PRIDE+, the reflection of words, imitation of behavior/play, and description of behavior/play.  This is what points Nowell and everyone toward those “meta” skills.  They know you are attending to them and then they hear your words and begin to understand that they can, too, think about and modify what they are doing.

As we do this, how will we know if the strategies are making a difference?  It’s actually fairly easy and we can take measurements of “how many times” or “how long” certain behaviors occur.  For example, how often is Nowell approaching and initiating with any peer?  How long does he remain in play with peers?  How often and for how long does that play shift beyond “parallel” and toward “cooperative” if not even “collaborative.”  How much is Nowell smiling?  How often is he looking around to get visual regard, or eye gaze, with a friend, then smiling?  There are many little measurements we can make to show, or confidently demonstrate, that Nowell is experiencing more independent expertise in the social and emotional skills we love to see and he and the children love to feel and do.  Additionally, we can gain important information through parent and educator reports particularly as it relates to Nowell’s maintenance and carry-over of, or independence with social and emotional regulation and relationship-engagement.

COREY:

Everything indicated above re: social bridging applies to Corey, also 4 years old, particularly when she is regulated and engaged.  For example, today, I observed from the hallway as Corey sat at the small kitchen area table with three other students in what appeared to be a pretend-play restaurant or dining-room scenario.  The vignette lasted at least 5 minutes with both Corey and the rest of her peers interacting seemingly cooperatively, if not collaboratively.  There are times when Corey is not able to independently remain self-regulated.  She seems to become propelled toward aggression and/or personal-space-encroachment toward community members/peers.  It is here and then, where and when we must shift to more concrete social coaching, particularly as interactions become more abrasive and conflictual.  Typically, coaching happens during or in the aftermath of what I’ll call, “an undesired social interaction,” particularly where children, including Corey, are left angry, sad, or otherwise agitated. I’ve observed interactions in which an educator (i.e., expert) has gained Corey’s (i.e., novice) attention to offer insights, ideas, and suggestions for processing both her and her peer’s obvious/outward/transparent emotions.  An example?  “I’m noticing that X is crying and seems upset?  Hey X?  How are you?” Another example: “Do you need something?”  If we know and have seen what happened, we should not ask, with an accusatory, critical, or exasperated tone, “What happened?!” as this can agitate the situation.  I might ask, with an even and authentically interested tone, “I wonder what happened?  I’m concerned and I want to support this situation.”[21]  The coaching paradigm does not place blame or indicate any judgement in terms of bad or good, appropriate or inappropriate, but rather explores emotions while directly caring for novices while offering reasonable boundaries, explicit expectations, and unconditional positive regard for and empathy with novices.

As illuminated in the previous section, experts should not coach Corey when she is experiencing a “fight or flight” response.  Rather, the primary goal is to protect Corey and her immediate community while co-existing with her and them in ways that facilitate a return toward a “rest and digest” brain, immediately after which time experts can bridge, coach, and otherwise process with Corey, et al.

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Play Bridging and Coaching

Among the most critical developmental and early educational endeavors for children, and I would argue among the most critical existential endeavors for every human, are, a. playing, and, b. socializing in community with others.  The specific inputs in supporting play are quite similar to those supporting social interactions.  Indeed, playing and socializing are the critical developmental endeavors of the process we call “social and emotional development.” 

Let’s, for reference, go back to that scale we created above, and, for further clarity, elaborate.

You will recall that IRSE means: Impact-Regarding Social-and-Emotional, and that IDB means: Impact-Disregarding Behavioral.  On the IDB side, “Min IDB” refers to minimal, or decreasingly restrictive and demanding external supports applied by perceived experts to perceived novices, which are, I’ll name, “Commanding.”  Further rightward, “Max IDB” refers to increasingly restrictive and intentionally harmful inputs, from “Demanding” to “Forcing.”  On the IRSE side, however, “Min IRSE” refers, in part, to an increased amount of external supports, or, as introduced above, “Coaching,” by a perceived expert. Further leftward, “Max IRSE” refers to less-controlling “Bridging” inputs that should, given efficacious IRSE inputs, dissipate further and become, “Offering.”

As experts exert increased impact-disregarding behavioral inputs, novices necessarily experience decreased agency, or a sense of control, to the point of restraint if not enslavement.  Increasing IDB supports also implies increasing harm to novices, to the point where active, intentional traumatizing can occur.  As experts consider increased impact-regarding social-and-emotional inputs, novices necessarily experience increased agency, or a sense of control, to the point where both novice and expert mutually benefit from shared emotional regulation and growth, or what I call, “co-benefitting.”  Increasing IRSE supports also implies decreasing harm to novices, to the point where active, intentional alleviation can occur.

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For now, and because the chapter aims to orient the reader toward an IRSE pedagogy, I have removed the IDB portion and will present a 0 – 100 scale of impact-regarding social-and-emotional supports.

While modifying toward one-hundred, an expert decreases and fades explicit inputs while increasing equitable, mutually-benefitting inputs because novices are people more independently and consistently (i.e., expertly) regulating emotions and moving through the momentary requirements of a prolonged social and play interaction.[22]

Shifting toward zero, an expert increases and intensifies explicit supportive inputs while simultaneously considering their impact on novices; providing empathy, congruence, and unconditional positive regard, to ensure achievement of mutually-desired outcomes.[23]

A critical piece of the IRSE pedagogy that I have neither explicitly defined nor elaborated is the construct encompassed in the first two letters of the acronym.  That is, Impact-Regarding.

What Does It Mean to Be Impact-Regarding While Supporting Novices In Social-and-Emotional Development?

Trauma-Informed Care

At present, the most popularly utilized and studied technique that aligns with earnestly impact-regarding endeavors is “trauma-informed care.”

A simple internet search-engine dive, using the quoted words above, will yield articles, chapters, podcasts, TED talks and other recorded lectures from reputable and reliable sources.  I will spend more time with trauma-informed care (TIC) in a moment, but would first like to illuminate a few of the foundational resources informing my impact-regarding praxis, the impact-regarding social-and-emotional (IRSE) pedagogy, and also the larger support framework[24] from which the IRSE and IDB spectrums emerge.

These resources include texts[25], praxis emanating from the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES) study from 1995 conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Kaiser Permanente[26]; my experiences with neurodivergence, disability, developmental childhood and additional acute traumas; and over 20 years explicitly engaging in pediatric client-centered, inclusive and embedded speech, language, and social-emotional therapy while decoupling both behaviorist methodologies and the medical model of behavioral pathology.

It is important to note, particularly given the list of influential texts I’ve offered, that not everything informing my impact-regarding social-and-emotional praxis comes from scientists or credentialed and peer-reviewed practitioners of professionalized human services (e.g. social work, medicine, health-related sciences, psychology, education).  There is a distinct Eastern (i.e. India, Tibet, China, Japan, and Vietnam) lean to the non-professional texts, which is both personal and essential to me. This is not to say that an efficacious impact-regarding endeavor must include THESE or even similar texts.  Rather, my assertion is that an aspiring expert must, particularly in endeavoring towards more impact-regarding practices both professionally and otherwise, connect with philosophical, ethical, and non-scientific guiding texts and media in addition to traditional evidence-informed professional training and development.  Furthermore, these connections must be pointed in the direction of self-regulation; of contending with one’s own traumas, emotions, experiences, and indoctrinated/learned ways of interacting in the world.  That is, there is no way to engage in truly efficacious impact-regarding care unless that care is directed inward first, foremost, and in intimate collaboration with outward endeavors.  Described differently once more, we, the perceived experts and more powerful/influential members of any relationship, cannot engage in authentically, efficacious, and fulfilling impact-regarding interactions without at least endeavoring to begin the process of turning inward to heal and understand ourselves.  I will explore this critical endeavor of introspection and self-support in later chapters.  For now, I would like to return to the discussion of impact-regarding praxis by illuminating the six guiding principles of trauma-informed care.

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The CDC’s Center for Preparedness and Response communicates six guiding principles in a trauma-informed approach and provided a simple infographic, linked here, and a related article, linked here.  The principles are:  

1. Safety
2. Trustworthiness & transparency
3. Peer support
4. Collaboration & mutuality
5. Empowerment & choice
6. Cultural, historical & gender issues

Duquesne University’s School of Nursing published an article in October, 2020, titled, “What Are the 6 Principles of Trauma-Informed Care?” in which the six principles are contextualized within the framework of nursing.  It would be simple and appropriate to reframe these principles to any endeavor of human service, growth, and development including but not limited to health related sciences, professional mental health endeavors, medical professions, education, mentoring, coaching, social work, and caregiving.  To that end, here I’ll link another article, from Psychology Today, dated November 26^th, 2021, “What Does it Mean to Be Trauma-Informed?: Use these 6 core principles to be more trauma-informed in your life and work,” by Katherine King.

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In all relationships there exists power dynamics and differentials.  This has been explored here, in a self-published piece on restraint collapse, and across all professionalized human-service endeavors. We can think about dyads including: doctor/patient, teacher/student, clinician/client, caregiver/child, coach/player, mentor/mentee, and guide/follower.  For the sake of continued mutual understanding, we’ll deem the more powerful person/people in a relationship “expert” and the more vulnerable person/people in a relationship “novice.”

I will return to the six principals of trauma-informed care, now adding a uniquely IRSE contextualization.

1. Safety – The expert endeavors, authentically, with empathy and unconditional positive regard for the novice, create a safe space for the novice.  This, namely “safety,” is the foundation on which the entire impact-regarding relationship sits, and if the safety is not actually foundational, if the safety is conditional, or with strings attached as the common phrase communicates, or if the safety is an illusion created by the expert to more easily force the novice into compliance or assimilation to some hidden standard…then there exists no safety from an impact-regarding perspective.
2. Trustworthiness & transparency – The expert endeavors to be honest, transparent, and consistent, thus creating an environment in which the novice is able to fully trust the expert and the relationship.  This means, quite explicitly, that the expert, if they endeavor to enter into an impact-regarding relationship and exert positive, consensual influence, must be willing to reveal personal experiences, feelings, and realities which creates a vulnerable space where the novice understands that the safety they feel is reliable and real.
3. Peer support – Building on and making more explicit the second principle, while an expert enters the relationship with specialized knowledge and training, an impact-regarding dynamic is most likely and efficacious when the expert has similar experiences to the novice and can relate to the novice also as a peer with genuine empathy.  Put another way and with contextual specificity, an efficacious impact-regarding dynamic is more likely when, given two otherwise equally qualified experts, the expert with aligning existential experiences to the novice engages with the novice.
4. Collaboration & mutuality – The expert endeavors to partner with the novice, to collaborate and offer mutual human respect.  We have now moved beyond breaking down the power-dynamic that traditionally exists between expert and novice to find the mutual humanity, understanding that ANY relationship, even that between surgeon and patient, is one, in part, of peer support, particularly as it relates to impact-regarding care.  And now?  We, the so-called experts, are collaborating with the so-called novices and supporting them in a mutually beneficial journey of healing, understanding, emotional regulation, and/or existential homeostasis.
5. Empowerment & choice – The so-called novice must feel empowered, as if their choices are actually choices and not expert-coerced compliance and assimilation endeavors. The only way to ensure that the so-called novice feels empowered?  The only way to ensure that they feel that they have real, independent, self-loving and growth-inducing choices? Is to, as the so-called expert, actually and authentically relinquish power and the desire to shape or mold the so-called novice in front of us.  That is real and authentic empowerment and choice and a critical manner to endeavor towards an efficacious impact-regarding relationship.
6. Cultural, historical & gender issues – I am now going to drop even the pretense of expert and novice and illuminate this principle of trauma-informed care in as impact-regarding (and social-emotional) a manner as is possible for me.  There comes a point in the lives of genuinely impact-regarding so-called experts where they realize a very important thing.  The expert/novice framing, in and of itself, is an obstacle and falsehood that inevitably serves to maintain a power dynamic in which the so-called expert exerts influence in an eventually self-serving direction rather than the direction the so-called novice wants, wishes, or feels compelled to go.  Furthermore, if the so-called expert is not actively engaged in a personal impact-regarding journey, they continue carrying unexplored and perhaps toxic or harmful attitudes, values, and various conceptions of “how this must be.” These attitudes arise naturally and humanly through upbringing, learning, lived experience and personal traumas.  However, if a so-called expert genuinely cares to engage in efficacious, actually helpful impact-regarding endeavors? They must begin to at least inspect the underpinnings of THEIR behaviors.  A reader may wonder, “How does this relate to the actual principle?  The consideration of cultural, historical, and gender issues?”  What an IRSE (Impact-Regarding Social-and-Emotional) pedagogy has taught me, fairly reliably, is this: If I can engage in as authentically and mindful an impact-regarding relationship, the endeavor of being culturally and existentially sensitive and safe is largely illuminated.  Put another way, if I am entering a relationship with another person, family, or community who exist in a cultural environment different than mine, there is certainly value in researching generalities of the most salient aspects of what I can learn “on paper,” and so-called experts should always endeavor to be as well-informed as is possible within an impact-regarding framework.  Foundationally, however, when I, being perceived as an expert, approach other humans, perceived as novices, in an authentically impact-regarding manner, as illuminated across these six principles and previously-described IRSE endeavors, I approach an important and reasonable assurance.  Namely, I am most likely to be momentarily sensitive in manners that create a safe, transparent, trustworthy, welcoming, mutually-collaborative, empowering, culturally- and existentially-inclusive and THUS efficacious impact-regarding relationship.[27]

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Trauma, punishment, and toxic stress are defined by what a perceived-novice experiences and not what a perceived-expert intends.

Returning to the construct of expert/novice, it is absolutely critical to recognize that interpersonal power dynamics always exist and the differential must be regarded as such in any human service, medical, educational, coaching, mentoring, caregiving, or otherwise helping relationship.

This is among the most important considerations in the movement toward more efficacious impact-regarding practices.  In fact, if the perceived-expert (PE) remembers and practices nothing else, one endeavor will provide the greatest assurance of reduced harm and toxic stress. Which is, always approach perceived-novices (PNs), or people with relatively less power and influence, with consideration of our impact and the intention to do as little harm as is possible.

Again, harm is in the eye of the beholder and, to be most accurate, the nervous system of the receiver. The PE cannot decide the impact of their inputs on the PN receiving them.  If a person experiences punishment, the emotions and nervous system responses that correspond with being punished, then the person is being punished, regardless of what the PE, their perceived punisher, intended.  A PE can, however, attempt to approach from an IRSE perspective and genuinely, mindfully attend to the language, the non-verbal reactions, and the physiological functioning of the PN they am currently influencing.  A critical question would be, “How can a PE know that a PN is experiencing stress, harm, punishment, or trauma?”  Above, I’ve described how we can observe an individual’s interpersonal, verbal, and non-verbal behaviors that indicate underlying experiences of regulation, acceptance, comfort, and safety.  Conversely, we can observe outward behaviors indicating internal strife, anxiety, agitation, pain, and danger.  These include but are not necessarily limited to: facial and body tension; furrowed brows and facial expressions that indicate pain, sadness, anger, or agitation; orienting away from influencing PEs; moving away from social interactions and towards self-isolation; reduction in visual regard or “eye gaze,” as it’s commonly called, particularly if the reduction is behaviorally unusual for the PN otherwise; throwing objects; striking or otherwise attempting to rebuff humans approaching or those uncomfortably nearby; screaming; and all of the behavioral indicators of tantrums or meltdowns.  Beyond these easily observable behaviors, impact-regarding, socially and emotionally focused PEs identify and illuminate perceived-novice-specific behaviors that indicate acute dysregulation or harm.

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A few words on efficaciousness.

I’ve been using the term “efficacious,” which is a necessary construct in any perceived-expert/perceived-novice (PE/PN) relationship.  In any PE/PN interaction, there exist desired outcomes.  If a PE approaches with impact-regarding social-and-emotional (IRSE) intentions, the desired outcomes, as we’ve learned, must be authentically and collaboratively PN-centered.  That is, outcomes cannot be defined fully or foundationally by PEs.  Of course, there are a myriad relationship in which outcomes are defined by PEs, by standardized curricula, evaluations, social norms, or community/organizational rules.  Here, we are talking about IRSE endeavors, and here, efficaciousness of achieving stated goals must, at all times and to the extent developmentally possible, remain PN centered, guided, and defined.

Efficaciousness communicates three interrelated and critical evaluation metrics when working towards social, emotional, or behavioral outcomes.  If, to create an explicit and common example, a goal in an IRSE relationship is, “The PN will attend to a self-chosen and motivating task for 5 uninterrupted minutes independently across 3 separate observations,” we could define efficaciousness as follows.

1. Accuracy.  Also known as “validity.” The question here is: has the IRSE relationship supported the PN in achieving the goal as written and collaboratively conceived?  Keeping in mind that we can and SHOULD modify goals along the way particularly as the PN and the PE grow and change separately as people and together in relationship.
2. Efficiency.  That is, has the IRSE relationship supported the PN in achieving the goal at a speed and in a timely enough manner that the PN feels motivated, empowered, and successful in moving toward their ultimate goal or goals?  Again, it’s important, from an impact-regarding perspective, that efficiency is NOT dictated by the PE but rather defined the experiences and stated feelings and desires of the PN.
3. Consistency.  Also known as “reliability.”  I’d ask, has the IRSE relationship supported the PN to independently, across various people and environments, and with increasing fluency or automaticity, maintain the achieved general goals and granular objectives along the way?

It is possible, and essential, to consider efficaciousness within each relationship, and PEs would be wise to dispel the common trap of disregarding momentary data, additive and aligning outcomes, case-study, and accumulative anecdotal evidence.  Certainly, if we are engaged in research and wish to find more generalizable practices, we must be increasingly sure that the techniques and inputs have been researched and peer-reviewed.  However, by dismissing all anecdotal evidence, particularly when a preponderance of data-points overwhelmingly point in an efficacious direction, we are ignoring the very foundation of even the hardest of science.  Put succinctly, if an intentional helping or service-oriented endeavor has supported a PN in achieving goals and if both the PN and the PE have sufficient reason and evidence to believe that the relationship was a critical factor in the growth, then we have evidence of therapeutic or relationship efficaciousness.

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Some Closing Words.

I have attempted, in this introductory chapter, to communicate the fundamental framework of an impact-regarding social-and-emotional pedagogy in therapeutic, helping, caregiving, educational, or any relationship with a power differential and expectation of a perceived expert supporting a perceived novice.  While largely theoretical and philosophical, we began an exploration of praxis as well, or the practical and interpersonal applications of an IRSE pedagogy, in several representative case-studies and additional experiential anecdotes.  In upcoming chapters, I will further explore techniques and endeavors toward becoming a more skillful and fluent IRSE partner.  However, I’d first like to contextualize this theorized, personally-researched and -practiced IRSE pedagogy within a more complete Impact-Centered Interpersonal-Influence Support-Framework and illuminate histories and lineages of praxis for both IRSE and IDB endeavors.

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[1] Praxis is the process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted, embodied, or realized (Wikipedia).

[2] This description may call to mind specific caregiving, educational, &/or therapeutic paradigms for readers familiar with B.F. Skinner, Ivar Lovaas, &/or the ever-proliferating applied behavior analysis (ABA) companies, providers, programs, & techniques associated with the two psychologists and their lineages.  I would like, for now, to remain focused on the proposed pedagogy & framework, while intending to dedicate thorough space in upcoming chapters to ABA.

[3] Please also refer to Chapter 1, “Glossary of Critical Terms for section I.”

[4] Here a reader may notice the influence of Carl Rogers as communicated in his “humanistic” and “person-centered” approaches to psychological theory and praxis as well as educational pedagogy.

[5] The concept of, “masking,” comes to mind here.  A well-researched and accessibly-composed Wikipedia article about, “Masking (Personality),” can be reached through this link.

[6] While many people are familiar with the phrase “fight or flight” as an indicator of SNS responses and the additional recognition of a “freeze” reaction, the “appease/fawn” response in people who experience extreme and/or prolonged trauma is a fairly novel discovery.  Linked here is a blog post from, “Psychology Today.”

[7] The term “neurodivergence,” is well-explained here, in the “glossary.”  I tend to cast a wide net when characterizing neurodivergent populations since the term refers to any individual considered by dominant-cultural standards, and thus pathologized as, “atypical,” “disordered,” and/or, “unnatural.” Thusly, neurodivergence, in relationship to the proposed pedagogy and framework, encompasses at least: autism, ADHD, developmental speech disorders, stuttering, dyslexia, childhood apraxia of speech, intellectual disability, Tourette syndrome, dyslexia, dyscalculia, giftedness, the impacts of complex and chronic stress, and other mental health conditions.)

[8] “Dysregulation,” in this case, implies a supportee-undesired and generally unenjoyable, or stressful, internal state of experience or functioning.

[9] “Regulation,” here, implies a relatively stress-free internal state that is both desired and enjoyed by the supportee.

[10] “Pragmatic,” here, refers to the general use of communication and language in social contexts.

[11] Specifically, disregarding the potential, if not actual and observable/measurable, harm occurring within the novice as a direct result of expert inputs.

[12] I’ve now mentioned “mutually-desired” outcomes several times.  Between adult pairings, the concepts of bidirectional-consent and mutually-desired interpersonal outcomes are relatively easy to conceive and explain.  It becomes less clear when there is a large age differential.  For example, when I, a 47-year-old expert, support a 4-year-old novice, what does “mutually-desired” mean?  I propose a better question, “Are there valid and reliable ways that I can experience, observe, and measure emotions and behaviors with this 4-year-old in this moment so that I can then understand what THEIR nervous system is communicating they want and need so that I can then modify my inputs to arrive at mutually-desired outcomes?” I assert, yes. Many preschool children, and indeed most preschool children contending with momentary emotional dysregulation and sympathetic nervous system functioning (i.e., fight/flight/freeze/fawn/appease), are not able to conventionally and/or understandably communicate (i.e., speaking, signing, or writing) needs, want, and emotional states of being.  This often causes experts to conclude that novices either cannot or will not communicate, thus functionally rejecting even the possibility of authentic consent and mutually-desired outcomes.  Which is a mistake.

[13] “Empathy,” here, refers to an individual’s desire and ability to understand the experiences and feelings of others as both separate from and also connected to them.  The term, “interdependence,” fits well here, also.

[14] This is referring, and a link is included to, the sympathetic nervous system.

[15] This is referring, and a link is included to, the parasympathetic nervous system.

[16] An article for more on, “Executive Functions.”

[17] A reader can find many resources from Dr. Dan Siegel regarding his, “hand model of the brain.”  This video is the shortest and most succinct.

[18] As displayed in behaviors such as: orienting toward the expert, engaging visual regard with the expert, seeking physical comfort, breathing calmly, smiling, or other behaviors that may be quite specific to individual novices.

[19] Verbal and/or non-verbal communication.

[20] “PRIDE+ skills,” is a term and construct originating with Sheila Eyeberg’s Parent-Child Intervention Training (PCIT) and extrapolated by David Stern and Karen Budd with Teacher-Child Intervention Training (TCIT).  Specifically, I have borrowed language from the first phase of treatment which is called the, “Child-Directed Intervention Phase,” in both programs.  The PRIDE+ skills I use, however, are customized to conform more completely within the IRSE framework.  Both PCIT and TCIT are built upon a foundation of applied behavior analysis, an approach which is impact-disregarding behavioral (IDB).

[21] A brief note on the language choices of experts, particularly those in fields that support young.  Often experts reflexively shift their speech patterns in a variety of manners that inevitably miscommunicates to novices.  There is an incongruence between words-spoken and all other aspects of communication.  For example, the expressed language may be, “Please tell me what happened, right now.” However, the expert’s tone, pitch, volume, and rate of speech as well as their proximity to and manner of gesticulating or physically presenting to the novice can easily communicate, or, most importantly from an impact-regarding perspective, be perceived as a threat of rejection, abandonment, and/or punishment.  That is, the message delivered may be, “Please tell me what happened, right now,” but the message received is, “I don’t like you. You are bad. I will punish you.”  Another communicative behavior that experts often use, particularly with Autistic and intellectually-disabled novices, is telegraphed, tonally-awkward, high-pitched, sing-song speech.  “No hit. Look. He is hurt! No hit. Look at me.  We.  Don’t.  Hit.  Say SORRY.”  The communication is fully critical and imperatively demanding.  Additionally, an assumption is made that a novice cannot understand, or does not deserve to receive, complete grammatical phrases that assume competence on the part of the novice.

[22] AN IMPORTANT NOTE: I believe, and will in upcoming chapters explore evidence that points reliably in the direction that the act of authentically, empathetically, and unconditionally regarding perceived novices *is* a significant and measurable support. I would assert, further, that such inputs are among the most critical supports available and beneficial to humans as a species.

[23] It’s important for me to explicitly recognize the influence of Carl Rogers and his humanistic counseling approach.  Here is a link to a short piece illuminating “Rogers Three Characteristics/Attributes Needed for Client-Therapist Relationship.”  Thanks to Kelly M. LaBare and SUNY Cortland for making this Rogers tutorial publicly available.  I will spend more time with Carl Rogers and his humanistic, or person-centered approach to psychotherapy and education in future chapters.  For now, the piece linked above will suffice to provide appropriate background to the reader.

[24] Chapter 2 will extensively explore my proposed, “Impact-Centered Interpersonal-Influence Support-Framework.”

[25] Critical texts in my journey include: “On Becoming a Person: A Therapist’s View of Psychotherapy,” by Carl Rogers; the collected writings and television recordings of Fred Rogers, knows as Mr. Rogers; “Living With Intensity: Understanding the Sensitivity, Excitability, and Emotional Development of Gifted Children, Adolescents, and Adults,” by Susan Daniels (Editor), Michael M. Piechowski (Editor); “The Body Keeps Score,” by Bessel Van Der Kolk; “Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive,” by Marc A. Brackett; “Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation Through Anger,” by Lama Rod Owens; “The Way of the Bodhisattva,” by Shantideva & Translated by the Padmakara Translation Group; “The Miracle of Mindfulness,” by Thich Naht Hanh; “The Prophet,” by Khalil Gibran; “How Can I Help? Stories and Reflections on Service,” by Ram Dass and Paul Gorman; and “Tao Te Ching,” as translated by the poet Stephen Mitchell and also illuminated in numerous archived lectures by Alan Watts.

[26] Three illuminating links follow: a. CDC link, b.  Harvard Center On the Developing Child link, c. Nadine Burke Harris TED talk link)

[27] It’s important to illuminate, particularly in a conversation about cultural, historical, and gender considerations in trauma-informed care, that I am not only a perceived expert because of my individual achievements and experiences.  In my case, I carry, in the United States at least, the automatic perceived expertise of existing at critical intersections of socially-dominant and historically-powerful demographic indicators.  I am a white, cisgender, heterosexual, relatively fit and thin, Standard American English fluent and literate, Catholic-raised, gifted, physically-able man with easily hidden/masked mental-health disabilities.  These considerations matter because; without authentic, honest, earnest, and momentarily mindful IRSE practice; my impact and the impact of perceived experts like me on perceived novices existing at intersections of demographic powerlessness is considerably more likely to cause harm or trauma.