Bob Collins, CDM
Founder and Director of STEP-Carefully! for Stepparents!
http://www.stepcarefully.com

We need your help! We are looking for link exchange, co-sponsorship, banner advertisement and other in-kind advertising as we work to reach more Stepfamilies across the world. We are interested in and are open to any unique ideas you may feel can benefit our cause and vise versa. We have a growing Blog, a wonderful website, and have just recently launched a printed division of our sentiments and are working to get those into stores across the country.
Join us! Help us celebrate the Stepfamily!

Regards,
Jeff

We need your help! We are looking for link exchange, co-sponsorship, banner advertisement and other in-kind advertising as we work to reach more Stepfamilies across the world. We are interested in and are open to any unique ideas you may feel can benefit our cause and vise versa. We have a growing Blog, a wonderful website, and have just recently launched a printed division of our sentiments and are working to get those into stores across the country.
Join us! Help us celebrate the Stepfamily!
Regards,
Jeff

bi polar, bi polar disorder, bi polar dis orders, manic depression

- I am divorced … as are both of my sisters (my only siblings). I’m also a step-daughter. My mother remarried when I was 12 (she was then 54; my step-father was 65 at the time). My step-father Tom is someone my mother had known since she was a teenager in war-time Europe (WWII). She was his fourth wife and they were happily married for 14 years before he died at age 80. I had HUGE issues with having him in my life until my early 20’s when I saw what an incredible role model he had been for me.

- I have four step-sisters, ranging in age from early 50’s (I’m 39) to the eldest who died several years ago but would be close to 70 by now. (My whole sisters are 54 and 56).

- The catalyst for this project was a committed and loving relationship I was in with a man named Dennis. He has two children, ages 9 and 7, and for the first time in my life I was facing the very real possibility of meeting them and creating an expanded family of my own. I was terrified of this uncharted territory. He and I are no longer dating, but by the time we broke up it became clear that the project had gathered a lot of interest and momentum, so here we are!

- Transforming the experience of “stepfamily” into one of unity, safety, and love for all family members.

- Transforming step families into enriching family units. Creating wholeness and safety for every family member through role clarity and generous listening.

Another take is to think in term of an OUTCOME:

Parents and step-parents across the US have transformed their communication such that FAMILY is an experience of love.

I went to a small liberal arts college in Western Pennsylvania, Allegheny, from which I flunked out in grand style in my sophomore year, due to my discovery of partying, having been raised in a fundamentalist Christian family in which everything enjoyable was forbidden (including card-playing, dancing, movies, TV, etc.). I returned to college after a year spent painting lines and messages (e.g., STOP, SLOW) on the streets in my small town — a job my father got me to show me the value of a college education. His strategy worked, as I made Dean’s list every semester after that until graduation.

I went to graduate school at Penn State and have been an admirer of Joe Paterno, the greatest football coach in the country (in my humble opinion), ever since. My wife and I were married when I was a graduate student, and we left Penn State for Nashville in 1970, where I did my pre-doctoral internship at Vanderbilt and discovered the joys of the Grand Old Opry — a la Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, etc. My wife, Jean, took a job as the Director of Social Services at the Tennessee Prison for Women.

After finishing my dissertation and working a number of clinical and administrative jobs in mental health and juvenile corrections in the Philadelphia area, we went to Tallahassee for a year in 1980, where I did a post-doc fellowship year in Forensic Psychology at Florida State, the year after Ted Bundy had murdered a number of Florida State co-eds.

We then moved to the Tidewater, Virginia area, where both my wife (an LCSW) and I took jobs in a large private practice group. Eventually, we left that group, and I began a private practice with a psychiatrist friend who eventually committed suicide in 1993, another major loss for me.

We had our first child, Emily, in 1980, and our second daughter, Erika, in 1987, both great girls who have been major sources of joy in my life. Emily, who went to Brown, was married in June this year and lives in Silver Spring with her husband. Erika is a junior at Indiana University, majoring in international relations and political science, doing extraordinarily well. We are dog lovers, currently the parents of an 8-year-old Great Dane, Dexter, who thinks he’s a lap dog.

I love music (went to college with the unrealistic notion of becoming a concert pianist), movies, and anything which gets me outdoors (e.g., running, biking, backpacking, gardening). I have a special affinity for dark chocolate.

My orientation to professional life is a strong commitment to the practice of Positive Psychology (focus on enhancing people’s strengths as opposed to fousing on pathology and deficits), and I am eternally optimistic, a believer in everyone’s capacity to change. In addition to individual and family psychotherapy with children, adolescents, and adults, I do lots of child custody evaluations, parenting coordination with separated and divorced parents who can’t seem to get it together, and coaching with family businesses. I love my work and tend to be a workaholic.

Our practice web site is http://www.ParkerSchlichterandAssociates.com, although it needs substantial work to bring it up to date, something we hope to do by the end of the year.

I am very much looking forward to a successful venture with our step-family project and look forward to getting to know everyone else who is committed to it.

Jeff

A. Questions to be asked and answered:

What types of groups? (e.g., topical vs. open for any discussion,
time-limited in # of sessions vs. open-ended)

What types of participants? (e.g., biological parents, step-parents,
children, adolescents)

Topical groups vs. open-ended groups

Duration of calls (e.g., 45 minutes, an hour)

Frequency of calls (e.g., weekly, 2X monthly)

Number of calls for each group (e.g., 4 sessions, 8 sessions)

Time of day for calls (e.g., a call which would serve people on the
East coast & a call which would serve people on the West coast)

B. Issues which could be addressed in calls:

Effective communication skills [e.g.,

For the biological parent and step-parent (within the new
stepfamily)

For the divorced biological parents

For the step-parent in the new step-family and his/her spouse’s
ex-spouse (the other biological parent)

For the parents of the step-family and the other biological parent
(and other step-parent, if other biological parent has also
remarried)

Between biological & step-parents and their children]

How to help children maintain effective “dual roles,” as members
both of a newly constructed family and as members of their
original family, whose structure and functioning has changed.

Effective decision-making and problem-solving:

Within the new step-family

Between members of the new step-family and family of origin

How to balance interests:

Between all the members of the new family

Between the deconstructed original family and the step-family

How to resolve scheduling problems

How to enhance relationships between step-parents and step-
children while giving children the space and time they need to
make a positive adjustment.

C. Groups can be formed with:

Parents who have made the decision to re-marry but not yet done it –
a date is set!

Parents who have formed the new family and are in the beginning
stages of coping with the emerging issues

Parents who have been in the situation for awhile, are experiencing
problems, and are perceiving resolution as difficult or impossible.

Parents who are communicating with each other, but the
communications are troubled.

Parents who are not communicating at all.

Children and/or adolescents who are members of these families and
would like some tips, support, suggestions, etc., who may not
have anyone with whom to talk about their experience. They
are not in need of therapy but coaching.

Parents who decide their own topics

D. Other issues for groups and calls:

Pre-interview of prospective members – we need an “application”
process.

Group rules (protocol) need to be established (e.g.,

People need to listen until others are finished

People need to identify themselves by first name whenever they talk

People do not make personal attacks

Others…)

Communication between group meetings (e.g., e-mails, calls, blog
entries)

I wwould like to hear everyone’s thoughtful input into this process, including novel ideas, criticism of my ideas, and other approaches to the task we have set ourselves.

Jeff