Marte Meo
Marte Meo is an educational counseling method created by Dutch professional Maria Aarts in the 1970s, aimed at enhancing communication between caregivers and children, particularly those facing behavioral challenges. The name "Marte Meo," derived from the Latin phrase meaning "one's own strength," reflects the method's focus on identifying and developing individual skills that foster constructive interactions. Aarts, inspired by her experiences working with children with autism spectrum disorder, sought to make professional knowledge accessible to parents by translating complex psychological concepts into practical, everyday language.
The method involves recording counseling sessions and interactions between caregivers and patients, allowing parents to review and discuss these videos to better understand their child's communication and behavior. By highlighting strengths and areas for improvement, Marte Meo helps caregivers learn how to connect with their children more effectively. The technique has gained international recognition and has been applied in various contexts, including counseling for patients with dementia, psychosomatic illnesses, and substance use disorders. Overall, Marte Meo aims to facilitate meaningful communication that supports developmental processes for both caregivers and children.
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Marte Meo
Marte Meo is an educational counseling method conceived by Dutch educational professional Maria Aarts in the 1970s. Aarts developed the method to help parents and caregivers better understand the scientific aspect of their child’s behavioral problems. Aarts struggled to convey the meaning of academic jargon to parents when discussing their child’s mental health and wanted to develop a method that would connect her insights with the child’s everyday life experiences. She decided to begin recording her sessions with her patients as well as the sessions between patients and caregivers. She then showed the videos to her patient’s parents after the session and then they discussed the session together. Aarts believed that this method not only helped her patient’s parents understand their child’s psychological process but also helped her identify obstacles that the parents may face in fully understanding their children’s behaviors. The overall goal of the method is to enhance communication between patient and caregiver, whether that be a parent, an educator, or a supervisor. The method has gained followers in several countries outside the Netherlands, including France, Ireland, and India.
Overview
Marte Meo is derived from the Latin phrase mars martis, which means “one’s own strength.” Aarts deliberately named the method Marte Meo to emphasize the program’s focus on identifying, activating, and developing individual skills that support and enhance constructive interaction and development in all those involved in the counseling process. The program is developed around individual strengths that help advance and encourage developmental processes in patients, counselors, parents, and other caregivers.
Aarts’s experience as a counselor of children with autism spectrum disorder inspired her to design a counseling method that would make her professional knowledge accessible to parents. In the late 1970s, the mother of one of her patients broke down in tears when she saw how Aarts was able to interact with her son, who had an autism spectrum disorder. The mother desperately wished to connect with her son in that manner. Aarts decided to develop a way to make her expertise understandable to her patient’s caregivers. With this knowledge, they could develop their own communication skills with the child. Aarts began developing a program that translated the abstract, esoteric knowledge associated with professional counseling into practical, everyday language. She noticed that professional language was problem-oriented and mainly focused on explanations of pathology without providing descriptions of ways to solve the problem. Aarts set her mind to providing understandable solutions to common problems that enhance child-to-caregiver communication and development skills.
Aarts founded the Marte Meo organization in 1987. Her signature method incorporated recorded counseling sessions that documented the interactions between counselor and patient as well as caregiver and patient. Aarts would rewatch these sessions with her patient’s parents or caregivers and identify points in communication that could be improved upon to develop better interactions. Filming the sessions also fostered discussion and analysis of patient behavior, and during this process, counselors used practical language to explain the counseling approach. One of the most common questions from patient caregivers is, “How do I connect with my child?” By making detailed observations about the filmed interactions, the counselor is able to show caregivers how to change their methods of communication to better connect with the patient.
In addition to child-to-caregiver communications, the Marte Meo method has been applied to many fields. For example, some research found positive results using Marte Meo in counseling for patients with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD). Other applications include patients with psychosomatic illnesses, hospice and palliative care, and substance use disorders.
Bibliography
“About Marte Meo.” Marte Meo International, www.martemeo.com/en/about-marte-meo. Accessed 29 Nov. 2024.
Alnes, Rigmor Einang, et al. “Insights Gained through Marte Meo Counselling: Experiences of Nurses in Dementia Specific Care Units.” International Journal of Older People Nursing, vol. 6, no. 2, June 2011, pp. 123–132, doi.org/10.1111/j.1748-3743.2010.00229.x. Accessed 29 Nov. 2024.
Berwig, Martin, et al. “Application of Marte Meo Counselling with People with Behavioural Variant Frontotemporal Dementia and Their Primary Carers (AMEO-FTD) – a Non-Randomized Mixed-Method Feasibility Study.” Pilot and Feasibility Studies, vol. 6, no. 1, 2020, doi.org/10.1186/s40814-020-0551-1. Accessed 29 Nov. 2024.
"The Marte Meo Approach -Strengths and Possibilities." Early Childhood Ireland, 25 May 2021, www.earlychildhoodireland.ie/the-marte-meo-approach-strengths-and-possibilities. Accessed 29 Nov. 2024.
"The Marte Meo Method: A Method for Developmental Support in Everyday Life." Marte Meo International, www.martemeo.com/en/about-marte-meo/the-marte-meo-method. Accessed 29 Nov. 2024.
“What Does Marte Meo Mean?” Marte Meo International, www.martemeo.com/en/about-marte-meo/what-does-marte-meo-mean. Accessed 29 Nov. 2024.