Using Growing Balls: Personal
Power for Young Men – the book
and the group curriculum –
in rehab, therapy and as a tool for
mentoring
Professional Bio of Your Intrepid
Presenter for the day:
David Hafter, MFT -Author of the charmingly titled primer:
Growing Balls: Personal Power for Young Men
Licensed MFT for 20 yrs;
BBS Subject Matter Expert for 15 yrs; Orals Examiner for 4 years
Private Practice; Residential Tx (for both wealthiest and most
impoverished kids in America); In-Home/community based services,
including WRAPAROUND
Areas of expertise:
Individual and Couple’s Therapy (including fertility issues) , Family
Therapy, Men’s issues, Substance Abuse Treatment
Why write Growing Balls?
• After 20 plus years of providing
treatment for young men as an MFT (and
often far too late), GB is my attempt at
prevention.
• Most young men are more in need of
mentoring than therapy.
• As a therapist, I don’t get to tell clients
what to do and what not to do; as a
writer, I can (and do).
Why else?
• Frustrating issues that drove me to write:
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Kids having kids
Fatherless/mentor-less boys making bad choices
for them and expensive ones for the rest us
– Poor state of marriages and families
– Domestic Violence (empty man syndrome)
– Drug/alcohol problems
– Lack of societal emphasis on mentoring, skill
building and developing Rites of Passage
Current approaches to these issues are not working.
Issues our kids are facing growing
up today:
• The need to belong
• Child to adult transition issues
• Individuation
• Peer Pressure
• Sexual issues
• Drug/Alcohol issues
• Gangs
• Both parents working/supervision issues
• Bizarre “MTV” role models and values
Group Exercise –
Think back to your teen years.
Remember a time when you:
Struggled with family issues
Struggled with sexuality issues
Struggled with peer pressure
Struggled with drug alcohol decisions
Struggled with relationship problems
Struggled with a poor self image
Just plain struggled?
With all that going on…
Who was there for you?
Besides therapy, our kids
need healthy mentoring.
GB is 175 pages of mentoring
• Author’s voice is to young men, not about
them. However,
• the book was written with single mothers
raising sons alone in mind,
• And for the girlfriends/wives who want to
understand the young men in their lives.
The title may make some of you
cringe, but the guys love it…
In our business, everyone pretty much agrees
that the most important change element is the
relationship between clinician and
client. The title, chapter headings and
sometimes coarse language help establish the
relationship.
We are attempting to connect with Young Men
through a medium few (if any) of them use –
Pop psych/self-help books.
The “Balls” Metaphor
Popular lexicon for using balls is nerve or chutzpah as
in doing or saying something crazy or outrageous…
Growing Balls uses the term balls for having courage
and integrity.
What kind of role modeling would it be for me to make
nice with the title (to make adults feel better) so I can
sell more books?
How many other self help books are written to and for
young men?
Essentially, we don’t have
the time to worry about
making people feel
comfortable, making nice
and being Politically
Correct.
So, where do we begin?
GB begins with an assertion:
“If you are twenty-five or under, you have
no business even thinking about getting
married or becoming a father.”
This sets the stage for discussing
maturity, moral development and
intelligent decision making.
The Crash Course
• Ten pages summarizing the rest of the
book, focusing on relationships with
girls/women, the place where most guys
are focused.
• If the guy likes the first ten pages, he will
read the rest of the book; or his girlfriend
will…
Topics covered in GB include
chapters on:
• The courage to find your values
• Conscious compromising in relationships
• Relationships with women
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•
•
•
•
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Why women love jerks – Finally, an answer!
Being “In Love”
The Intimacy Question
Worthwhile Women
Sexuality
Getting Loaded (getting high is a natural desire)
Maturity (immaturity is not a cause for shame)
Friendship (being willing to tell your friend the truth)
Fun Tests: Knowing that you are ready to
– Be a husband
– Be a father
Initial concerns and reservations…
In therapy, this is not the best
approach for all clients…
• Squeamishness (the clinician’s or the family’s)
• Political Correctness
• Religious concerns
– Topics include positive takes on masturbation & birth
control
– Bottom line: you don’t have to endorse everything
in GB to use it. What is important is for the topics
to be discussed…
Using GB with teens in therapy
• First of all, determine need and
usefulness given the client’s issues.
– If s/he is dealing with GB issues (think back
to our exercise) and can make use of the
material, explain to the client’s
parents/caregivers the GB approach, the
meaning of the balls metaphor and if their
heads do not explode, get their permission to
use the book in therapy.
Or, if that won’t work, use only
the Personal Power for Young Men
group curriculum.
• The group material is easily modified for
individual work and can be billed as
therapy or rehab and encapsulates most
of the values areas of the book.
One Chapter a Week
• In 1 to 1 counseling:
– acknowledge that the book is “aimed at guys a little
older than you are” but you think they are ready to
tackle the topics.
• Focus on discussion of the content issues, not
•
•
adherence to writer’s opinion.
Search out and encourage linkage to other
sources of healthy mentoring
In Family Counseling
• GB is at its best in starting conversations on
sometimes difficult and uncomfortable topics.
– Agree or disagree with the ideas or premises – just
talk about them with kids.
– Some parents discuss the book, chapter by chapter,
with their teens (boys and girls).
You can facilitate discussions between kids and
parents/caregivers on GB topics, with you
focusing your attention on their process.
Or, as the perfect stocking stuffer…
• I’m only partially kidding and not just to
sell books.
– GB gives parents (or others caring for/
mentoring young men) a format for
addressing sensitive topics. It breaks the ice
and opens doors for important discussions
– A copy tossed into a young man’s room,
without explanation, can achieve good results.
Personal Power for Young Men
A (free) group counseling curriculum
• A flexible curriculum designed for a 9
week group
• Can be run by professionals or nonprofessionals
• Can be used in a variety of settings
• Can be modified for boys 13 and up.
Skipping potential drama
Using the subtitle of the book for the group
name – Personal Power for Young Men - gives
the material wider access to traditional settings
where the GB moniker might make waves.
PPYM groups are being done in schools, at
Transitional Aged Youth (TAY) programs.
Outpatient clinics and residential treatment
programs.
Focusing on the Future
• The group curriculum is set up to help
guys form a picture their desired future
and then help them see what it will take
to get there.
• PPYM helps them to develop their
Personal Power, which is their ability to
live their lives according to their values
and desires.
The Personal Power for Young Men Group
• PPYM Group is designed to help young
men to indentify what gives or takes
away from their personal power.
• Personal Power is defined as a man’s
ability to live life the way he wants to
live it with underlying values of being
safe, healthy and out of trouble.
The Group Process
• Go through normal rules of group process,
•
including limits of and expectations of
confidentiality (illustrate with the use of
practical examples), no put downs and
expectations that everybody participate.
“We’re just guys here.” (Or, with a female
facilitator, “You can be just guys here.”
– In other words, swearing is okay and honesty is
encouraged.
Week 1
Personal Power Comes To You When:
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•
•
•
•
•
•
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You come to know and like yourself
You live by your own set of values
You exercise self-discipline and accountability
You take care of your mind and body
You show patience with yourself and others
You listen to others with more experience than you
have
You take (reasonable) chances and risk making
mistakes
You appreciate your life and respect the lives of others
• You forget your own values as a person
• You act against your own set of values
• You act out weakness
• You act impulsively
• You abuse substances that affect your mind and body
• You ignore people who try to help or teach you
• You shrink away from new challenges
• You risk your life or the lives of others with your actions
The Lightning Round
• Each guy makes his list of answers on the
board.
– Then, take turns going through each list.
– Have each group member ask a quick
question of the boy who wrote the list. The
question should be related to answers given
on the list.
• This increases group interaction and helps the
guys to get to know one another better.
The Right Choices
The Wrong Choices
Week 4
Personal Power Comes To You
When:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
You come to know and like yourself
You live by your own set of values
You exercise self-discipline and accountability
You take care of your mind and body
You show patience with yourself and others
You listen to others with more experience
than you have
You take (reasonable) chances and risk
making mistakes
You appreciate your life and respect the lives
of others
Exercising Self-Discipline
• What does the phrase “self-discipline” mean to you?
• What does it mean to be accountable for you actions?
• Tell the group one instance in which you exercised self-discipline.
– How did it make you feel? What could have gotten in the way of
you exercising self-discipline?
• Accountability means taking responsibility for your contributions
to your problems.
– Tell of a time when you got into trouble for something you did.
What was your fault and what was not?
• How do you develop self-discipline?
Activity: What does it cost
to be a good father?
If you want to do the job right, you have to
provide for your family.
1) Make a list of every cost you can think of
associated with having a baby, from the
hospital on… Guess at dollar amounts and
duration of expenses.
2) List every change of lifestyle you would
experience:
a. How you use your free time
b. What you do for fun
c. How you spend your what’s left of your money
And just know that…
Any experienced mother would laugh her
head off at our lists because of all the
stuff we forgot to mention regarding our
money and time commitments…
Final Question
• What does exercising self-discipline have
to do with Personal Power?
Fidelity to Concepts;
Flexibility in Delivery
• The curriculum is designed for each group
to have:
– A specific topic
– Questions that prompt discussions
– An activity
Know that you are free to use your own
questions or make up your own activities.
The Curriculum is Free
• Go to www.growingballs.com (what else?)
• There, you can read snippets from each chapter
of the book, order copies and best of all:
• Download the curriculum! There are
instructions for the facilitator, a certificate of
completion and power-points you can use
(though not necessary)
All I ask…
• Is that you use the free pre and post test
also on the website and that you send me
the results so I can see how it is working
Questions on using the GB book
or PPYM group material?
• Thank-you for your time
• Thank-you for being open-minded
• Thank-you for not throwing anything at me…
• Please fill out your Presentation Evaluation
forms
• Remember to visit www.growingballs.com and
check out the Growing Balls song on Youtube.
(type in Growing Balls or my name in the
Youtube search engine)