469.441.1855
h.scott@scottclemens.com
H. Scott Clemens, MA
Sociological Practitioner
Helping individuals, communities, and organizations plan, make, and manage change.

My name is Scott, and I am a sociological practitioner residing in Dallas, TX. As a sociological practitioner, I serve as an “agent of change” for my clients, helping individuals, communities, and organizations make and manage change in their environment, using social theory, research methods, and practice-oriented approaches.

Individuals and Couples
Note: I do not diagnose or treat mental illness. If you need a referral to a qualified mental health professional, please let me know.
Also, no longer accepting new individuals or couples as clients, beginning fall 2016.

Individuals usually seek me out when they are struggling with one or more relationships in their life or when they are struggling with expectations at work, home, or other areas (roles).

I come from a humanistic perspective, which emphasizes that empathy and authenticity are key components of the human experience, and people need space to be heard and understood without judgment and with positive regard. I also draw from social theories that emphasize that we construct our sense of selves and lives through interaction with others, and that interaction helps to create and reinforce narratives/stories about ourselves. I also believe that our social world around us is a system that we are a part of and that you must address that system to address the individual.

Goal of Individual Sessions

When working with individuals my goal is to transmit the ability for clients to become “agents of change” in their own world. I strive not only to help them to make positive changes in how they perceive and view things, but also to help them make real changes to their external world that they experience as positive.

Format of Individual Sessions

While I am open to clients talking about anything, most clients seek out a solution-focused approach, addressing specific difficulties. Central to individual sessions, is providing an empathetic space for my client to be heard without judgment. With the type of listening provided, often clients find they have greater clarity and understanding without any other intervention from me. Since clients typically seek help around relationships or roles, I also frequently make use of roleplaying when the client requests. While practicing scenarios from their lives that involve “difficult conversations,” mindfulness skills are sometimes used to help clients move past distress, so they can focus on communicating. Finally, often when practicing scenarios, clients struggle with judgmental thought, and I help them to untangle their thoughts, so they can move towards understanding the other person.

Couples Sessions

When working with couples, I use an approach similar to what I use with individuals. With couples, I am focused on helping them to understand each other, beyond judgment and criticism, helping them to learn to make effective requests to create changes that they both mutually experience as positive. Additionally, I work to help make changes to their social context, so that their environment serves to support and nurture their relationship.


Oranizations and Communities

I work with organizations in an organizational development capacity, helping them to effectively plan, implement, and handle organizational change. In addition to my sociological knowledge, which is essential to understanding how people interact in organizations, I also have over ten years’ experience actually working with and leading teams.

When do organizations seek my services?

Typically, people seek out my help when they are wanting to know or understand more about something involving the people or processes in their organization. Sometimes organizations are struggling with morale or productivity. Other times there is broad employee/customer attrition or dissatisfaction. Sometimes clients report they are broadly struggling with conflict within the organization.

Finally, sometimes businesses and organizations just want to understand if they are effectively meeting the goals outlined, through the programs or processes they have implemented. This is often a concern of non-profits and mission-oriented organizations and I can help them systematically evaluate their organizations.

How can I help?

I have learned that organizations are unique social entities that are every bit as complex as natural ecosystems. Because of this knowledge, I treat every organization as unique and work in conjunction with its members to try and understand how I can best serve the organization. Once we consent to working together, we collaborate so that I can design a custom, yet affordable way, to quickly assess whatever aspect of the organization there is interest in understanding or changing. The methods used will be based on established evaluation research techniques used in the social sciences.

Intervening

After the issue is better understood through custom research methods, we will develop an intervention plan to make the necessary changes in the organization. Interventions can include:

  • changes to organizational structures or processes
  • training, including workshops for organizational members, or leadership/executive coaching
  • direct conflict intervention strategies
  • implementing different feedback systems

Once an intervention plan is designed I can help you execute it or refer you to someone who can, whichever is the most feasible for your organization.


Final Word: "Conflict Friendly"

When dealing with relationships and change, whether in organizations or individual lives, conflict is inevitable. Frequently, people have a negative view of conflict. However, I hold a sociological view that sees conflict as a natural part of relationships, that ebbs and flows, continuously serving to keep relationships and social structures dynamically responsive to human needs.

Whether it is intensely emotional conflict seen in interpersonal relationships or the extremely complex conflict seen in organizations, I have experience and comfort in using conflict to help transform situations so people experience real, lasting, and positive change.

469.441.1855  h.scott@scottclemens.com
This is the website of the official H. Scott Clemens in Dallas, TX. H. Scott Clemens usually goes by his first name and therefore is often called just Scott Clemens. He was born in Dallas, TX and raised there for much of his early life. Although he moved away several times he always returned to Dallas, TX. Scott Clemens has a master's in sociology. He is focused on sociological practice and would be called either a sociological practitioner or a practice-oriented sociologist. Sociological practice is focused on using theories and methods to help individuals, communities, or organizations. Areas on which Scott Clemens has focused are group and relationship dynamics, organizational development, and conflict and peace. Scott Clemens’s work with individuals has already been discussed as have organizational development. However, organizational development will be addressed a bit more. Organizational development is involved in the “people aspects” of organization. This is different from a efficiency consultant or a management consultant. The latter are more about the economics of the organizations, where as organizational development is looking at people and relationships, which will have every bit of negative impact on the efficiency of the organization as the other approaches. So the focus of organizational development is similar, but different to management and efficiency consulting. Another area that Scott Clemens has expertise in is conflict resolution (conflict management) and mediation. Conflict resolution or conflict management is a much broader field that what most people have experienced. Most people think of mediation and when they think of mediation they are thinking of mediation as it involves legal conflict. While Scott Clemens is qualified to do that kind of mediation, mediation in its simplest form is when a person works with two or more parties to help them either reach some kind of agreement or just a better understanding. Friends, families, neighbors, coworkers, all benefit from mediation at some point from people around them in their environments. H. Scott Clemens expertise is in mediating interpersonal conflict, which is an entirely different skill than legal mediation. Interpersonal conflict (conflict with people around us that we have some personal relationship or interaction with) involves emotions and feelings and has no legal resolution. Fights with family, bosses, and coworkers cannot be resolved through a court of law, and requires those mediating to be comfortable in dealing with emotion (even very intense emotion). Organizational conflict, and conflict in communities, is also particularly complex conflict. Once again there is often no legal resolution to this type of conflict and sometimes it is not as simple as just firing someone from an organization or removing them from a community. Organizational conflict, and conflict in communities, is complex because it usually involves multiple parties (sometimes even multiple “factions”) and the formal structure of the organization or the invisible underlying social structure of the organization or the community make a “simple” mediation impossible. In these situations, a collaborative analysis has to be done of the organization or community to better understand some of the underlying factors. This is why it is important to understand that mediation and conflict resolution or conflict management are not synonymous. Mediation is a skill or a type of intervention that is sometimes used in conflict resolution or conflict management. A mediator is a role that a conflict resolution professional or conflict management professional sometimes assumes. However, there are many roles and many interventions that a knowledgeable professional will have to assume. If conflict is particularly complex then analysis will have to be performed, which involves using research skills to formally study and observe the conflict. While conflict will frequently involve some type of mediation (though it might be informal), resolving conflict in complex scenarios like organizations or communities often require deeper changes to the structure or the processes of the organization or community. Scott Clemens’s sociological training, combined with his background in psychology, provides an optimal background for dealing with various types of conflict: interpersonal conflict, structural conflict, and social conflict. In addition to an educational background in sociology and psychology, he has specially focused training in conflict management and Nonviolent Communication (NVC). Nonviolent Communication (NVC) is particularly well-suited for working with intensely emotional conflict. Nonviolent Communication (NVC) has a perspective and a set of tools that can help people move beyond judgment, blame, criticism. With Nonviolent Communication (NVC) people are able to hear beyond that judgment and understand what is important to the other person, even if the other person says things in ways that might be difficult to hear. Moreover, Nonviolent Communication (NVC) incorporates a set of principles that help to create connection between people and facilitate cooperative interaction.