How do you create security? Through touch, through borders, security, honesty, trust, empathy? How do you create the framework for a feeling that everyone knows or should know, but for which there is not even a translation in most languages? The fact is: security also plays a role in various professions. Because people are looking for this or because they can only open up when they feel secure. This does not only apply to interpersonal relationships. In architecture and marketing too, people try to create this feeling. The “Presse am Sonntag” therefore asked various professional groups: what security means in their job and how they try to convey it.
Set boundaries, create framework
Kathrin and Matthias Raab are crisis foster parents. They take on children from difficult families for a while. They say: rules and limits give children security.
by Eva Winroither
You have only been a crisis foster parent for a little over six months. Kathrin and Matthias Raab. You 33, he 39, have been together for 14 years, married, they have a biological daughter (11) and a foster son (6) for 3.5 years. When the virus came into the country, Kathrin Raab thought, why not become a crisis foster mother now. She was in the home office anyway. In addition, (crisis) foster parents are urgently needed in Vienna. Since then, the family has looked after two children in crisis, a two-year-old and a baby, and the third child in crisis, an almost two-year-old girl, has been living with them since mid-October.
When a child comes, it has to be quick. And mostly Kathrin Raab knows very little. What the child likes to eat and play, what he doesn't like. Whether it is angry, whether it needs closeness. “It takes a lot of sensitivity,” she says. So when a child comes, the first thing she does is hug it. In the first few days, her husband Matthias, who works for a railway technology company, takes over her own children so that his wife can concentrate on the child in crisis. It is often good for the child in crisis if their own children come home from school or have time after studying. Most of them would have had bad experiences with adults, not children. If the child in crisis only wants to play with their daughter or son at first, then that's fine too.
What children need. For the Raabs, security means “that children feel safe and that we meet needs. That means, if the child is hungry, it eats, if it wants to cuddle, we cuddle, if it wants to cry, it is allowed to cry. ”Many children in crisis have experienced violence in the family:“ They don't know what normal family life is “, Says Kathrin Raab. This is one of the reasons why the Raabs have a structured daily routine and boundaries. The children need that too. “Rules and limits give an incredible amount of security. In the end, this is the framework in which they can feel safe. ”When the children start to test their limits, Matthias Raab knows that they have arrived. “That is a good sign because at the beginning there is always the phase of absolute adjustment.” Only when they get “a little bad” do you really get to know the children. And they usually have a lot to catch up on. Your current child didn't know how to play in mid-October. “She caught up with half a year in two months.”
Of course, you have to say goodbye to children in crisis care. It's not always easy. Then the nuclear family, i.e. mother, father, daughter, son, sees to it that they are there for each other. Because being able to live out your needs in your own family – that too is security.
What needs rooms meet
Housing and architecture psychologist Harald Deinsberger-Deinsweger knows what rooms have to offer so that we can feel comfortable in them – namely, meet certain needs.
by Karin Schuh
There are rooms in which you immediately feel comfortable when you enter. Others, in turn, evoke a feeling of oppression and activate an impulse to flee in us. You can feel it right away, even before you know why. The discipline of residential and architectural psychology, which has only existed since the 1970s, deals precisely with this. It has set itself the goal of applying knowledge of psychology in the planning and design of buildings.
The trained architect and living and architecture psychologist Harald Deinsberger-Deinsweger deals with this with his company Wohnspektrum. He identified a number of factors that are decisive for whether we feel comfortable in rooms or not.
“It's not about aesthetic factors, but about what needs are met so that a feeling of security can arise.” Central to this is the need for protection, which is not enough, otherwise we would feel comfortable in a concrete bunker.
Contact with the environment. “It is also important to meet sensory contact needs. Our senses are made to establish contact with the environment. It's not just about visual contacts, but also about surfaces that invite you to attack them. ”Surfaces with a pleasant structure, such as wood or textiles, are more inviting than neutral and barren surfaces. It's not just about the sense of touch. Living things such as fire can also appeal to our senses, namely the visual or the temperature sense.
A room can also satisfy social needs by not feeling lonely but rather integrated into a community. The coffee house shows that quite well, although it depends on which corner you get. This brings us to the next factor, namely whether a room satisfies the need for relaxation. This requires a space that is not overcrowded. And the square shouldn't be too exposed either. It is not for nothing that niches in the coffee house that are somewhat separated from the rest of the hustle and bustle but offer a good overview are very popular. And the overview also satisfies a need, namely that of control, which in turn gives security.
The public space as a place of wellbeing
We turn public space into a home outside of our own four walls so that we feel safe, says dramaturgy expert Christian Mikunda.
by Karin Schuh
“Security arises in public space when beauty wins over efficiency,” says dramaturgy expert Christian Mikunda. So when there is no urban motorway running through the city, but the public space is designed to be cozy. With a high quality of stay that invites you to linger or stroll.
Mikunda, who has written numerous books on the dramaturgy of public places and advises municipalities or shopping mall operators on this, calls public space the third place. “The first place is your own home, which conveys a feeling of security. That only came into being in the late 18th century, before that one was just happy to have a roof over one's head, with the exception of the nobility, ”says Mikunda. The second place he describes is the designed workplace. “It originated in the USA in the 1950s, with open-plan offices in which you could design your workspace with plants and personal items. This makes you feel that you are being taken seriously emotionally and you identify more strongly with your work, ”says Mikunda. He calls it “home away from home”, that is, the home outside of your own home.
Inside out. The third place is thus the public or semi-public place in public space, which can be the Italian piazza as well as a coffee house, a theater or a shopping center. Whereby the location alone is not enough, it must have a quality of stay reminiscent of home. The grocery store, for example, where you not only shop, but also chat. Or the hairdresser, to whom you don't just go for the hairstyle. “The classic third place has been swept away by globalization.” On the other hand, staged public spaces have been added that are deliberately designed so that we feel comfortable. “There is a classic trick here: the inside as the outside,” says Mikunda. So elements that are familiar from home are used in public spaces. This ranges from the Christmas lighting in the form of a chandelier on the ditch to the “Enzis” as seating in the MuseumsQuartier to floors that are designed like a carpet or floating roofs. We obviously have a need to appropriate public space and to make ourselves comfortable. Mikunda recently observed this at the Wiener Graben. Since there were no punch stands, the residents had converted the plague column into a bar with punch-to-go.
The importance of mom, dad and co.
Nicole Harrer is a nurse for children. When they don't feel well taken care of in the hospital, caregivers can work hard.
“Security plays a major role in care,” says Nicole Harrer. “Because we can work best with children when they feel comfortable in the hospital.” Harrer is a pediatric nurse in the children's clinic at the AKH in Vienna. She worked in pediatric oncology for a long time, and is now a contact point for colleagues as a nursing advisor. The nurses try to convey a sense of security to their little patients in a wide variety of ways: “For example, we always ensure that a caregiver is included. Usually these are the parents, but also the big sister or favorite aunt. ”The stations are also designed to be suitable for children, and everything is festively decorated for Christmas. Some children are here for years. They should also decorate rooms.
Nothing works under stress. Because only when the children feel safe do they allow treatments – especially if they are painful. “We also try to convey a lot of calm through our language and posture,” says Harrer. Everything is explained beforehand, nothing happens quickly in your job. The carers work with initial touches. Children are always touched in the same place as a kind of greeting. In general, the skin is an important instrument. When painful treatments are pending, relatives are brought on board. “Because we know that children perceive treatments as less painful when they have skin contact with their relatives.” The carers themselves also make sure that someone is there to give care and someone to carry out the treatment. “We try to convey a lot of security by touching and holding.” Also to say: “I am there for you, I will not leave you alone.” Win
Help through touch
Angela Leeb tells how people relax with her.
by Eva Winroither
Angela Leeb's job is to convey security through touch. “A person can relax best when they feel secure.” To do this, she uses long strokes, she works with slow movements, with repetitive and supportive grips, for example on the feet, where the foot reflex zones are. Leeb is a Lomi Lomi practitioner.
This Hawaiian body work is particularly intended to help stressed people when they are exhausted and can no longer. Then they stand in front of the door at Leeb, who also makes sure that their clients feel that they are in good hands when they walk in. Through the scent of essential oils such as orange or tangerine, through the warmth of the heated Lomi bed and the sounds of Hawaiian music. She often gives particularly stressed customers the task of listening to the music. Because whoever is “traveling at 140 km / h on the autobahn can not do an emergency stop”. For this reason too, she starts her work with faster grips and gets slower and slower. Empathy is also important in your job.
| “A person can relax best when they feel secure.” |
| Angela Leeb, educator and Lomi Lomi practitioner |
|---|
Much attention. Leeb also guides parents with baby massage. Here, too, a warm room and a cozy surface are important. In addition, she often lets parents build a kind of protective shield around the children with a towel. During the massage she works with large areas of contact. Again a lot of feet and hands, because the stomach, for example, is very unprotected. However, nothing works without the head of a mother or father. “It is important that they are completely with themselves. If you check off to-do lists in your head, relaxation cannot work. “
No distancing for animals
How therapy animals bring children close .
by Christine Imlinger
Roswitha Zink often had to act against her instincts this year. When tears came to children in therapy, they couldn't comfort them – not physically. No hugging, not even stroking the back, was possible in some cases where children or their families were particularly at risk. “You can give verbal comfort, and in many cases you can encourage the child to hug the horse.” In the meantime, in their desperation, children often cry in the horse's mane.
The children that Zink looks after are seriously ill, they are children whose siblings or parents will die, or small clients who have experienced violence. “The most important thing for children is that there is no change for the animals. You can hug animals, cuddle, you can convey love and security through body language. You can let the horse carry you, feel the warmth, the heartbeat. The relationship with the animals has become even closer this year, ”says Zink. The animals had to be able to compensate for a lot this year, where therapists also had to keep their distance. Roswitha Zink is a special education teacher, psychotherapist and expert in horse-assisted trauma therapy – and she is the director of the e.motion Lichtblickhof. On the grounds of the Otto Wagner Hospital in Vienna and on a farm in Lower Austria, children who are burdened by traumatic experiences, illness, death or disability are looked after.
Donations urgently needed. This year these children and their families were often stressed “to the maximum”, says Zink. Corona, “the idea that there is danger from fellow human beings,” changed the children. Many responded by withdrawing. She is very concerned about what that means in the long term, says Zink. Also how things are going financially with the association: It is financed by donations, but this year, because there were no benefit events, a lot of money was lost. The association is now asking for donations. Especially for looking after sick children in the last months of their lives. Because the waiting lists are long. The need for care is great, especially at Christmas time – when some families know it will be their last party together. Then animals should convey a sense of security where humans are no longer possible.
The truth is reasonable to everyone
Hans Schaffer looked for murderers and negotiated with hostage-takers. He always wants one thing: to be honest with victims and perpetrators.
The truth, it is reasonable for people. “The truth is very important so that someone feels safe,” says Hans Schaffer, and he needs to know. Schaffer was with the police for 35 years, including a long time with the homicide squad, and he negotiated 13 hostage-taking. After his retirement he started his own private detective with a security company. When he talks, you inevitably have images from police films from the 80s in your head.
Through his work he has and has had a lot to do with victims, including their relatives. That is why he also says, even when it comes to relatives of murder victims: “Those affected get along three times better with the truth than if you say: I know how you feel. Because you don't know. ”This is another reason why he is a big fan of the crisis intervention team from the Red Cross, which intercepts a lot in such situations.
Just be there. People would always have felt they were in good hands “when they sat down and just was there”. He still holds it that way today. If someone came to his company with their worries, they would also admit that they didn't know the answers. “People then know: He's trying, maybe he'll find someone who knows.” Something like that creates trust and security. He also kept it that way with perpetrators when they asked how many years of punishment they would take out when making a confession. A convicted murderer called him later and thanked him: “You were the only one who was honest with me.” Win
