ABSTRACT
The Collaborative Change Model (CCM) is an organizational blueprint designed to help clients and therapists have a successful therapeutic experience. As one client so aptly phrased it, “The Collaborative Change Model is the order of how to put my life back in order.” Consider the metaphor: a hurricane or tornado destroys the building where you live and the goal is to rebuild after this traumatic event. What would happen if you went to rebuild without a blueprint? The blueprint is the order in which the building follows. It is the way the contractors and subcontractors communicate with one another. And you would not draw a blueprint that recreated the exact same dwelling. When rebuilding, you would create a structure that was stronger, without the vulnerabilities that contributed to the collapse of the building. This is exactly what needs to happen in the treatment of complex trauma. We follow a blueprint in order to communicate, to give us structure and predictability. We want to address the vulnerabilities and augment the strengths. We do this by following a blueprint of the model. This meta model divides treatment into three stages that correspond to three stages of each session. The model follows the cyclical phases of natural growth and evolution: the contraction/pause/cocoon phase is followed by an expansion/growth phase, which leads naturally into a consolidation phase. The therapeutic healing process happens in these three stages over time, each session includes the three stages, and within each session the same cycle recurs over and over again. This is the blueprint for therapy, both a visual map and a language that organizes the labor of everyone involved. The goal of the blueprint is to help all participants understand and envision the project and goals of the shared work and to help guide our clients into their own natural cycle of growth.
