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PODCAST

Becoming Centered

Russ Bloch, MSW, MBA

This podcast is a field guide for professionals seeking perspectives and techniques for helping others find their balanced path. It"s also for people who want to learn the self-counseling pathways, navigation tools, and practices to live a centered life. Organized into several series, this podcast focuses on: (1) understanding the territory of personal psychology, (2) tools and techniques for counseling others in how to develop a centered and balanced life, and (3) tools and techniques for

education courses

All Episodes

33:05

79. SIB3 - The Psychology of Superficial Cutting

Becoming Centered ·

2026/09/11

Episode 79 of the Becoming Centered Podcast is the third part of an arc focusing on self-injurious behaviors among children and youth at a residential treatment program. This episode moves on from the SIB of head-banging and looks at superficial cutting. Among some residential treatment populations, this is a distressingly common behavior; however, most staff probably have never attended any training specifically on this behavior. In addition to addressing the residential counselor's initial

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32:59

78. SIB2 - Responding to Intense Head-Banging

Becoming Centered ·

2026/09/03

Episode 78 of the Becoming Centered Podcast is the second part of an arc focusing on self-injurious behaviors among children and youth living at a residential treatment center. The first part of this episode continues to look at relatively light head-banging, but specifically among kids with severe and profound autism. As part of that, there's a brief description of how to conduct a Functional Behavioral Analysis as a technique for responding to kids who are largely non-verbal. This episode then

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35:44

77. SIB1 - Responding to Light Head-Banging

Becoming Centered ·

2026/08/23

Episode 77 of the Becoming Centered Podcast begins an arc focusing on self-injurious behaviors. Actions such as superficial cutting and head-banging are so frequent in residential treatment centers, especially those working with adolescents, that residential counselors are likely to encounter these issues. However, there tends to be little dedicated training in how to comprehensively respond to these problem-behaviors. The professional literature tends to focus on describing and interpreting

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32:21

76. Milieu Counseling5 - Relationships and Changing...

Becoming Centered ·

2026/08/10

Episode 76 of the Becoming Centered Podcast concludes the Milieu Counseling episode arc by considering the role of relationships in giving residential counselors leverage to transform their clients' beliefs. It takes a look at five categories of maladaptive beliefs that can start to emerge in childhood that drive a dysfunctional life. Residential Counselors are uniquely positioned to form relationships with clients that challenge these negative beliefs and support healthier beliefs. These negative

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32:25

75. Milieu Counseling4 - Beliefs in and Practicing...

Becoming Centered ·

2026/07/29

Episode 75 of the Becoming Centered Podcast is all about how Residential Counselors can help kids become more cognitively self-regulated. Residential Counselors are uniquely positioned to help children and youth clients develop their executive skills. These skills help kids to structure and regulate their own thinking. Residential treatment provides frequent opportunities for kids to practice planning, prioritizing, organizing, sustained attention, time management, working memory, and

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33:14

74. Milieu Counseling3 - Structures Supporting Skills...

Becoming Centered ·

2026/07/14

The latest episode of the Becoming Centered Podcast, Episode 74, explores three factors that blend together to create a treatment environment in a residential treatment program. The first factor is the way in which various Care activities are organized. For example, this episode compares feeding kids cafeteria-style versus family-style and looks at some aspects of how household chores are implemented. The second factor is how residential counselors instill beliefs in kids that support treatment

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30:17

73. Milieu Counseling2 - The Purpose of Residential...

Becoming Centered ·

2026/06/14

Episode 73 of the Becoming Centered Podcast continues to look at how direct care staff can incorporate treatment interventions into every part of the residential day. A lot of that involves interacting with the kids in a way that is consciously intended to promote in them a sense of belonging, a sense of purpose, a sense of agency, and a sense of meaning. These qualities will make kids more resilient to the stressors and triggers in their lives. Most staff have a good intuitive understanding of

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32:32

72. Milieu Counseling1 - Overview

Becoming Centered ·

2026/05/24

This episode of the Becoming Centered Podcast begins a new arc that focuses on how to build treatment structures and interventions into every minute of the residential shift. In a treatment program, there will typically be some treatment structures like individual therapy, or even group therapy, that pull kids from the everyday residential structures. That's certainly of treatment value, however, there can also be treatment structures and interventions that are baked into every part of the

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26:53

71. (Archival) Ep18 After Processing Suicidal Ideation

Becoming Centered ·

2026/05/02

Today's episode is from the archives that are available at www.BearClanllc.com. It's a re-cast of Episode 18, addressing how counselors can stabilize kids after an incident involving suicidal ideation or gestures. The role of a counselor is fundamentally different than the role of a therapist in these situations. The counselor's focus is on helping the client see the suicidal ideation or gesture as a symptom and then helping the client cope with that symptom. It's not about understanding where

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31:08

70. (Archival) Ep17 Suicidal Ideation

Becoming Centered ·

2026/04/20

This is an archival episode that re-releases Episode 17 on Suicidal Ideation. Episodes 17 and 18 explore how to counsel residents who experience suicidal ideation. Residential children and youth are part of a high-risk group for having thoughts of suicide and, often times, it will fall upon residential staff to provide effective counseling, typically late at night. Learn how to effectively process suicidal ideation with your clients and what sort of follow-up interventions can help keep your clients

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31:11

69. Expectation Systems & Contracts

Becoming Centered ·

2026/04/12

Episode 69 of the Becoming Centered Podcast, building off of the previous two episodes, presents listeners with a powerful tool for residential treatment programs – Expectation Contracts. Episode 67 presented the underlying conceptual difference between using point systems, behavior contracts, and other "behavioral" change techniques to impact performative surface behaviors versus impacting inner systemic change. Both have their place. Episode 68 expanded on these distinctions by introducing the

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30:59

68. Behavior-Management vs Feedback-Incentive Systems

Becoming Centered ·

2026/03/29

Episode 68 of the Becoming Centered Podcast expands on the topic of how to design interventions targeted at changing performative surface behaviors versus interventions designed to inspire inner systemic changes in how kids manage their emotions, adopt self-regulating beliefs and values, and consciously manage relationships with others. The key design difference is whether or not a point system, coupon system, token economy, or other forms of behavior contracts track observable behaviors or try to

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33:55

67. Performative vs Systemic Change

Becoming Centered ·

2026/03/20

Becoming Centered Podcast 67, "Performative vs Systemic Change" lays the groundwork for understanding how to design effective behavior-focused program structures that are intended to shape the behaviors of children and youth in residential treatment programs. The key to effective design of these structures is understanding when and how to focus on performative behaviors versus when and how to focus on inner systemic change. "Performative behavioral change" are changes in the kids' surface

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32:05

66. House Meeting6 - Parts & Treatment Objectives

Becoming Centered ·

2026/02/23

This episode of the Becoming Centered Podcast presents four major parts to a residential treatment program's House Meetings (a regularly scheduled meeting of staff and clients). Each part, (1) check-ins, (2) announcements, (3) group discussions / agenda items, and (4) wrap-up provides a forum for promoting resilience, self-regulation, social skills, and team-building. Regardless of the specific content of any single meeting, staff focus on four aspects of resilience, four aspects of

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28:59

65. House Meeting5 - Storming and Purpose

Becoming Centered ·

2026/01/25

Skillful facilitation of House Meetings is one of the most challenging, but also most impactful, aspects of providing a treatment experience. Developing a group of troubled kids into a high-performing team, that absorbs each other's misbehaviors and promotes maturation, is a difficult task. Storming behaviors are common among kids in residential treatment. In House Meetings, a significant number of kids will deeply struggle with inappropriate meeting behaviors – ranging from aggressively menacing

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29:42

64. House Meeting4 - Emotional Sensitivity

Becoming Centered ·

2026/01/11

Running a residential unit for children and youth that goes beyond providing quality Care to also delivering an impactful Treatment experience requires staff to constantly focus on team-building. It's as a high-performing team that the kids develop their own self-regulation and resiliency; through helping their team-mates manage their daily emotional, cognitive, and behavioral challenges. One of the best structures in which to develop a residential unit into a team is the, at least weekly, House

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30:28

63. House Meeting3 - Check-ins

Becoming Centered ·

2026/01/01

Episode 63 of the Becoming Centered Podcast focuses on how to facilitate Check-ins as part of a residential treatment program's House Meetings. Check-ins are an excellent way to start House Meetings. Literally, people take turns giving a brief report on how they are doing that day. Structured effectively, the practice of conducting Check-ins can become a foundational technique for a program providing a treatment experience for the kids. When used in a group setting, Check-ins are steered by the

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30:45

62. House Meeting2 - Phases of Team Development

Becoming Centered ·

2025/12/08

Episode 62 of the Becoming Centered podcast is the second episode in an arc focused on House Meetings. In my experience, House Meetings are the single most effective group structure in the residential week for promoting team-building and for developing the kids into a high-performance team. When that happens the entire residential experience shifts from having to spend an excessive amount of time on behavior management to a treatment environment that promotes mental health. Developing that kind

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31:49

61. House Meeting - Resilience & Skills Development

Becoming Centered ·

2025/11/23

Episode 61 of the Becoming Centered podcast starts an episode arc focused on the use of House Meetings in residential treatment programs. House Meetings are a structured meeting of all the residents and available staff that are part of a residential unit at a treatment program. House Meetings are the single most powerful structure for building a positive unit culture that supports the formation of a resilient residential team of staff and clients. This episode arc starts out by presenting a vision

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31:14

60. Care vs Treatment, Behavior Management, and Respect

Becoming Centered ·

2025/11/10

Episode 60 continues along the Group-Level Interventions Pathway. Building on the last episode, other foundational perspectives for going beyond only providing quality Care to providing transformational Treatment are presented. These include making a distinction between Care and Treatment, and understanding that behavior management techniques, while often times essential, are part of Care and not Treatment. Several organizational traps of becoming too focused on behavior management are explored,

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