“If the Mountain won’t go to Mohammed, then Mohammed must come to the Mountain”.
“If the Mountain won’t go to Mohammed, then Mohammed must come to the Mountain”.
19.07.19: The saying “if the mountain won’t go to Mohammed, then Mohammed must come to the Mountain” has been around for centuries, and been attributed originally to both Turkish folk-lore as well as being re-told in ‘Essays’ by Francis Bacon almost 400 years ago (c1625) –
‘Mahomet cald the Hill to come to him. And when the Hill stood still, he was neuer a whit abashed, but said; If the Hill will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet wil go to the hil’.
This week I have been continuing my Centrepoint Psychologically Informed Environment (PIE) journey by travelling around services in North West and South West London, and on a number of occasions I have been reminded when talking to staff and young people of this proverb.
For me, this was something I learnt very early on in my Clinical (and Forensic) Psychology Training. It sums up the whole essence of what we do when we work with people for a living; it is the very underpinning of our most important role in the therapeutic relationship — ‘to engage’ with the other person. I have written a little about engagement before in this blog, when I spent time with the Centrepoint Engagement Team (c.f. ‘Football the International Language’; 14.06.19) but I am returning to the theme this week because it feels particularly relevant again.
The services I have visited this week have been very diverse in terms of the Young People that have been referred to them; ranging from care leavers, unaccompanied minors seeking asylum, those for whom there is family breakdown, mental health issues or substance use, as well as young mothers. Each of those Young People are unique, their only commonality is that they are ‘homeless’; which is where Centrepoint’s offer of ‘A Home and A Job’ is needed. However, because of the diversity of the Young People that Centrepoint help, there can’t be a ‘one size fits all’ approach when staff are working to engage with the Young People that need their support. Instead, what I have seen and discussed with staff this week, it is that it is their creativity in how they work that has the results, as well as their willingness to sometimes shift from their position and ‘move towards the mountain’ to connect with the young people that are trying to support. It doesn’t mean we don’t have boundaries with Young People, in fact PIE principles argue that consistency, clarity and fairness are all very important, but can be combined with flexibility or ‘elastic tolerance’ when the need arises. This is why reflection on our day to day practice (i.e. what we are doing, why we are doing it, is it working and what else could we be doing?) within our teams is so important.
So how do we move closer to that mountain and engage with another individual that may for various reasons (e.g. early life experiences of negative relationships) be unwilling to ‘engage’ or trust us? Following my discussions with staff this week, and my own experience over two decades in working in forensic and mental health services in prisons, the community and the NHS, I have realised that it is the willingness to move towards the ‘position of the other’ (i.e. the mountain) rather than expect the other person to move towards ‘my position’ immediately that is often key to beginning to build that therapeutic relationship (i.e. trust), from which all positive change and growth can occur. What this means in PIE practice can include the following;
- Creating opportunities for interaction such as spending time in communal spaces;
- Informal key working sessions over a cup of tea that may be less threatening initially than sitting down with paperwork in front of a computer;
- Spending time with others in different activities (e.g. going for a walk, having a house BBQ or an activity together);
- Being flexible in timings and lengths of appointments, and accepting that sometimes Young People forget to attend, or need prompting to attend / repeated appointment offers;
- Agreeing to work on goals that are meaningful for the Young Person first (e.g. financial) even when there may be issues we would have preferred to address initially (e.g. substance use);
- Building in opportunities for positive praise and reinforcement rather than focusing interactions solely on sanctions, demands (e.g. rent arrears) or warnings;
- Finding common interests or points of debate (e.g. music, sport);
- Supporting others to make a first step to attend a new session or activity by accompanying them, to reduce their anxiety and advocate for them;
- Being transparent and clear about what we can do and what we can’t, and why;
- Doing what we say we will do when we say we will do it.
In the services that I have visited this week, I have spoken with many staff, who have great engagement skills with their Young People, and whose only issue is the sometimes the time they can get to put these into practice. I have seen how there are often many challenges working in services, often have many procedural or housing related issues to address in their daily jobs. Our staff have to be masters in juggling these demands with their PIE skills of ‘engagement’, but under a PIE we need to remember that these ‘engagement skills or activities’ are key to building relationships and positive outcomes. This is after all the only way that we can move closer to that ‘mountain’ and support our Young People, in a way that I have also seen this week is so highly valued by them.
