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Stephen Gilligan, Ph.D., will be presenting the 32nd
annual NCSCH Spring Conference on March 9 and 10.
You can find my 1997 interview with him, “Touching the Tender
Center,” on the internet at two sites: his
website, www.stephengilligan.com, and at Leonard
Bohanon’s Self-Relations site, http://www.hal-pc.org/~boha/sr.html.
As a bit of a preview for the upcoming workshop, I’m going to review
his training video “Stephen Gilligan: Demonstrating
the Principles and Practices of Self-Relations Psychotherapy” available
through Andrews and Clark Explorations, Inc. at www.masterswork.com
or (800) 476-1619.
The best thing about the video is
not Steve’s succinct summary of the principles that drive self-relations,
although it is good to hear his poetic version of the symptom as invitation to
transformation. The best thing about
the video is not his articulation of the seven-step process that constitutes a
self-relations psychotherapy session, although it is helpful to break it down
into components that are easily understood and digestible.
The best thing is not even that he uses three different demonstration
subjects of different gender, race, sexual preference and presenting complaints,
although it is good to see how his approach changes under different conditions.
The best thing is watching him
work. That’s the real reason to
watch this video. You get to watch
Steve work. It’s hard to describe
on paper the subtlety of the shifts between slow, rhythmic, hypnotic pacing and
normal everyday speech, the nuances of push and pull between client readiness
and resistance and his bold challenge and gentle holding, and especially the way
he uses body-based felt sense, mindfulness of breathing and emotional
centeredness to provide clients with an experiential basis for opening to the
possibilities of the crisis that brings them to therapy.
He brings his full self to the therapy process.
It would be shallow and
misdirected to talk about how he uses pronouns to make his points as a technical
device. True, the “neglected
self” is sometimes addressed directly, as a dissociated “you” different
from the “you” of the client’s normal self, sometimes addressed in the
third person, “he” or “she” – but , significantly, never as “it,”
never as a symptom to be cleverly therapized away.
The reason he uses pronouns differently is because the self-relations
approach is about opening to the awakening that symptoms represent, and
sponsoring the deep listening that mends the rift between everyday consciouness
and the deeper, somatic knowing that often first emerges as a complaint.
“Every self-relations session,” he says, “is an experiment in
consciousness.”
It’s a moving experience to see
how far three different clients come in their first session with Steve in what
their complaints mean and how they experience them.
The work is not over, and this isn’t a dog-and-pony show about miracle
cures. But it’s a vivid
demonstration of solid clinical work that integrates three divergent but related
threads: focused hypnotic therapy in
the tradition of Milton Erickson, body and breath mindfulness in the tradition
of yoga and meditation, and depth psychology in the tradition of Carl Jung.
Seeing Steve work and experiencing his training directly
is also the reason to come to the Spring Conference in March.
It’s a rare opportunity to experience a master in the art of
psychotherapy right here at home. I
hope to see you at the
Copyright © 1998 Chuck Holton All rights reserved.