A bit of an issue with one of Nind’s 5 central features of Intensive Interaction

This blog is centred on something I don’t normally do; and actually something I feel quite anxious about going public on ... but I want to sensitively but reflectively challenge one of the central tenants of our Intensive Interaction theory and rationale.

Even worse, I am going to try to sensitively but reflectively critique the ground breaking work of one Melanie Nind (yes, I know!) ... and one of her 5 central features of Intensive Interaction from her seminal paper 'Efficacy of Intensive Interaction' of 1996 ("stop now ... go no further" I hear you collectively shout!) -  these defining statements being something I use all the time in my training - and actually as the basis of all of my Intensive Interaction work.

So the thing I have an issue with, and this issue has been coming into sharper focus recently with my work with some very challenged and challenging service users, is Melanie's very first 'central feature of Intensive Interaction' this being: 'the creation of mutual pleasure and interactive games; being together with the purpose of enjoying each other’ (Nind, 1996, p.50)

I suppose the issue I have is that often, and certainly so in the initial stages of trialling different Intensive Interaction strategies with some severely challenged and severely challenging service users (some of this challenge being evident in their social withdrawal and demand avoidance) in that ‘mutual pleasure’ as an outcome seems such a long way off.

Instead I think in such cases the primary need is to actually look to create a sense of non-demanding mutual acknowledgement … and then subsequent to that some level of inter-subjective understanding of a person’s psychological isolation, and separateness, possibly even their pain and despair … rather than looking to prematurely expect any practitioner pleasing, and possibly superficial enjoyment (in both the ‘classic’ or ‘adapted’ with language forms of Intensive Interaction).

Intensive Interaction asks us to ‘be with’ people in an unconditional way (see blog of 18/12/17), feeling them in an emotional sense, making psychological contact with them at the most profound level. For some people this will be an almost instantaneously joyous experience, but for some of our most challenged and challenging people, it can open them to feelings and thoughts that might illuminate negative past experiences, their previous social failure, their separateness and their associated social anxieties into an even sharper focus!

This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t go there, and be with them unconditionally using Intensive Interaction - absolutely not, it is vital for such people that we do - but it does mean that for some people, before we can even contemplate ‘mutual enjoyment’, we should look at doing the foundational ground work of ‘mutual acknowledgement and understanding’ - seeing and feeling the reality of their lived, and for some very negative experience.

Maybe hopefully, and in my experience absolutely “yes” eventually, the prospect of mutual enjoyment can become real; but a genuine and honest understanding of the journey that starts where the person actually is, is perhaps a better and more realistic way to set out on the first steps of this sometimes difficult and challenging journey to genuine social inclusion.