The Advantage Of Being Human

© Richard Bolstad and Margot Hamblett

Milton’s Tie

Our counselling work is based on NLP, a discipline which evolved out of studies of the therapy of Milton Erickson, Virginia Satir and Fritz Perls. On the videotape “Symbolic Hypnotherapy” (Milton Erickson Foundation), Jeffrey Zeig tells an extraordinary story of Milton Erickson’s work with him. Jeffrey explains that there was a time, during his training with Milton, when Jeffrey was devoting a lot of time to his study, and his family had been neglected. One day, after a training session, Milton invited Jeffrey into his house and almost absent-mindedly began showing him round. He went as far as to show Jeffrey into the Ericksons’ bedroom, where various items of clothing were strewn around. Milton picked up one item in particular; an old tie. He explained to Jeffrey that this tie had been given to him as a present by the family, some years previously. Since then, it had gotten a little frayed around the edges, and even had the odd stain on it, but it remained one of his favourite ties. As he described this tie in some detail, Jeffrey found himself inexplicably overcome with emotion. Tears began to roll down his face.

The Presupposition of Humanity

It was weeks before  Jeffrey finally made sense of what had happened that day. Before explaining his insight about it though, we want to draw attention to a remarkable presupposition in his story. Jeffrey accepts the fact that Milton Erickson has invited him into his private home and discussed his own personal affairs. On the one hand, as Jeffrey says elsewhere, Milton “…was consistently working, consistently being Milton Erickson, which entailed having the most profound experience that he could with whomever he was sitting with. In that sense he was constantly hypnotic, constantly therapeutic, constantly teaching.” (in Simon, 1992, p38). On the other hand, as Richard Simon points out, Milton “…developed a concept of therapy that did away with what he considered some of the arbitrary boundaries of professional practice.” (Simon, 1992, p 38).

Milton Erickson was not alone in recognising that by being more himself in his practice he could have more “therapeutic” effect. Another “model” studied by the NLP developers, Virginia Satir, was famous for her more intimate approach to therapy. For example, she made a point of touching all her clients regularly as a way of contacting and supporting them. She said of this, “My hands are my most valuable treatment asset.” (Satir and Baldwin, 1983, p 247). She said more generally that “Using oneself as a therapist is an awesome task. To be equal to that task, one needs to continue to develop one’s humanness and maturity. We are dealing with people’s lives. In my mind, learning to be a therapist is not like learning to be a plumber. Plumbers can usually settle for techniques. Therapists need to do more. You don’t have to love a pipe to fix it…. In my teaching, I focus in depth on the personhood of the therapist. We are people dealing with people. We need to be able to understand and love ourselves, to be able to look, listen, touch and understand those we see. We need to be able to create the conditions by which we can be looked at, listened to, touched and understood.” (Satir and Baldwin, 1983, p 227-228).

Carl Rogers was a central figure in the development of counselling, and today his work has the air of counselling orthodoxy. But Rogers was anything but orthodox. He sums up his own model (1961, p 33) by saying, “I can state the overall hypothesis in one sentence, as follows. If I can provide a certain kind of relationship, the other person will discover within himself the capacity to use that relationship for growth, and change and personal development will occur…. I have found that the more I can be genuine in the relationship, the more helpful it will be…. It is only by providing the genuine reality which is in me, that the other person can successfully seek for the reality in him. I have found this to be true even when the attitudes I feel are not attitudes with which I am pleased, or attitudes which seem conducive to a good relationship.” In other words, Rogers makes it clear that for him being “up-front” in his relationship with clients is more important than being “professional”. 

In fact, we (Richard and Margot) have noticed that every counsellor or “therapist” we admire has tended to consider their willingness to be human in their interaction with clients as central to their success. This was quite a shock for us to realise, because it rarely gets taught as part of training in these professions. Perhaps this is because there is a very real emotional risk to this willingness. About his work, New Zealand counsellor George Sweet says “To understand the other is to understand myself better, differently. Really to hear the other might mean that the change that must occur, is in me…. Because I am much more like my clients than different from them, I hear myself when I truly hear them.” (Sweet, 1989, pages unnumbered).

In the field of medicine, doctors such as Patch Adams advocate the importance of being human similarly. Adams says of his ideal doctors “The central focus of our work will be to form very close friendships…. The closer we become as friends, the more we will tell about our lives and the more honest we will be with one another. We will use love as our most powerful medicine.” (Adams, 1998, p 54)

The Risks of Humanness

Such sentiments are not so commonly expressed in the original writing of NLP.  There is one good reason, and that is explained by Richard Bandler (1987) He emphasises “For a long time I used to get into it with shrinks cause shrinks would always say ‘You know, all these techniques are well and fine, but isn’t the real core of therapy (the real thread and the most important thing) the relationship that the therapist builds with the client; a more trusting relationship than they could know anywhere else?’ And I go, ‘No; that’s prostitution; that’s a different thing.’ But for a long time a lot of the training for psychoanalysts and psychoanalysts [suggested] that they believe that building a more trusting relationship (the massive ‘transference’ they called it) and all that stuff is what it’s all about. For me the trick is to gather information, not build a love life. You know, I mean, I want clients when they leave [changed so] that the thought of staying fixed is a lot better than the thought of coming back. I like that. And they think ‘I could call Richard on the phone, or I could just do it myself.’ I want them to go, ‘I’ll just do it myself.’ Jesus Christ. You know, I don’t want to ‘be their buddy’.”

Another good reason for being cautious about wholesale “humanisation” of psychotherapy was raised by NLP Trainer Steve Andreas, formerly Gestalt therapist John O. Stevens (1992, p 16) who quoted research to demonstrate that in psychology “Teaching of ethical principles is lax or absent, and a substantial number of psychologist educators ignore them, particularly in regard to sexual contact with students and clients. A substantial number of psychologist educators make sexual advances and initiate sexual intimacies with students, behaviourally teaching that sexualisation of professional relationships is acceptable.” The therapy of that other “model” for NLP, Fritz Perls, is a good example. Fritz explained “I have affection and love –too much of it. And if I comfort a girl in grief or distress and the sobbing subsides and she presses closer and the stroking gets out of rhythm and slides over the hips and over the breasts –where does the grief end and a perfume begin to turn your nostrils from dripping to smelling?” (Perls 1969, pages unnumbered).

A disturbing passage, and a serious issue. But the truly disturbing issues here are not about therapist professionalism. They are about how we treat anyone –close friends included. Perls’ rationalization of his sexualizing sadness would equally be of concern between two friends. Most people would now agree that it’s not fair to shift a relationship from the first emotional basis (support in sadness) to the other (sex) without discussing the shift, and without a space between the two states.

On the other hand, we believe that Richard Bandler has misunderstood the function of friendship. If a friend needs to keep coming back to you for help, equally, your help has not empowered them to solve their own problems. On the other hand, if as a therapist you want to have client leave valuing “staying fixed” then you will benefit from showing them what “fixed” is like. More often than not, our clients are our clients because they do not know how to develop loving relationships. Being congruent in a relationship, being able to step into another’s shoes and feel rapport; these are specific skills that our clients need. Neither Perls blurring of sex and neediness, nor Bandler’s “gathering information” without building the trust to use it can teach such skills. We maintain that such skills can be fully learned only in an atmosphere of love.

Implications

In the frontspiece of his book, “Is There Life Before Death” Steve Andreas quotes a beautiful poem by Sister Mary Corita Kent. It says:

What does this mean in terms of our work as change agents. It means for us that we do not put aside who we are in order to help someone else. On the contrary, who we are is what helps. The skills we have are sustained by the values, sense of identity and mission we live. So every client, every student, comes to discover something of those deeper aspects of us. And inevitably, every client, every student, comes to learn something of our cutting edge, of where we are not perfect. That risk is worth it. In the Biblical story, when Jesus found that his friend Lazarus had died, he was “deeply troubled in spirit”, and wept. Opinions were divided. Some watching said “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” but others were inspired by this very humanness and said “See how he loved him.” (John 11:33-37). Being human means making a decision that you would rather have people see your love than your façade of expertise.

This is different to justifying being abusive to students because we “lost it” and are “only human”, or seducing clients when they need our support because “I’m only human.” Our friends wouldn’t expect that behaviour, and our clients have a right to better too. But being human does mean taking the risk of telling our students if we are overloaded or have some personal challenge that affects our state. It does mean telling our clients of times we’ve dealt with challenges similar to theirs, or letting them know when what they have done touched us. Those aspects of us are just as important as our official counselling “skills”. In fact, in our Transforming Communication training, we teach the same core skills for people to use with their family and friends, as with their clients and students. We also know that many of our friends were once or will later be our clients or students. We want to be the same person in each place.

And that’s what Milton Erickson wanted Jeffrey Zeig to know. It was three months later that Jeff realised just how carefully, how patiently, Milton had spent that evening after the training session, explaining to him metaphorically about the incredible value… of family ties. For Jeff to be a great Ericksonian therapist he needed not only to train in certain skills, but also to nourish his humanness. You may read this article as a counsellor or change agent. You may wonder how “useful” this notion of being human will be to your practice. But that in itself is only a small part of the story. Milton did not show Jeffrey the tie because he thought it was a smart move therapeutically. He showed him it because he loved him. That love cannot be faked, and nor can it be hidden from your clients. But it changes lives.

Richard Bolstad and Margot Hamblett developed the Transforming Communication training and taught NLP in a number of different countries. Margot Hamblett was a member of NZAC until her death in February 2001. This was the last article co-authored by them before Margot’s death, and originally appeared in the International NLP magazine Anchor Point in August 2001. It presents a very simple idea that Margot felt would benefit from being emphasised. Richard continues the work they began together and can be contacted at learn@transformations.org.nz

Bibliography

• Adams, P. Gesundheit Healing Arts Press, Rochester, Vermont, 1998
• Andreas, S. “Minimum Standards: Do they protect the client?” p 14-16 in NLP Connection, Volume VII, No. 6, November-December, 1992
• Andreas, S. Is There Life Before Death? Real People Press, Moab, Utah, 1995
• Bandler, R., Grinder, J. and Satir, V. Changing With Families, Science and Behaviour, Palo Alto,California, 1976
• Bandler, R. State of the Art Audiotape series from NLP Comprehensive, Boulder Colorado, 1987
• Erickson, M. and Zeig, J. Symbolic Hypnotherapy, Milton Erickson Foundation, Phoenix
• National Council of the Churches of Christ Common Bible: Revised Standard Version Collins, New York, 1973
• Perls, F. In And Out Of The Garbage Pail  Real People Press, Lafayette, California, 1969
• Rogers, C. On Becoming A Person, Constable, London, 1961
• Satir, V. and Baldwin, M. Satir Step By Step, Science & Behaviour Books, Palo Alto, California, 1983
• Simon, R. One On One, The Guilford Press, New York, 1992
• Sweet, G. The Advantage of Being Useless Dunmore Press, Palmerston North, New Zealand, 1989