From "Impossible" to "I'm Possible: helping parents regain agency with NVR

As the the First North American NVR Conference approaches,  Dan Dulberger and Peter Jakob discuss the unique value NVR brings to North American mental health culture, its multiple applications, and how it helps parents regain agency facing seemingly impossible situations with their children.  

More about the conference: https://www.nvrt.ca/nvr2026na

Register for the conference: https://whova.com/portal/registration/Nh4-FzNIyFEy-gmCNaEV/  

Transcript

Peter J. (2) 0:36

Hey, dad.

Dan D. 0:38

Hi. Good to see you. Hi.

Peter J. (2) 0:39

Good to see you too. We've come together today to talk about the upcoming CNTP North America Conference. The first,

Dan D. 0:51

the first

Speaker 0:51

north, the first North America. Very first,

Speaker 2 0:54

yeah.

Speaker 0:54

NBR conference. I wanna ask you, but just before we get into those questions, can you just tell us the dates of the conference?

Speaker 2 1:02

Yeah. The conference will take place between May 27th and May 29th. 2026. That's May 27th, May 28th, May 29th, 2026.

Speaker 1:15

So

Speaker 2 1:16

all online, it's virtual.

Speaker 1:19

Virtual accessible, worth it. And, these dates can go into people's calendars.

Speaker 2 1:26

Absolutely.

Speaker 1:26

The purpose of our conversation today is to help listeners to this podcast realize, what the conference is about really, or get a sense of how they may benefit from attending this conference. So is it okay if I just go into the questions?

Speaker 2 1:46

Oh yeah. Let's dive in.

Speaker 1:47

Okay. So my first question really is what inspired you to do this? To host this very first North American conference on NVR?

Speaker 2 1:56

If you remember, we started thinking about getting NVR to North America back in 2016. That's exactly 10 years ago. And I actually remember the moment when we met with Jaime Omer. In in, in some conference, I think in Sweden. And and and he gave us his blessing to do that.

Speaker 2:18

Yeah.

Speaker 2 2:18

And here we are, 10 years, 10 years later. So as you very well know, NVR is very well known in in Europe and in and the uk. Many. It's in the uk and you are, you do live in the uk. It's actually a household word, isn't it?

Speaker 2:35

Yeah,

Speaker 2 2:36

yeah. And on the, we always wonder how come NVR didn't cross the ocean? That's the mission we undertook, and I've been at it for the past six years, disseminating NVR in North America. North America's a huge place. Yeah. This is taking time. And I and I realize that the time may be ripe to, do a conference after six years of teaching speaking, building a community of practice. That's what inspired me. The very wish and need and motivation to share something that's very innovative and very important, at least in my view, and could greatly benefit the work of practitioners and the lives of parents here.

Speaker 3:20

And I'm thinking of the first time you and I presented together. In Calgary, actually, which is now more than six years ago.

Speaker 2 3:31

Yeah.

Peter J. (2) 3:32

And personally I developed a distinct sense. North America needs NVR. There is a. Both in terms of the difficulties parents are up against in terms of the difficulties for their children who show controlling behavior that the children themselves develop. But I also have the feeling culturally on a wider scale. It's a good thing to introduce to the whole mental health, behavioral health culture of Canada and the United States. And I guess personally as an American, even though I live in the uk I have a strong urge to contribute in that way.

Speaker 2 4:21

Yeah. Yeah. And on my perspective is very similar to yours. I, whenever, you know, I feel that I have something I know something that could be of benefit to so many people around me. And and so it, it drives me. It behooves me. Do they say behooves me?

Speaker 4:43

Yeah, it

Speaker 2 4:44

will be. Yeah. So it moves me to to share that with others. And this is why we're here.

Speaker 4:50

And I guess, I mean, that leads me on to wanting to ask you another question in that regard, which is. I mean, what do you feel? Why mental, and I'll use the American term behavioral health professionals need NVR to help parents and families. Why do they need this conference?

Speaker 2 5:11

To me your question is equivalent to asking why NVR is important or how can NVR. Help practitioners. And I can think of several reasons. The first would be that NER addresses what we very often experience is an impossible choice. And where there are impossible choices, there are, there, they are choices between things we feel are all essential to us. But for some reason we can't have them all at once. And talking about caregivers and parents caregivers and parents have a deep need to feel effective, to feel that they can do their caregiving work in a wor in a way that actually that actually helps children grow, thrive flourish. And on the other hand, caregivers also need to feel that they are respecting children's autonomy. That children's, that, that which they are nurturing is the autonomy of children and not children's dependent behaviors or or coercive behaviors or, in internalizing problems. So parents and caregivers really need to feel that they don't need to choose between being empowered, between being effective and their children. Being able to go on growing and be autonomous. And very often this is exactly the situation. Parents find themselves, they have to choose and. NVR offers a way that teaches parents how to be able to stand against harm without harming be powerful but not aggressive. Another thing that, that NVR addresses is that often clients bring to the room. Stories and experiences of conflict, struggle, confrontation, and we as therapists, mental health professionals, I think we generally have a hard time dealing with confrontation, with situations of struggle that our clients seem to be in with their children. We were not equipped. We were, I think, all conditioned and educated. To seek harmony, to seek dialogue, to seek peace. We don't really have a good rationale for how to, again, maintain the caregiving giving position while in conflict. NVR does that. NVR gives you those tools. Another another thing that NVR need that NVR addresses is that there aren't that many caregiver centric approaches out there, approaches in therapy or intervention that focus on the needs of those people who give care as distinct For people who are cared for. Parents are usually considered some form of accessories. Or vehicles or conduits to or relievers of child wellbeing. And parents are people, parents are persons. They deserve their own. The, they deserve to be addressed as such. And NVR gives parents that, that, that care, that attention they deserve. And by that also addresses the needs of their overwhelmed. Children. Another thing that NVR is very good at is addressing situations where children refuse treatment. Refuse intervention. NVR is the only approach I know where child refusal to receive some mental health treatment is not a showstopper that, that we can still. Go on working, we can still go on making a difference. Those are some of the I think the needs that NVR addresses

Speaker 9:14

I found that a very powerful statement explaining the need for NVR and the one thing that really. Is at the core to my mind of what you've just said is addressing the parents' needs to accomplish resistance to the harmful and self-destructive behavior of the child. And at the same time, connect, and I'm thinking of what NVR is called in the Netherlands, they speak of connective authority and to many. That seems or has seemed,

Speaker 2 9:59

An impossible choice.

Speaker 10:00

An impossible choice. When you think about it there are many different colleagues of ours in NVR who have brought those principles into certain areas of their work. Each of these colleagues take on that seeming impossibility and overcoming it is interesting. Can you tell us about the speakers and some of the highlights of the conference and what these speakers represent?

Speaker 2 10:33

Yeah. To begin with, I'll say that NVR started around 30 years ago as a specific approach. For helping parents with their children's highly explosive or aggressive behaviors. That was the very beginning of it. And it grew immensely ever since. And because we are, we consider ourselves and we are pioneers in North America, we wanted to provide our audience with a good sample of nvs, enormous diversity of applications, settings, and approaches. As you know, NVR is basically one overarching principle that then applies to many different settings and specializations and problems. And we wanted to provide a good representative picture of this enormous range, both of applications and also the large group of innovators who followed prime owner's footsteps and added more and more, knowledge and developments to, to, he's foundation. Today, NVR is not just high omer. It's a, it's an entire group of outstanding innovators. So we will be, of course, listening to High Mower's keynote about NVR and crisis and social crisis situations, which I think is very relevant for today's world. And then we'll be hearing you, Peter and about the, the many contributions you have made to, to the field of NVR, such as connecting very very wisely between NVR and the concept of trauma or the idea that NVR is relevant, not just in the relationship between parents and children, but also. Between parents and the social systems that are supposed or are meant to serve their needs, but are sometimes doing the very opposite. There's a leitz who developed space, which is an NVR informed approach to children's anxiety problems. There's Icho Superior, who did some outstanding work on applying NVR to help parents of children with H-D-A-D-H-D. There's Uri Berger who did a, did some together with Ellie Leitz did some research. Astounding research about the potential extent of of people with failure to launch in the United States and so on. And I'm happy to see we're starting to have local North American innovators, such as Dr. Mo Champagne of Quebec, a neuroscientist who did some excellent work on applying NVR to help parents of adopted children with FASD and similar problems in. She will be presenting her work together with Tanya ler and Tracy moa. And I'll also mention Mary Jo Land of Ontario. A psychotherapist, a great expert on a child adoption and attachment who has constructed a very compelling combination between. Attachment theory, adoption experience, and knowledge and NVR and she'll be talking, for instance, about using NVR with adoptive parents whose children express aggression which can be huge problems. And besides that, this conference represents the many of the multiple areas, when and where NVR can be relevant to parents and caregivers, such as eating disorders, OCD, attachment problems failure to launch slash entrench dependence and many other many other challenges such as those.

Speaker 14:38

I think just in response to what you've just said, I'd like to go back to the source for a moment because there's something about my first encounters with hai. And some of the things he said there, and unlike some other approaches that were designed for problematic child behavior, which are highly manualized, and where. People who get trained in these approaches are held to really practice in exactly the way they are told. Time always said, you need to do NVR in your own way, in a way that fits in your geographic, cultural and so forth context. I and I really appreciate that, and I think that's one of the reasons why NVR works in so many different. Areas and contexts I think of it as a big bouquet of different flowers, of different colors different kinds, different shapes.

Speaker 2 15:54

A trans diagnostic bouquet,

Speaker 15:56

a trans diagnostic bouquet, but they all fit together. It's one bouquet. So there is coherence in the differentiation. And I really like that.

Speaker 2 16:09

There's coherence but not uniformity. I think it's important to remember this. NVR is not a therapy. NVR is not a protocol. NVR is a principle. It's an approach. I see it as a philosophy of caregiving. It can apply to many different situations, thereby creating this bouquet you mentioned

Speaker 16:32

yeah.

Speaker 2 16:33

Yeah.

Speaker 16:34

So if the conference participants receive a bouquet

Speaker 2 16:39

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 16:40

What do you feel they'll take away for their own practice?

Speaker 2 16:45

I'd start with a very basic, practical takeaway, which is learning about of helping clients who are parents deal with their parenting crisis in a way that empowers them. Empowers them, but does not harm. It's a non harming power. Does not harm the child.

Speaker 17:08

Yeah,

Speaker 2 17:08

so standing against how to stand against harm without harming that's one takeaway I hope that our participants can take with them. And I would also say something more general, which is. A different understanding of what caregiving is or of yourself as a caregiver, whether you're a therapist or a caregiving professional, or a parent. And that is the understanding that caregiving is a form of power. And what form of power it is. How does caregiving power work? How it should work as opposed to law enforcement power. Okay. Political power and other forms of human power or social power. It's my hope that no matter what your occupation is, your work setting, the problem you specialize in or your modality and VR will most probably have something significant to offer to you. Especially if your clients are parents or caregivers and even children.

Speaker 18:15

I, I was just thinking of an analogy. You just brought up law enforcement. How is the power of parenting in NVR different from law enforcement? And I was just thinking because I live in the UK and people in the UK tend not to use the term law enforcement at all. They use the term policing. And when you listen to, and that doesn't mean it's all always hunky dory and wonderful, you know, and police officers and others are dancing in the streets. There, there are difficulties, there's conflict and so forth. But the difference between policing and law enforcement. Is that policing is not usually around enforcement. There is, there are. When you listen to discussions on the BBC, the British Broadcasting Service radio programs, they talk about policing by consent. This is really interesting because I it addresses to my mind the tension between parental leadership, parental empowerment the parent's ability to say no on the one hand and on the other hand, to generate consent. By the way, parents,

Speaker 2 19:42

That's the tension. This is where NVR becomes relevant. In enabling both those important functions.

Speaker 19:52

You, you know, we're we speak, spoken about the different kind of applications and I asked you about highlights and you forgot to mention one highlight. And that's called Dan Berger. And they heard about him. You've heard about it. Okay. And you know, some of the applications of NVR really go beyond those traditional parenting concepts and your own approach to adult entrenched dependency. Really? Really struck me as an enormously important in event innovation. And I'm really glad that you're gonna highlight this at the conference and because there's a rapidly growing need for this kind of work. And I just wonder, could you maybe in, in a nutshell, share what adult entrenched dependence means? Dependency, but also, you know, what are some of the key messages about your approach that you'll convey to the participants? Because there will be many clients of conference participants who will be struggling with this difficulty that so far has had no name.

Speaker 2 21:12

Yeah. Yeah. So as you know, I can talk about this for hours.

Speaker 21:17

I do.

Speaker 2 21:18

So I will really try to to condense everything into that nutshell. Yeah. That's, or condense, condense a lot of it in some of it into the nutshell.

Speaker 21:27

Yeah.

Speaker 2 21:27

Let's start with what you mentioned about, being a parent or being a parent for to an adult child. Many parents discover that many parents find themselves in situations where they have no script, they have no instructions or social narrative that can help them deal with what they're facing. And it's when children, for instance, their children don't align. Or don't go along with the expectation of growing up, moving out and becoming adults. So when adults, when adult children do not do not follow the the social script for becoming adults or the, or at least the parent's idea of the social script, then parents have a problem. They it's a moment where they don't really know what to do. And. We use NVR to help parents extend their sense of what parenting means for parenting crisis, which are over 18. Over the child's the childhood ages into childhood adulthood. We also, our work also addresses a huge. Humongous elephant in the room because the situation where adults or adult, seemingly adult children or children over 18, let's say it do not emerge into adulthood, is seems to be an ama, an incredibly wide phenomenon that's mostly under the radar of social institutions. URI Berger. Who will be who will be part in of this conference has done research according to which there are probably around 3 million young adults in the United States alone who fit the definition of failure to launch. That is a huge number. If you also consider that each such person has two parents. On the average and and and multiple other people who are affected by the fact that person is not launching. One we, so this needs addressing and. The other message is, or another message is that this elephant those millions of families out there where there are young adults who are not emerging adults, they are non emerging adults they're simply not emerging. Those young adults cannot just be seen. Using the standard approaches of psychiatry and psychology and mental health. These people, some of them may be having some mental health problems for sure. Some of them do not, are not considered as having mental health problems, but they are still having problems launching. And the message here is the realization that in order to help those families and help those individuals. Pathologizing won't do individualizing those people or try to isolate them as having a problem, won't do. We are looking at an incredibly complex, multi-systemic social problem and. By applying by, by taking the, looking at it through the NVR lens, this becomes, this both becomes very apparent and it also suggests a way forward. And the way forward is in those situations, we call it entrenched dependence, because that young person seems very entrenched. They're not going anywhere. They are deeply entrenched in a way of there. It's like they are growing into the family home, into the, in, into their childhood room. Instead of out, out of it. They're growing, but they're growing the opposite way and the way to deal with it. There, there is no way in which I think you can convince a person, an entrenched person, an entrenched young adult, non emerging adult to. A kind of flip or shift or turn away from that that that's the meaning of entrenchment. The first the first phase of liberation, the first phase towards rekindling or reigniting, the growth process, the social growth process is by working with that child's environment. And it starts by working with the parents. And this is what we've developed. We've developed a way of working with the parents and the, this adult child's wider social environment in order to achieve a, an ecological change, so to speak, which then impacts that child hopefully in a good way, in a way that increases the probability that growth will continue. Psychosocial growth. And and that also has to do of course, with changing the wider environment or social environment by the very recognition of these problems as something that is not just in the realm of mental health. That was a pretty big nut shell, wasn't it?

Speaker 27:11

That was a big nutshell. But I think an important one. And I was just thinking you said, you know, I. I'm not sure I recall the words that you used, but it's not a reasonable expectation to think that the young person will address their own difficulties.

Speaker 2 27:28

No, unfortunately,

Speaker 27:30

and I was just thinking and I've been doing this kind of work, you know, I mean, you know, psychotherapy, parent coaching, all this stuff consultation, supervision for about. 40 going on 45 years, and in all those 45 years, I've only once come across a case where someone told me that they had been withdrawn into their room for years, and at some point they woke up and felt enough. Yeah.

Speaker 2 28:07

Yeah. It doesn't happen on it

Speaker 28:09

this was once in 45 years. Yeah. I experienced, is it 45 years? Oh my goodness. Or is it just 40 years? I'm not sure. Only once did I experience that in all other instances. Yeah. The young adult was not a taker or as we say in solution focused therapy, not a customer, not even a complainant. And. It just seems to me it, it brings us to an important aspect because this holds true also for the younger people who

Speaker 2 28:47

Five minutes.

Speaker 28:48

Yeah,

Speaker 2 28:48

we have, I have five minutes.

Speaker 28:50

Okay. Okay. For the younger people and the question that many people ask, which is do children, teenagers. Adults, the adult child, do they benefit or is this just something for parents to make parents feel better? And I think it's important to say that, first of all, in outcome studies, we have evidence, quantitative evidence that young people improve both on externalizing behavior, but also on internalizing variables. But also. When I think of my own experience in working with caregivers of young people who've often experienced extreme trauma who are neurodivergent often, so they are often traumatized by everyday living. And neglect and other difficulties. What I see is that the problem behavior gets in the way of healing because it's a solution. It's a solution to distress, which becomes on the interaction plane part of the problem. Yeah, so I developed controlling behavior. Because it hurts or because it's troubling or because it's uncomfortable.

Speaker 2 30:19

You may say that the problem itself is solution focused.

Speaker 30:22

Yeah so by dealing with the control aspect of the problem behavior. And by no longer allowing themselves to be controlled by the child without doing harm to the child. The adults create a space that the child can decide to step into and begin thriving. Sometimes a thriving means becoming an amenable to going into therapy in their own right because they recognize there's something that really troubles me. Or just thriving in other ways, doing better at school or being happier, making friends, so I think there are many instances where we can see the young person growing without them having been the customer for therapy.

Speaker 2 31:25

Yep.

Speaker 31:26

Yeah,

Speaker 2 31:27

that's, it always it always baffles me and sometimes confuses me because NVR breaks the conventional thinking about our definition of a client. Technically the client is the parent.

Speaker 31:44

Yeah.

Speaker 2 31:45

I think more than so technically, ethically yeah. Significantly, the client is the parent. But on the other hand, our work is very much supposed to impact children as well.

Speaker 31:59

Yeah.

Speaker 2 32:00

And we do it like you will probably, you will certainly remember someone who wrote a book once about zen arching

Speaker 32:09

Zen and the art of AR archery. Yeah.

Speaker 2 32:13

And at least according to that person, you need to aim when you want to you, to achieve a goal, you need to focus away from it.

Speaker 32:22

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 32:23

So it's the same in NVR, you do very much want your kid to change. But you're you struggle to shift your attention and shift your effort from trying to change your child to try to change yourself.

Speaker 32:37

Yeah.

Speaker 2 32:38

Yeah.

Speaker 32:39

You know what I wonder, Dan, is this a good point to end our conversation on that note?

Speaker 2 32:46

I think so. Yeah.

Speaker 32:48

Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 2 32:49

Think about Zen arching when you think about

Speaker 32:51

NVR Zen and the art of archery. Can I just relate an anecdote from that book as a closing word? In the book, I recall that the young, I think he was German author who went to Japan to learn zen archery, gave his master some philosophical western philosophical texts to read, and the master said. No wonder your western philosophers all bang their heads against the wall if this is the kind of stuff they think about.

Speaker 2 33:28

And the name of the author? The author is Eugene Rigo.

Speaker 33:32

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 33:35

Okay

Speaker 33:35

so there's something about aiming by, not aiming, Yeah. About the peripheral vision. And also you, very early on in our conversation, you called NVR Simple and it is, yet, it's not always easy and it takes a lot of stuff.

Speaker 2 33:58

It's easy to grasp the principles, but like many other fields,

Speaker 34:03

yeah.

Speaker 2 34:03

It's all in learning how to, like, how to make it part of your life or how to. How to embrace it is the work.

Speaker 34:14

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 34:15

Peter, it's been a pleasure talking to you.

Speaker 34:18

Yeah, I've enjoyed this conversation a lot. And I just want to say thank you for listening to all our listeners and some of you we may meet at the conference.

Speaker 2 34:30

Absolutely. We look forward to meeting as many practitioners as there are who are interested in NVR.

Speaker 34:37

Okay. Bye then.

Speaker 2 34:39

Take care. Bye.