Development of My Professional Philosophy, Part II
I’d love to share more with you about my client Joe who was institutionalized for 30 years after having a strong reaction to hearing a radio for the first time. (Please read Part I if you missed it!)
Here is more of his story . . .
While traveling from Poland to the US, Joe was given a t-shirt that someone found in a pile of clothes on the ship. The t-shirt had someone else’s last name written on the back label. Even though this was not his name, this was the last name that was used for him for the next 30 years. Thankfully, the Polish translator hired by the rehabilitation center was able to find out his real last name. How pleased I was that those of us who worked at the rehabilitation center were able to help him learn to acclimate to his new environment of the halfway house and become independent and emotionally stable.
Around this time, as I was doing lots of research in books and attending seminars, I came across the book, Uncommon Therapy written by Jay Haley about psychiatrist Dr. Milton H. Erickson (MHE). MHE worked with people with severe diagnoses, helping them solve their issues in a very short period of time. I realized I wanted to learn how he did what he did.
I soon found out about Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), which modeled excellence to help people find resolutions to their problems. NLP used the work of MHE and broke it down into ways it could be taught and learned. These tools offer incredible ways to help people reach their goals relatively quickly and effectively.
I also discovered the work from the Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto, CA called Brief Strategic Therapy where they also studied the work of MHE and taught tools for resolution to problems. One of the main interventions from modeling MHE revealed that what people were trying to do to solve their problems was the very thing that perpetuated their problems. Their Attempted Solution = The Problem. MHE found ways and gave instruction consciously and unconsciously to interrupt the Attempted Solution. People got better.