[Göteborg, 14-3-2012] During my master class at Göteborg (Sweden, 14-3-2012) Birgitta Lindvall came up to me during the tea break. She told me that I, without realising it, helped her and her son a long time ago. It was a wonderful story about her son Simon. Birgitta and I would like to share this story with you and after the master class sessions she mailed me the following:

This is a story about »One spoon of food & One spoon of love!« One of the Marte Meo Elements concerning the importance of relax and connection moments during feeding of a child. I do a lot of teaching regarding supportive behaviour of children with eating problems. This story of Brigitta just fall into the right place of this. Interviewing Brigitta Lindvall in after the Göteborg sessions, she told me:

When our son, Simon, was born in 1993, we discovered he had a lot of pain in his stomach. We very often visited the hospitals at Skövde and Göteborg (Sweden). My son was given strong drugs; some doctors wanted to operate and some thought it not a good idea. It became harder and harder to get Simon to eat. In kindergarten, they forced him to eat and he became so afraid of this, that he refused to go into their kitchen and eventually after a while he even wouldn’t go into the kitchen at home.

My sister, Viveca, was using the Marte Meo method at her work and when she talked about the Marte Meo method and its principles, I got the idea that we could film at home what our food and eating situations looked like. We at that moment thought we were doing everything right and we wanted the doctors to see so too. Simon just refused to eat and drink! It was a tiring, sad and sick situation, those two years’ old boy and this two desperate parents.
So, one day my husband filmed the eating situation at home: I fed Simon and afterwards we watched the film together. We were shocked. We saw a stressed mom and her son. We had toys scattered over the table to distract and/or amuse Simon, but he didn’t look at me or the food at all. As soon as he tried to say something I put a spoonful of food into his mouth. I cheated and lured at Simon that he should eat, but it didn’t work out at all.

That same day, we changed entirely our feeding process. We were relaxed and tried to have a nice time together. We didn’t focused on whether Simon ate or not; he just got a plate of food, cutlery and glasses, and then it was up to him if he wanted to eat and how much. The food was on the table and he took it himself and choose how much he wanted. At first Simon was suspicious, but at least he sat at the table without being sad and upset. After a few times, he began to eat. HURRAY!!!!!!!!!!!

Now Simon is 18 years old and he still has a medical disease that is causing him stomach pains, but the food is not associated with something unpleasant anymore!
What an amazing luck that my sister worked with Marte Meo and that we filmed our home situation and did a review afterwards.
So, I now recommend people with similar problems to contact a Marte Meo therapist. Had it not been for you, Maria, it all would have ended badly for our son.
 
We all thank you for this.
Hugs,
Birgitta Lindvall with family
 
Epilogue:
So, you see where I get my energy from. From stories like these, making the difference for the quality of people’s life with the help of the Marte Meo information
I developed over the years!

Maria Aarts
Eindhoven/Sydney
E-mail: aartsmaria@martemeo.com

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[Budel, 26-12-2011] As most of you already will know my wise, understanding and compassionate mother has been all my life a great inspiration to me. I realize that parts of her wisdom of bringing up children in the way she did, I used many times at my presentations, during my therapies and in my daily work. Many times her visions turned out to be basic information in my Marte Meo work and my social behaviour in the Marte Meo International Network.
The night of the first Christmas Day my mother died, 96, one day after her birthday. She was surrounded by all her 13 children, remembering simultaneously brother Paul who passed away a year before.

It has been a very intensive experience for all of us, carrying this remembrance with us all day. We, brothers and sisters, are proud of managing in such a wonderful cooperation to help our Mother and having let her die in her own house, surrounded by this warm atmosphere of her dear ones.
Now we have to live on, remembering this beautiful person, being an inspirational factor in so many ways to our Marte Meo attitude.

Click here for sequence & mourning card

Wishing you all a joyful 2012; I hope to meet you soon!

MARIA AARTS & FAMILY
[aartsmaria@martemeo.com]

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[Sydney/Airport, 25-11-2011] Just a few hours away from hopping on the plane at Sydney-Airport. The Emirates lounge always offers great food and is a good start for this long journey. Twelve hours to Dubai, another six hours to Düsseldorf, where we bound to land on Saturday. Still having all the wonderful experiences of Australia in mind, I can’t hide, that I’m longing to be back in Europe around our national holiday »St. Nicolaus« (which is a yearly holiday with heaps and heaps of presents for the family members on the 5th of December) and especially Christmas and New Year. Our mothers, being 96 and 92, can’t believe, that me and my husband are »home at Christmas«, like being told in many Christmas song. After having enjoyed my free weeks in December, I will have to travel Germany, Austria, Norway and Sweden, before flying back to Sydney in February 2012. I must say, that I’m really looking forward to the European January-projects with the German Red Cross (Borken), Volkshochschule Schaumburg (Adult Education Centre), Seniorenzentrum Am Haarbach (Ederly Care Centre, Aachen), German Redcross Ladbergen (Family centre), my own Supervisor Courses in Eindhoven, the Osteopathy congress in Vienna, and the Marte Meo events in Bergen and Oslo (Norway). It will be a busy January 2012, but quite promising at the same time. Can’t wait to say »hello« to all the enthusiastic people organizing these Marte Meo events. This Photo? Probably a cover for our next book: sunset at Glenelg/Adelaide.
Big Smile, MARIA AARTS

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[Sydney, 21-11-2011] Last but not least I like to highlight our project with Catholic Care, Sydney, for which project Jacquie Leabeater (Program Manager) is my contact person. (Catholic Care, Sydney; website: www.catholiccare.org). I like you to direct to her 2 articles in our Marte Meo Magazine on this website, because I can’t talk/write any better about the progress of the Marte Meo education than she does so in her two articles:
1. Marte Meo: The Training (complete article free access for readers on this website);
2. »Upon Reflection« Marte Meo In Everyday Practice.
Jacquie Leabeater writes:
»For those of us who have been given the opportunity to train in this therapeutic model of working with children, young people and parents/carers to restore developmental processes and communication models, it is imperative that we embrace Marte Meo as part of our everyday work. Marte Meo is not a process that we turn on and off between training sessions or only focus on when trying to achieve homework tasks. Although we are in the early stages of becoming Marte Meo Therapists, we should try to integrate Marte Meo in everyday “interaction moments” of our work.«
[Photo: Part of the participants of the internal Marte Meo training group at Catholic Care, Sydney]

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[Sydney, 18-11-2011] And for ADHC (New South Wales Government - Family & Community Serverces - Ageing, Disability & Home Care; website: www.adhc.nsw.gov.au) too I worked already for a long time. Dr. John Lord is here my contact person. We found a new way for my assistance of the trainees in the form of a special Long Distance Supervision style and I will connect the work to the research project Keith McVilly of the DEAKIN University, Melbourne, is doing on behalf of ADHC. The subject: Marte Meo within the care for people with a disability. In October 2011 John Lord was at present in Dublin during the presentation of the Dublin research as well. Title of the Dublin research: »The Dynamics of Sharing Professional Knowledge and Lay Knowledge: A study of parents’ and professionals’ experiences of childhood interventions within a Marte Meo framework«; researchers/Authors: Dr Jean Clarke, Ms Yvonne Corcoran & Dr Mel Duffy; published at the Dublin City University, Ireland, May 2011.
(Further information: Dr. Jean Clarke, e-mail: jean.clarke@dcu.ie; or Colette O’Donovan, e-mail: colette.odonovan@hse.ie.)
Keith McVilly visited the Dublin research team in Ireland as well to receive from the Dublin researchers information directly how they worked technically on their Marte Meo research.
[Photo (ltr): Patricia Byrne (HSE), Ms Yvonne Corcoran (DCU), Dr Mel Duffy (DCU), Maria Aarts (Marte Meo International), Colette O'Donovan (HSE), Dr Jean Clarke (DCU). © photo: Tommy Clancy, Dublin]

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