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Outlook for fall 2024 – Courses at the Lucerne University of Teacher Education PHLU:
The courses at the Lucerne University of Teacher Education (PHLU) for the school year 2024/25 are publicly available. The following attachment-oriented courses are now bookable and are available at full-cost rates also open to people outside the canton of Lucerne open:
– Attachment-oriented attitude in everyday school life: Sat, Sept. 21st 2024, 08:15-16:45h, Lucerne. In this course, Ursina Marti, school psychologist in Ebikon, provides basic knowledge on the topic of “attachment” and how to become sensitized to recognize a child’s attachment style. Building on this, I will show the use of the “bonding board” in a pedagogical context.
– Conducting attachment-focused conversations: Sat. March 15th 2025, 08:30-16:30 in Lucerne and online supervision on Wed. April 4th and May 21st 2025, 17:00-18:00 in each case. I also run this practical course together with Ursina Marti. It offers practical tools and exercises on how to address the topic of attachment with parents, children, adolescents and professional colleagues.
Links to registration and more: https://bondingboard.com/phlu
Outlook for September 2024 – The bonding board in a social work and socio-educational context:
The institute kompetenzhoch3.ch is a competence center for the development, implementation and evaluation of effective services for children, young people and families. The institute develops action models and programs – so-called methodologies – on the basis of competence orientation. This is done in cooperation with service providers from child and youth welfare and the education system, such as specialist agencies for outreach family work (KOFA concept), youth and family counseling centers, inpatient facilities, youth advocacy offices and is supplemented with a Switzerland-wide consulting and further education offer.
I am delighted to have been invited for a full-day workshop . It takes place on Tue Sept. 10th 2024 at the Löwenbräu site in Zurich . The course is open to all persons, including those who do not work according to the competence-oriented model or in partner institutions of kompetenzhoch3. Interested parties can here request further documents: https://bondingboard.com/hoch3
August 2024 – The bonding board in the context of addiction:
A particular focus of the Quellenhof Foundation is inpatient therapy for addiction disorders. As part of my collaboration with the KOSS/KOFA developers at kompetenzhoch3, I recently had the opportunity to introduce the team at the therapy center in Dinhard near Winterthur to working with the bonding board.
We have focused on several key applications:
1. coaching: use of the bonding board as a supportive tool in conversations with clients, both in everyday and conflict situations and in working through strained relationship and family histories.
2. Intervision: To analyze specific situations and to generate hypotheses about underlying reaction patterns and needs.
3. Self-reflection: Promoting employees’ self-reflection, especially in relation to challenging situations, and recognizing opportunities to become effective as an emotion co-regulator in stressful situations.
Many thanks to Remo Pfister and his team for this open and stimulating day, which also gave me new insights into how the bonding board can be used in the context of alcohol and drug addiction, stability and relapse, as well as in relationship building and breaking off.
July 2024– Bonding board workshop in Kigali, Rwanda:
This summer, my wife and I had the opportunity to visit our daughter and son-in-law who have been have been living in Kigali for a year.
Wunderschöne Seen, ein beeindruckender Regenwald und eine Safari, bei der man den Tieren ganz nahe kommt, waren die tourist highlights.
Das Beste jedoch war, zu sehen, wie sie sich in ihrer Arbeit eingelebt haben—meine Tochter als Psychotherapeutin bei SolidMinds ( solidminds.rw) and her husband in financing sustainable coffee farmers with Fair Capital (faircapital.ch)-and how well they are privately involved in a vibrant circle of young local entrepreneurs, musicians and artists.
During my visit, I had the privilege of together with my daughter Carole a workshop organizing a workshop in which psychologists, psychiatrists, psychiatric nurses and social workers from from psychotherapeutic practices, the psychiatric departments of teaching hospitals and the Genocide Survivors Fund took part. As in all my workshops, the participants were encouraged to practically apply the BondingBoard to their own Case studies to apply. In this case, this meant the life of Perpetrators and victims of violence, families dealing with stigmatization and internal marginalization stigmatization and internal exclusion; and of children of rapewho feel 30-year-old physical memories of an unknown perpetrator and wish they had never been born. It meant charting paths from displacement and mere survival to healing and even reconciliation. The workshop made it clear that Emotions and relationships are the key to all human experiences are. The visualization of internal processes with the board and its characters adapts to diverse social and family cultures and every personal story and can help, trauma, individual reactions and transgenerational suffering. to understand.
Thank you to the Rwandan therapists who have given us an insight into their challenging but hopeful work. And perhaps also a thank you to you, dear reader: In Rwanda, the BondingBoard is offered at half price. With a Donation 50, you can make a box even more accessible by reducing its price to a quarter. Visit bondingboard.com/shop for more details.
July 2024– The bonding board is recommended as a mentalization tool:
In the recently published expanded new edition of the standard work worth reading Mentalizing with Children and Adolescentsthe bonding board is highlighted as a practical method: “ Lothar Steinke’sbonding board is an innovative tool for the diagnosis and therapy of attachment and mentalization tendencies in particular and … can be used with children, adolescents and adults” (p. 148).
This makes me happy and makes me think: “Are your clients – and perhaps you too – among those who can sometimes think and feel better with their eyes and hands?” Then a combined purchase would probably be advisable: BondingBoard plus …
Diez Grieser, Maria Teresa Müller, Roland (2024). Mentalisieren mit Kindern und Jugendlichen. Klett-Cotta. ISBN 978-3-608-96620-6.
June 2024– Presentationand poster at the ESE Conference at Freie Universität Berlin:
Two submissions related to the bonding board were accepted for the 16th Conference of Lecturers in Emotional and Social Development in Berlin, which took place from May 30 to June 1, 2024.
Together with Dr. Cécile Tschopp and Dr. Robert Langnickel, who are responsible for the study at the Lucerne University of Teacher Education, we gave a poster presentation – with an integrated magnetic bonding board – on the current status of the ongoing intervention study at the Lucerne University of Teacher Education. The work of the 17 Master’s students is at the concept stage, and the framework for how they will be integrated into the overarching study has been defined. We will now incorporate the helpful feedback from the conference participants into the fine-tuning process.
In a presentation we were also able to explain how the bonding board and its other tools can be employed in the the context of teacher training . In the following discussion we received valuable suggestions for further development and there were several contactswhich will give the bonding board the option to jump across the border to universities in the ‘big canton’ .
Conclusion: In the lecture halls and course rooms next to Norman Foster’s famous library – which is modeled on the shape of a brain – brains have successfully debated emotions and behavior that arise in brains!
Thank you Berlin!
May 2024 – Attachment-Networking:
The Attachment Network Associationof which I am a founding member, presents its new homepage. As an interdisciplinary platform, it is dedicated to promoting attachment security in various areas of life. The founding members cover the desired multi-professional spectrum It ranges from psychology and psychotherapy to psychomotor therapy, social work/social pedagogy and pedagogy/medical pedagogy to obstetrics. What we offer members:
1. specialist knowledge and further training: In a first project, we will compile up-to-date specialist information, materials and links for attachment-oriented work. We will then plan and report on specialized events and training courses to which our members will receive discounted access.
2. Interdisciplinary exchange: Our network offers a unique platform for exchange with specialists from various disciplines. Each member contributes to the diversity and interdisciplinarity and thus enables a rich exchange of knowledge, which can take place in thematic groups or individual contacts.
3. projects and resources: Members have the opportunity to submit suggestions and participate in the development and realization of various projects by being part of the network and supporting the association financially through their contribution.
Who can become a member? Anyone who comes into professional contact with the topic of attachment. In addition to individuals , institutions or departments are also addressed. It is irrelevant whether it is a legal entity in the true sense of the word. An Association X can join as well as a office Y or a team Z.
The club was initially founded with a focus on Switzerland . However, bonding works internationally and networks are there to develop, which is why Interested parties from other countries welcome!
Board and management: Aleksandra Bratic Grunauer, Stefania Calabrese, Irina Kammerer, Philipp Ramming, Martina Rufer, Lothar Steinke, Laura Thrier, Christin Tlach
https://netzwerkbindung.ch
May 2024 – From diagnoses to dialogs:
This was the title of the speechthat I gave on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the school psychological service in Sursee in the canton of Lucerne. It illuminated historyas well asfuture.. The history of the school, which during this time had changed from homogenizing and separating to individualizing and integrating, to which school psychology reacted by placing systemic thinking and dialogical solution finding alongside diagnostics, which always remained important.
I outlined the future of this interaction with the bonding board. The new school no longer wants to derive its authority from status, which it has increasingly lost, but from working on an equal footing, from relationship.. On the bonding board, where two figures usually meet in a dance of calm versus excitement and closeness versus distance, it becomes clear what is needed to create this future: Relationship is only possible or only becomes effective if not only the child is understood as an individual, but also the teacher. The power of a personality is based on authenticity, not only on strengths and abilities, but also on faults and weaknesses, on rough edges, because only with them a picture of the other person is being created that can be believed, that conveys trust and thus security.
There is therefore a individualization and liberation process of the teacher who, in addition to the freedom of not having to be an idealized norm or perfect person, also bears the responsibility of being aware of themselves and sometimes looking at this self critically in order to be able to use it for the benefit of the child.
The bonding board can provide valuable services in this process at school. It provides a safe framework for the conversation, it enables self-perception and the perspective of others, it allows the less verbally adept to make their point of view understandable and it facilitates a view of emotional movements that lead to solutions – or in new words: to co-regulation – lead.
The school psychological service can promote this by giving these issues space, encouraging schools and teachers to face up to the challenge and providing them and parents with reassurance. A security that is based on the confidence that difficult situations cannot be overcome primarily with one-sided school administrative-surgical interventions, but with emotion-based interventions that develop in a ping-pong.
May 2024 – One-day course: Knowing and using the bonding board:
The course on Saturday, May 4, 2024 was open to participants from all professional groups and was aimed at beginners as well as people who already use the bonding board but would like a more in-depth introduction or those who would like to use it for professional self-reflection or in supervision. With the sectors of school social work, social education, school psychology, psychotherapy and art therapy, a good mix came together, which led to a lively exchange. The course once again took place in my art and carnival studio in Emmen, close to Lucerne. In this creative environment, it was possible to fully immerse oneself in the topic. The focus was on practical examples and exercises based on case questions that the participants brought with them.
Current course offers: https://bondingboard.com/kurse
April 2024 – Donations for Solidminds in Rwanda
The appeal for donations for the psychotherapy center in Kigali raised a number of specialist materials : From the Scenotest and family board to Raven and other tests to the bonding board, of course. The drawers in the playroom could now also be filled with games, Lego and Playmos. Many thanks to all donors! Link: https://solidminds.rw
April 2024 – Maxi bonding board at the HfH School of Special Needs Education:
The bonding board for walking … for 40 participants. In the Psychomotricity degree program at the Intercantonal University for Special Needs Education HfH in Zurichin the socio-emotional development module, I was able to study the topic of attachment practical in depth. The 10-meter-long bonding board was used with enthusiasm in order to get to grips with the emotional turmoil of the clients and the possibilities of relationship-oriented work. Psychomotor therapy offers ideal conditions for using the two axes of arousal and closeness-distance therapeutically, not only in reflective discussions but also as a direct experience. Joy, anger, contempt, fear and caring were evoked, made tangible as effective factors and transferred to the possible applications of the bonding board (or even just the model in the back of the mind) in the therapeutic context: Anamnesis, therapy planning, psychoeducation, discussions with parents and professionals and, last but not least, therapy reflection with the child. Thanks to the whole course group for this committed morning!
March 2024 – Attachment-oriented intervention cards:
The cards contain a compact information on attachment patterns and 26 behavioral and emotion-oriented measureswhich are often used in school and counseling contexts. Each measure is then examined from the perspective of attachment theory.
What effect will the measure have on ambivalent pupils? What do I need to bear in mind with avoidant tendencies? Where do I need to make adjustments if disorganized behavior occurs frequently?
They were developed in collaboration with two students of special education, Jennifer Schumacher and Katharina Rotenand successfully tested as part of their Master’s thesis.
The current beta version and an 18-page free excerpt with binding information and 6 sample cards is available via the link below. Please take a look! We look forward to your feedback!
https://bondingboard.com/karten
February 2024 – Donations for psychotherapy in Africa:
My daughter Carole has been in Rwanda since summer 2023. Rwanda. The psychological consequences of the 1994 genocide are still being felt, including in her work as a psychotherapist in the well-established counseling team of Solidminds in Kigali.. After working in outpatient and inpatient facilities in Switzerland and an internship in the TraumaClinic in Cape Townthis is another challenging and satisfying position.
Materially, the service is less well equipped than we are used to. What is needed are non-verbal or English-language games, therapy materials and cards, or even almost non-verbal tests in Germansuch as d2 or FEW. If you have something to offer, please send an e-mail to carole.steinke(at)solidminds(dot)rw send us a short info, preferably with kilos, because we collect everything here in Lucerne so that we can give it to visitors. Of course Donations via our store welcome, with the marked ‘Rwanda’which will be used for the purchase of further materials and therapy costs.
To anticipate follow-up questions: Carole’s husband, Damian, is involved with FairCapital, a start-up that provides loans to fair trade farmers. You could also invest there… 🙂 …
Links to this: https://solidminds.rw https://faircapital.ch/ https://bondingboard.com/en/shop
January 2024 – New video tutorial on YouTube:
Now there is on our Youtube channel a longer tutorial . In the 25-minute video “The bonding board: content and use “all materials,that are included in the extensive box, are shown and explained. Gray, colored, small and magic figures, the symbol stones, emotion rings, bars, arrows, animals and of course the game board. Most materials are also shown in brief simulations, how they can be used in the consultation.
As a beginner, you usually start simply with two to three figures. This is manageable and yet already offers many possibilities. But it’s good to know all the options, as this allows you to gradually expand your palette naturally.
To the new video (in German): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee7UHGlQjUY
To the channel: https://youtube.com/@bondingboard
December 2023 – Master’s theses with the bonding board
In December, students in the Master’s program in Special Education were presented with a colorful bouquet of research questions from the Lucerne University of Teacher Education, in which Master’s theses can be integrated into a larger research project. The bonding board project met with great interest and its implementation is therefore secured: 14 candidates have immediately registered for 4 individual and 5 partner projects. Under the direction of Dr. Cécile Tschopp and Dr. Robert Langnickel, a bundle of individual case studies will therefore be developed in 2024, in the course of which the bonding board will be used over two months in everyday spedial Ed conditions as an aid in discussions with pupils from the 1st grade onwards. Observation and interviews are used to investigate the extent to which talking about and analyzing situations and emotional states changes the ability to perceive, verbalize and regulate emotions and how this affects conflict situations and social interaction. I am very much looking forward to this collaboration! Next step: Submissions for third-party funding …
November 2023 – Special education at the Lucerne University of Teacher Education:
In November, six course groups were introduced to working with the bonding board in the part-time Master’s degree program in Special Education at the Lucerne University of Teacher Education. Case studies were discussed in small groups in a very practical way, ranging from kindergarten to high school and including issues such as refusal to work, aggression, absenteeism, anxiety, family stress, ADD/ADHD or ASD and many more. The differences between behavioral and emotion-oriented approaches were always highlighted. And since at least one counterpart is always represented on the bonding board, the role of the teacher was also considered in addition to the student focus.
It was a pleasure to see how committed the small groups were to self-reflection or reflection on the cooperation between the support teacher and class teacher, in addition to empathizing with the student or parent role – but it was also hard to have to interrupt the lively discussions again. A new edition for the next year and an in-depth module are being planned.
Similar courses can be put together individually for team training .
November 2023 – Further training at the SPD Canton Aargau:
In November, the entire School Psychological Service (SPD) of the Canton of Aargau was introduced to working with the bonding board. The Panorama Hall at the Lenzburg Continuing Education Center was filled to capacity. The practice-oriented training day, which I was able to lead together with Andrea Willnauer, school psychologist and psychotherapist in the canton of Lucerne, showed how the tool can be incorporated into counseling practice with students, parents and teachers. The focus on relationships and emotions complements conventional diagnostics and behavior-oriented approaches. All regional offices are now equipped with bonding boards.
October 2023 – University of Applied Sciences for Special Needs Education HfH:
The Department of Education, Culture, Sport Department of Primary Education of the Canton of Aargau invited the School of Special Needs Education HfH for the school management forums on the topic “Dealing with children and young people with behavioral problems” invited. The series of lectures was dedicated to the question “How can learning in relationships succeed in everyday school life?”
In addition to BankingTime and CLASS, the bonding board was presented as a relationship-oriented tool for the school . Thank you Prof. Pierre-Carl Link, and I am looking forward to further cooperation with the HfH!
September 2023 – Autism shown on the bonding board: With a small emotional hole!When the Autism Center of the Canton of Lucerne decided to use the bonding board, I was invited for an input and exchange. One form of presentation was rated as particularly helpful as it captures the experiences of both the child with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) and other persons involved . The figures are placed on the bonding board in the Y-axis according to their visible emotional state of arousal. They have a hole in their ‘belly’, through which this condition can also be read. However, a key characteristic of ASA is that the perception and mirroring of emotions are impaired. This is represented by a white emotional ring with a much smaller hole and can be described as follows: “The child does not lack emotion, but due to this small hole, has much more difficulty in determining what exactly is going on inside oneself.. It is also much harder for outsiders to look into the hole. Sometimes a parent is also affected by ASD and has, in a ways, a smaller emotional hole too. And what’s more, from the child’s perspective, who finds it challenging to assess the emotions of others, All small holes, be they parents, siblings, teachers or schoolmates.”
This depiction fosters understanding: “Oh, it’s already exhausting for me to empathize with the one child with the small hole. How much more exhausting it must be for this child to constantly move around in a group of people with – from the childs point of view – small holes, without causing friction.” And on the other hand, the hole sets the agenda: “You have to look more closely into the holesometimes take the time to look under the white ring, even my own ring I always have to briefly liftso that the child can look in better, explain emotions to each other, so that the rings can be gradually more transparent become.”
August 2023 – Foundation of the Attachment Network Association:
The topic of attachment has become increasingly important in various disciplines. It made sense to establish a multidisciplinary network here. On August 23, 2023, an association Bonding Network was founded. The board covers a broad multidisciplinary spectrum with the fields of school psychology, psychotherapy, social work, psychomotor skills, education, curative education and obstetrics.
The aim of the association is to promote networking among interested individuals and institutions, to disseminate attachment-oriented knowledge and action and to initiate projects in this context or to support them with the help of external funds to be acquired.
If you are interested in joining the board or could imagine participating in the scientific and strategic advisory board, in projects or in the administration of the association, please contact me.
Anyone interested in the association is cordially invited to become an active or passive member at the inaugural meeting. More information: https://bondingboard.com/netzwerk
July 2023 – Professional distribution channels:
It’s a big step: I have found two professional distribution channels for the bonding board.
The inclusion in the catalog of test centers of the renowned Hogrefe publishing house is a nice recognition and it is a pleasure to see the bonding board next to all the standard procedures that I have used daily for years.
The inclusion by the K2 publishing house is also extremely gratifying. K2 is a well-established publishing house that is primarily aimed at practitioners in the professional fields of preschool and school, remedial and special education, and other professionals in the pedagogical-therapeutic environment. It is therefore the ideal addition to underline the broad multi-disciplinary applicability of the bonding board.
I am therefore ending my own physical product sales in the EU. Customers from the EU can now only order digital products via our homepage.
Customers from Switzerland and outside the EU can still order all products from https://bondingboard.com/shop.
The links to the new channels:
https://testzentrale.de, https://testzentrale.ch, https://hogrefe.com/at
https://k2-verlag.de, https://k2-verlag.at, https://k2-verlag.ch
June 2023 – Paderborn University conference:
At the end of June, lecturers specializing in emotional-social development meet for a conference at Paderborn University. I may contribute there with Dr. Cécile Tschopp, lecturer at the University of Teacher education PH Luzern, something on the topic of attachment. The title of the congress, “Dis-placed into Focus,” aims to offer unusual perspectives. We will let the participants look back and forth as Cécile Tschopp outlines pedagogically relevant aspects in the area of social-emotional development and I directly show how these can be presented and addressed with the bonding board. I’m looking forward to this ping pong match!
June 2023 – Lucerne University of Teacher Education:
As of June 2023, I have been entrusted with a small external teaching assignment in the Master’s program in Special Education to introduce the bonding board as a practical tool. The topic of attachment theory is already taught to students. It will be my task to show the possibilities of the BondingBoard as a practical tool, i.e. for reflection on student behavior, conversation with students and parents, and self-reflection. The course is attended by teachers working besides on a part-time basis. I am therefore looking forward to exciting feedback from this field of practice.
May 2023 – Table for the BondingboardPLUS:
The BondingboardPLUS contains additional colored lines for trauma and depression on the axis of the arousal level. In order to better understand and communicate the processes involved in traumatic experiences, I have created a table for the PLUS extension that summarizes elements of trauma therapy from a variety of sources. Everything is assigned to a line on the arousal axis of the Bonding Board PLUS: Emotional terms that match the arousal level, physiological reactions, the hormones then important, the activity of the autonomic nervous system and the effects of arousal on memory during storage and retrieval. In this way, the processes taking place in parallel can be clearly shown in conjunction with the figure movements.
As with the binding board PLUS, this table is still a beta version and I would like to receive feedback from users. You can use the BondingBoardPLUS only if you also have a basic BondingBoard. However, the table is also very informative for users of the basic version. The basic idea and the terms of use can be found at https://bondingboard.com/en/plus.
April 2023 – Article in “Praxis Schulpsychologie” No.34:
The journal “Praxis Schulpsychologie” is the flagship publication of the School Psychology Section of the Professional Association of German Psychologists (BDP) and is published by Deutscher Psychologen Verlag dpv. The current issue is dedicated to the topic of mentalizing, so a report on the BondingBoard fits perfectly into the From Research and Practice section. I am happy about this publication, which shows with some examples of questions how easy it is with the help of the bonding board to initiate thinking and talking about social relationships. Visualization makes it easier for people of all ages to put themselves in the shoes of a counterpart and at the same time become clear about their own emotional involvement. This is often the first step towards understanding and change. Full article:
https://bondingboard.com/wp-content/uploads/Praxis-Schulpsychologie-Nr34-S9-10-Bindungsbrett.pdf
Cite this article: Steinke, L. (2023). Mentalizing with the bonding board: Emotion-focused counseling for children, adolescents, parents, and teachers. Praxis Schulpsychologie, 9(34), 9-10.
“Praxis Schulpsychologie” can be subscribed to free of charge and back issues can be downloaded for free: https://www.praxis-schulpsychologie.de
April 2023 – Attachment & trauma:
The bonding board gets a trauma-specific extension! The board, with its colored lines depicting the emotional state of arousal, is a very helpful tool to make clear the parallelisms of physiological and emotional states. In the vast majority of cases, the four-color everyday spectrum from calm to activated and stressed to anger and fear is fully sufficient. In case discussions, however, it became apparent that an expansion to include additional lines might be useful for understanding traumatic experiences. I was able to submit these considerations to Prof. Henri Julius in the sense of a theory-based review. These conversations resulted in a beta version with the working title BindingsbrettPLUS, which I am now offering to practitioners for beta testing.
It includes two purple halved hyperarousal lines above the red line with the terms ‘rigid’ for the ‘freeze’ state and above it ‘paralyzed’ for ‘flop’.
Below the blue ‘calm’ line, another double line is added: Gray and labeled ‘flaccid’ corresponds to apathy and depressive listlessness, and below it again follows ‘flop’ mentioned as the top line. More
April 2023 – First video tutorial in English:
The first tutorial video in English is online! It is a translation of the German video on my Youtube channel and describes in about five minutes how to use the ‘BondingBoard’. The bonding board is available in German and English, either as a game board or as an online app, and always includes an unlabeled version as well. Once clients know how the board works, we recommend using this version so they use their own words and don’t repeat the technical terms in the margins. Moreover, the board can be used by speakers of any language. Please share the new video with your non-German speaking friends and contribute to the spread of this versatile consulting tool worldwide! https://youtube.com/@bondingboard
March 2023 – SKJP Prize:
Every two years, the Swiss Association for Child and Adolescent Psychology awards a sponsorship and recognition prize. “It serves to honor personalities, institutions and projects that have rendered outstanding services to the interests of child and adolescent psychology in practice, teaching or research.”
In 2022, Kurt Zwimpfer and Lothar Steinke were honored, in particular for their many years of commitment to postgraduate training in child and adolescent psychology. The general meeting at that time was still held online because of Covid. It was an honor to now to receive the deferred real round of applause at the 2023 General Meeting in the Alte Kaserne in Winterthur. Thank you very much!
February 2023 – Course announcements:
The new bonding board courses are available live or in a virtual course room and can be booked individually or in combination: A basic course, advanced course and supervision. The courses provide in-depth insight and exercises for use in counseling, therapy, or case reflection. What you learn can be combined with different working methods: Behavioral therapy, systemic, analytical, psychoeducational or pedagogical.
Info and registration: https://bondingboard.com/kurse
February 2023 – Facebook:
Now there is also a Facebook profile for the bonding board. It is written in English. Those who have activated the auto-translation to a different language will get a relatively good translation at the push of a button. You get to click Like and especially Share! Thank you!
https://facebook.com/bondingboard
January 2023 – Bonding board becomes standard procedure:
The following joyful news has reached me: “The bonding board has been included in our test list at the School Psychological Service of the Canton of Aargau as a ‘core test’ – which must be always available in all field offices.” Citation. Simon Walther, Regional Office Manager and Head of the Test Diagnostics Working Group.
It is gratifying that the bonding board, even if it is not yet a standardized diagnostic instrument, is counted among the illustrious circle of standard procedures for anamnesis, hypothesis generation and counseling. I myself, still at the School Psychological Service, used it in every registered case in the first year of its development. Whether with a child, a mother, a teacher, a therapist, a principal, whether on school performance, bullying, behavior, family, there was always a stress that could be addressed and on which added value could be generated. Once you start using it, you’ll be glad to have it at hand at all times. By the way: The cantons of St.Gallen and Solothurn are also equipped with bonding boards in all branches and many smaller services as well. However, standards take time in Switzerland. Mostly it varies “from canton to canton” – and where there are no cantonal offices – “from municipality to municipality”-own service over centuries.
January 2023 – YouTube channel:
A first video tutorial has been completed. In less than five minutes, the structure of the bonding board is explained and its use is simulated in a short example.
A second clip shows a 2-minute video sequence from the online app explaining the bonding board to children, parents, or teachers. It does not offer professionals new factual knowledge, but it can serve as an example of how to instruct clients.
This is the start to a YouTube channel …. I wish informative zapping-in again and again!
https://youtube.com/@bondingboard
December 2022 – Presentation at the University of Zurich:
Thanks for the motivation boost for 2023! In December, I was invited by Prof. Dr. Guy Bodenmann to present the bonding board to the staff at the chair. He and his team have devoted decades to the topics of relationship, attachment, partnership, stress, and parenting in research, teaching, and practice. As expected, there were also critical questions.
The short conclusion:
Practice: Can be used immediately for therapy and counseling at the affiliated therapy center.
Theory: Adequately depicts attachment and stress reactions, use in teaching is under review.
Diagnostics: Interesting as an instrument for generating hypotheses, but there is still a long way to go before it becomes a standardized diagnostic tool.
It was emphasized as particularly helpful that, unlike other visualization aids, the bonding board does not simply provide a graphic or static constellation, but is a dynamic instrument that does justice to the emotional and situational changes and can be used intuitively by the client.
With my background in school psychology, I often focus on developmental psychology.
I was particularly pleased with the following statement by Prof. Bodenmann, which I could also quote, as it underlines how much more broadly it can be applied: “The bonding board will also be very good to use in couples therapy.”
Judgments like this from experts who were not involved in its development give us a boost for 2023. I look forward to more exciting usage feedback from the UZH team.
December 2022 – First free lunch webinar:
Wednesday 14.12.2022, 12:30-13:30h.
An input about bonding and the bonding board followed by a Q&A session. If you like, present a case study from your everyday life and I will outline how the bonding board could be used in this context. …. To be continued ….
Registration: https://bondingboard.com/en/webinars
November 2022 – New offer … Online store counter:
Invite me to a team meeting. As an online guest, I like to show firsthand what the bonding board can do. In this way, you quickly place your critical questions and then clarify in the team whether the bonding board is suitable for your work. – And it usually works 🙂
Send your team meeting dates to:
hello (at) bondingboard.com
October 2022 – LinkedIn:
The LinkedIn network is actively expanded and used for posts and contacts. Feel free to network: https://linkedin.com/in/lotharsteinke
September 2022 – Advertising table at the International Bonding Conference in Ulm:
At the International Bonding Conference in Ulm, chaired by Prof. Karl Heinz Brisch, I was able to present the bonding board at a sales table. The ‘breaks’ between the presentations on the highly exciting congress topic “Disturbed bonds in digital times” were just as exciting: analog contact with a attachment expert audience.
September 2022 – Interviews:
The two semi-structured interview forms were developed further. The tendencies interview asks for basic patterns of dealing with stress and relationships and the situation interview helps to go through concrete stress or conflict situations step by step. They make getting started with the bonding board easy and versatile. If you want, you can read them off or modify them in many different ways. Versions 2.2 have been released and are now available to download from the store.
https://bondingboard.com/shop
August 2022 – The board is here – the WebShop opens!
The box has now arrived hot off the press, in German and English. At the same time, a newer 18-page manual (official version V1) was released, which supplements the included Quick Start Guide and replaces the manual that was included with the previously available prototypes.
https://bondingboard.com/en/shop
July 2022 – Further training offers:
Workshop, presentation, supervision: Book an event at your premises, in our newly enlarged course rooms in the Kunstsilo in Lucerne-Emmen or as an online event.
>> https://bondingboard.com/en/training
May 2022 – Data collection in Schleswig-Holstein:
Two weeks in 5 schools around Lübeck. It was a pleasure to conduct the new interview form with 50 children. The sample focused on children ages 6 to 11 and included some with special education needs.
Ronja Bohnenkamp, University of Rostock, conducted the Separation Anxiety Test SAT with the same children, which will serve as a comparison value for convergent validity in the study.
April 2022 – Print order delayed:
Game manufacturers have long delivery times due to the high demand caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Our order is revised in terms of production because of the more complicated double-layered figures. The release date is postponed to summer 2022. New prototypes are made for data collection.
March 2022 – Nomination for the SKJP Award:
The Executive Board of the Swiss Association for Child and Adolescent Psychology informs about the nomination of Kurt Zwimpfer and Lothar Steinke for the recognition award. In the justification, special reference is made to the merits in the postgraduate training for the child and adolescent psychology specialist title. Due to Corona, the general meeting cannot take place live. The personal handover is therefore postponed.
March 2022 – Online board:
The online bonding board app is completed even before the physical product comes off the press. It is intuitive to use, comes along clearly and with the clickable ‘parking lots’ for the figures it is even usable on a smartphone. Now you can try the bonding board worldwide for free!
January 2022 – Print job:
Final design adjustments are made. Translating it into English takes hours of Skype meetings with my cousin, Dr. Willi Steinke, a school psychologist and psychotherapist in Toronto. Long texts are easy to translate, but individual words of the board labeling were replaced several times, because they always failed to meet a criterion: Precise, conformity with the theoretical specifications, understandable for children, compatible with the German version.
Finally, the print job is awarded, to PikSieben, a game manufacturer in Germany.
December 2021 – Postponement of data collection:
Due to delays in approvals from the ministries, the data collection for the validation study in Schleswig-Holstein and thus the trip to Lübeck must be postponed until spring 2022.
November 2021 – Training day for the SPD St.Gallen, in Quarten:
First full-day event for a larger team. The School Psychology Service of the Canton of St.Gallen dared to book an advanced training for the entire 50-member team when the bonding board was only available as a prototype. Thank you for the trust!
November 2021 – Lecture at the 2nd Swiss School Psychology Congress in Biel:
After several presentations in small professional circles, the bonding board was presented live to the public for the first time.
October 2021 – Entering the study:
The validation study at the University of Rostock was prepared in several stages.
The details of the study regarding the bonding board have now also been finalized.
Bonding patterns are activated under stress. It is to be feared that pure self-assessment questions would therefore generate less meaningful answers with children. Thus, for the interviews with the bonding board with children, stories were developed which are based on other story procedures, but are closer to everyday life, induce less high stress, and are easier to evaluate thanks to the recording of the figure movements on the bonding board.
September 2021 – Company foundation and contract awards:
Investments in product development were on the agenda. Six Eyes AG/Ltd. was founded. The name is intended to symbolize the fact that the perspectives of several parties must always be included in problem solving: Client, environment and specialist.
The terms for the rows and columns of the board will be finalized and the columns will be expanded from three to four.
The first development contracts were awarded:
Graphic revision of the prototype into the finished product: Julia Herzog, graphic designer, Zurich.
Development of two online apps, one for an online board, usable from PC to smartphone and one for a diagnostic screening: Koboldgames, Brugg.
Trademark protection: TrollerLaw, Lucerne.
The design of the company logo was awarded to our Cuban artist friend: Joaquin Bolivar Thomas, Santiago de Cuba.
September 2021 – Lecture at the Federal Conference on School Psychology:
It was an honor to be able to present the bonding board to the public for the first time at the congress celebrating the 100th anniversary of school psychology in Germany. Lothar Steinke presented the product, which only exists as a prototype, and Ronja Bohnenkamp explained the structure of the planned validation study at the University of Rostock. The ‘Bundeskonferenz BUKO 2021’ was held virtually ‘in Hannover’ as an online conference due to Covid restrictions.
August 2021 – Interviews:
Various standard questions and experimental interview forms that had proven themselves in the first year of development are combined into two interview templates and made available as beta versions to facilitate getting started with the bonding board prototype.
They are suitable as an exploratory tool for talking to parents or teachers about topics relevant to attachment or for breaking down the relationship-related parts of behavioral problems with children. User feedback was solicited.
August 2021 – Homepage:
Today, every company starts with a homepage… Even if there was nothing to buy for the time being.
August 2020 to July 2021 – The bonding board is developed:
Our school psychology team set itself the annual goal of increasing the use of visualization aids in counselling. Since I couldn’t find anything satisfactory for the subject of attachment, I started experimenting with my own models. On one day of the course, I presented a prototype to Henri Julius. After various adjustments, he opined in April 2021 that the instrument had now matured to the point where it could be published and offered the option of including it in a validation study planned at the Institute in Rostock. It was clear that this would require a lot of preliminary work. I decided to take a chance on this and resigned from my longtime school service director and school psychology position.
November 2018 – 1st Swiss School Psychology Congress in Biel:
In November 2018, I attended the first Swiss School Psychology Congress with my entire school psychology team from the Rothenburg/Lucerne school service at the time. We were so enthusiastic about Prof. Henri Julius’ lecture that we approached him personally during the break and asked if he would be willing to give a larger continuing education course focusing on attachment-oriented work in school psychology. This was finally implemented in 2019/20 by the professional association SKJP and various continuation events have followed since then.