What the Dickens is Temporal Reclamation?

© Richard Bolstad 

NLP, Time Line Therapy® And Identity Transformation

NLP and the Time Line Therapy® techniques offer us far more than specific interventions for changing specific problems. They present us with a way of utilising a fundamental structuring of our sense of identity –the structure of time. Reclaiming the learnings of your past, present and future can give you a whole new sense of who you are, and what your life is about. Over 150 years ago, author Charles Dickens wrote a moving parable of this temporal reclamation. Reclamation is his word for this process, perhaps avoiding the more moralistic term “redemption”. This article uses his parable as a framework for applying NLP time line processes and Time Line Therapy® to the transformation of identity.

Dickens himself was a man traumatised by his own childhood, who dedicated much of his life to writing about the social tragedies of his time. At the age of twelve, when his father was sent to debtor’s prison, the young Charles Dickens spent a terrifying year in a rat infested factory, working 72 hours a week with others of a similar age (sticking labels on cans of Warren’s black shoe polish). His mother actually convinced his father to leave the boy in the workhouse even after an unexpected inheritance pulled them out of poverty, and Charles realised that his parents had literally abandoned him to a horrible fate. Of his experience, he later said (Cusumano, 1996, p 5) “The deep remembrance of the sense I had of being utterly neglected and hopeless, of the shame I felt in my position, of the misery of it … cannot be written. My whole nature was so penetrated with the grief and humiliation of such considerations, that even now, famous and caressed and happy, I often forget in my dreams that I have a dear wife and children, even that I am a man, and wander desolately back to that time of my life.” This traumatic response to his own past cried out for some kind of psychotherapeutic healing, and indeed that is what Dickens developed in his story of “A Christmas Carol”.

Dickens 1843 Present

Charles Dickens’ book “A Christmas Carol” was first published in December 1843. Paul Davis (1990) notes that at that time it was considered a plea to save the Christmas holiday from the ravages of Capitalism. Since then it has been viewed as a children’s fairy tale, a story about the need to help the poor, a metaphor for changing values, and a Biblical cautionary tale. Joseph Cusumano considers it a tale of psychological and spiritual transformation in the Jungian sense. Only a few weeks after it’s printing, “A Christmas Carol” was converted into a stage play, and it has since been the subject of numerous plays films, comics and television renditions, including the 1999 Warner Brothers movie starring Patrick Stewart as Scrooge (portrayed above). The name of its main character, Scrooge, has entered the English language as an alternative term for a miser.

Written with more than Dickens usual passion, the original tale focuses on Ebenezer Scrooge who, since the death of his business partner Jacob Marley, has been the sole director of an accountancy firm. Here, in an unheated London office, he employs one clerk, Bob Cratchit. Bob lives with his wife, and their children Peter, Belinda, Martha and their crippled son “Tiny Tim”, all barely surviving on the 15 shillings a week Bob is paid. Scrooge is a workaholic who begrudges Cratchit the wood to heat a fire in the office, resents his Christmas day off, and considers Christmas and charity as “humbug”.

Having closed up on Christmas Eve, Scrooge is visited by the ghost of Marley, bound by metaphorical chains (we might say in Time Line Therapy® terms “Gestalts”, or chains of past experiences locked together) which the ghost says he made himself in a life of missed opportunities. These chains represent not only the chains that Scrooge has been creating himself, but also the chains that the writer, Dickens, has had around himself, trapping him an endless childhood of misery. Marley advises Scrooge that he will be further visited by three spirits, each of whom will “assist his welfare”. These spirits turn out to be the spirits of past, present and future.

The first, the “Ghost of Christmas Past” has Scrooge float through the window and back to his own lonely childhood, to his apprenticeship with his own (more generous) first employer, and to various other past scenes. Each scene provides various learnings. Seeing from these scenes into the future that is to be, Scrooge finds himself wanting to act differently in his real, present life.

The second spirit, “The Ghost of Christmas Present” takes Scrooge to the Cratchit house where he sees this impoverished family making the most of what little they have, and even toasting Scrooge’s health. They then visit Scrooge’s nephew Fred, who is sadly reflecting with his family about how much of life’s joy his uncle Ebenezer misses. Indeed, watching this happy family at play, Scrooge begins to wish he had not declined his nephew’s offer to attend their Christmas feast. He sees his own life through compassionate observer positions, and through the perception of those others whom he has interacted with.

The third spirit, “The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come”, shows Scrooge how pointless all his wealth is after his death, when others disinterestedly divide up his goods. He then shows Scrooge the future tragedy of the Cratchit family, bankrupted at their employer’s death, and seeing Tiny Tim die for lack of money to aid him. Scrooge begs for the chance to change this dreadful fate.

Amazingly, he comes back from these three journeys to find that he still has Christmas day to live through. Joyous, he buys a turkey for the Cratchits, celebrates with his nephew, gives a large donation to charity, and the next day gives Bob Cratchit a raise. He chants repeatedly, “I will live in the Past, Present and Future. The spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach.” He also notes “I am not the man I was.” (Cusumano, 1996, p 42). Others marvel at the totally different person that Scrooge has become.

Healing Through Temporal Reorientation

The message to “live in the Past, Present and Future” is the core of Scrooges learning, and the path to a happier life. Ericksonian therapist Michael Yapko points out that human distress is a consequence of “temporal rigidity”. When a person is unable to live from all three temporal perspectives flexibly, they suffer. The person with anxiety is stuck looking towards the future. The person with depression is stuck looking towards the past (even when they think they are considering life “now”). The person with impulse disorders such as addictions is stuck in now. Yapko explains (1992, p 118-120):

“A temporal component is a part of virtually every experience…. For example, a structural component of anxiety disorders is a future temporal orientation: the anxious individual anticipates (orients to) the future in such a way as to create images (or internal dialogue or feelings) about events that have not yet occurred…. In contrast to anxiety disorders, in impulse disorders, the overwhelming emphasis is on the immediacy of experience –a present temporal orientation. The person is not particularly attached to either past tradition or future consequences. Rather it is the emphasis on here-and-now experience that governs the impulsive need for immediate gratification. In the case of depression, the emphasis is overwhelmingly on a past temporal orientation. The depressive is continually hashing and rehashing old traumas, including rejections, humiliations, disappointments, and perceived injustices -and in essence all the hurtful things from the past.”

The NLP model of timelines offers us a technology to effect a Dickens of a transformational experience. By the way, the word “Dickens” is used in English as a euphemism for “devil”, much as “heck” is used as a euphemism for “hell”, by those who prefer not to say the other words. “Dickens” thus means “devilish” or “very intense”. In the title of this essay, “What the “Dickens” is thus a polite way to say “What, in the name of the Devil”, something no right thinking person of Charles Dickens’ time would say.

In writing his story, Charles Dickens was writing his own autobiography, claims Joseph Cusumano (1996, p 5-6). He was also offering a metaphorical healing to all readers, whatever their problems.

1) To float someone back into the past “paces” (in NLP terms) the temporal orientation of depression. When we then have them turn and orient towards the “now” we show them the perspective they have never seen. This is what Scrooge found healing in the past: not merely “living it again” but seeing the future in this perspective.

2) When we float someone into the future, past the events they fear (or past the challenges they expected in the attainment of a goal), we pace the temporal orientation of anxiety. When we then have them turn and look towards now, we show them the perspective they have missed. When Scrooge went out past his own death, he was able to look back to now and see what needed to be done.

3) When we keep someone in the present, we pace the temporal orientation of impulsivity and addiction. When we then have them take different “perceptual positions”, and view their own life from outside, we show them what they have avoided. As an observer, and from the perspective of his nephew Fred or of the Cratchit family, Scrooge was able to see his own life in new ways.

Reclaiming Your Time Line

It’s time to give yourself, and your clients, a Present like no other. Combining the processes of Time Line Therapy® and Dickens’ metaphor, the following process offers what Dickens calls “Reclamation” (Cusumano, 1996, Part Two, p 32). This moving process can be done at any time. You may find it especially appropriate at Christmas, as you begin a new year, or at any major turning point in life. The following instructions are given for guiding someone through it.

1) Assemble your resourcefulness, your understanding of time, and ensure your client knows how they code time.

2) Check that the person is willing to reconsider their life and let the spirits of Past Present and Future teach them. You will speak for these spirits.

3) Have the person float up above now, and back into the past, up above and before this lifetime. Viewing all of that past life from this perspective, and seeing how it has shaped “now”, consider what new things there may be to learn. Store all the learnings. If there are particular places you need to revisit and use Time Line Therapy® techniques for releasing limiting decisions or emotions, or Reimprinting on the Time Line, then do so. [These processes are described in NLP literature such as my book Outframes, co-written with Julia Kurusheva]

4) Have the person float back up above now. Viewing the present life, as an observer, consider what there is to learn. Have the client choose two people whose perspectives the client would value, and who care enough about the client to “toast the client’s health” (two people who wish the client well). Float down next to each of these people, and listen to what they would say about the client. Have the client hear them wishing the client well, and listen to any learnings those two people have to share. Store all the learnings.

5) Have the client float back up above now, and float out beyond the future end of this lifetime. Look back towards now, and see any challenges they were anxious about as part of the successful future story of the client’s life. Consider what there is to learn. Imagine some non-specific person discussing the client’s life, and find out what there is to learn from that. Seeing the whole future life from this perspective, ask what there is that needs to change. Have the client make a commitment to change it. Store all the learnings.

6) Have the client float back down into now. Have them fully consider the statement “I live in the Past, the Present and the Future. The spirits of all Three live in me.” Have the client consider once more what they have “reclaimed” and learned. Invite them to identify three actions which they can take this very day, to celebrate their new sense of what their life is about.

Understanding one’s own personal life in the context of the whole of time, changes our understanding of our “business” our mission in living. In A Christmas Carol, Scrooge learns from the ghost of his former partner Marley, that in his lifelong focus on his business, he has misunderstood the actual business he was in. “Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business, charity, mercy and forbearance, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business.” (Cusumano, 1996, p 92). As Dickens concluded his story, in Tiny Tim’s words “God bless us, every one.”

References:

• Bolstad, R. and Kurusheva, J. Outframes, Transformations, Auckland, 2013
• Dickens, C. A Christmas Carol, Createspace Independent Publishing Platform; Public Domain Edition, 2020
• Davis, P. The Life And Times Of Ebenezer Scrooge, Yale University, New Haven, 1990
• Cusumano, Dr J.D. Transforming Scrooge: Dickens’ Blueprint for a Spiritual Awakening, Llewelyn, St Paul, Minnesota, 1996
• Yapko, M.D. Hypnosis and the Treatment of Depressions, Brunner/Mazel, New York, 1992

Richard Bolstad is an NLP Trainer and the developer of the Resilience seminar. www.transformations.org.nz