Expectation (eBook)

Rubin Battino (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2006
208 Seiten
Crown House Publishing (Verlag)
978-1-84590-603-0 (ISBN)

Infos

It is the author's contention that creating an environment where the client expects change is the foundation of doing effective very brief therapy. His own private practice is one where he rarely sees clients more than one or two times. Clients know in advance that this is the way that he works, and so their expectation is that during this session they are going to get down to the hard stuff. This means working as if each session were the last one. So, this book is about all of the things that are designed to work in a single-session mode.

Rubin Battino MS has a private practice in Yellow Springs, Ohio. He is an Adjunct Professor for the Department of Human Services at Wright State University, and has over twenty five years of experience as a facilitator of a support group for people who have life-challenging diseases and for caregivers. He is a Fellow of the National Council for Hypnotherapy (UK), and also a Fellow of two chemistry societies. Other publications by Rubin include: Healing Language. A Guide for Physicians, Dentists, Nurses, Psychologists, Social Workers, and Counselors; Howie and Ruby. Conversations 2000 - 2007; That's Right, Is it Not? A Play About the Life of Milton H. Erickson, MD. and Guided Imagery and Hypnosis in Brief Therapy and Palliative Care.

Textauszug

Foreword

Long Days Journey into Light

Reading Rubin Battino’s book Expectation: The Very Brief Therapy Book brought to mind a personal experience regarding the potential impact of brief therapeutic encounters. Some twenty years ago, I was a graduate student, plodding through my remaining classes, conducting dissertation research, while struggling to make ends meet through a combination of student loans and a graduate assistantship. I was also several years into my own psychoanalysis. Three and sometimes four times a week, I drove the ten-mile stretch from the University to my analyst’s office. Once there, I waited patiently in the anteroom listening to classic music until my analyst would appear and invite me into the salon.

The nature of the treatment had not changed for several years. I would lie on a couch, my head resting on a clean white linen napkin neatly laid out following the last patient. Then I would talk: about my family, my childhood, school, my marriage, my dreams and, of course, my fantasies. Meanwhile, my analyst—a graying, grandfatherly kind of fellow trained in the Winnicot School—sat behind me, chin in hand with one leg crossed at the knee (I know because I almost always found a reason to sit up once a session to look at him for a response or add emphasis to what I was saying).

At some point during this process, I’d started keeping a dream journal. Desperately hoping to be a “good” and cooperative patient, I left nothing out. As a result, the collection of spiral bound notebooks containing lengthy recollections or mere fragments grew tremendously over time. And while I was (and still am) not an artistic person, I even started sketching my dreams, bringing them to my sessions and, in my spare time, arranging and re-arranging the drawings in an attempt to plumb the darker recesses of my unconscious.

Originally, I’d entered analysis as a way of bolstering my experience and knowledge about treatment. I was not depressed or anxious and both my upbringing and life experience were more akin to Leave it to Beaver than say, Nightmare on Elm Street. But I was a young graduate student—younger and less experienced than most of the others in my cohort. Nearly all of the students in my class, for example, either were or had been in therapy. A significant number were already working in the field. Alas, I felt the need to “catch up,” and do so with alacrity. Psychoanalysis seemed to fit the bill. What’s more, the rigorous, driven, “leave no stone unturned” quality of the approach appealed to me personally.

Several years into the experience, however, I became depressed—so much so that the number of times per week I went to therapy was stepped up and I started taking anti-depressant medication. The almost limitless enthusiasm I’d had for life and learning drained away. It was all I could do to make it to classes and work. I became increasingly isolated, rarely interacting more than was necessary with schoolmates or work associates. When my marriage finally started to unravel, I found myself struggling daily with thoughts I’d never had before: I wanted to be dead.

It was around this time that I had a life-changing experience. The incident was neither planned nor expected, but I believe it did save my life. As part of my work as a graduate assistant, I helped with the planning and organization of continuing education events for the local chapter of a national professional organization. The work wasn’t particularly glamorous—mostly, I pasted mailing labels on brochures and collated them for bulk-rate shipping—but I was, as a result, able to attend trainings featuring cutting-edge practitioners and researchers without having to pay the price of admission.

As fate would have it, I attended a two-day workshop on the subject of brief therapy. I listened attentively to the presenter whose style was not only entertaining and engaging but his message quite provocative: effective therapy could be and was, in most instances, relatively short in duration. I learned about Milton H. Erickson, Jay Haley, and the Mental Research Institute (MRI). Videotape of real sessions and role plays with audience members were used to demonstrate various principles and practices. And while the details of those two days are now a blur, I remember coming away from the experience with a profound appreciation of the role that language and expectation play in the process of change.

By the end of the two days, I’d decided to contact the presenter for help. Being a compulsive person, my idea was to get enough “brief therapy” to resolve my depression so that I could finish my analysis. Although the setting was quite different—I had to sit in a waiting room full of other people seeking help in a rather sterile-looking professional office building located in what amounted to a strip mall—the hour long session did not strike me as all that remarkable. We sat face-to-face, the therapist listened attentively and asked lots of questions. Near the end of the interview, he took what he called a “break”, leaving the room temporarily, he said, “to reflect on the visit and collect his thoughts” before making some suggestions.

I was writing a check for the hour when he returned. “I’ve given this some thought,” he said, “and have an idea.”

“Great,” I either said or thought. “Let’s hear it.”

“Are you interested?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said with a pained laugh. “Of course.”

“Because,” he then continued, “you’ve got a lot going on right now, and I don’t want to burden you.”

“I’m interested, really … anything you can tell me,” I said. “… I’m drowning here.”

“With everything that’s going on, this may sound a little odd, though, even crazy.”

Not being sure I understood, I shook my head and then said, “I’ve got to do something.”

“OK, then,” he continued, “here it is. When you go to work tomorrow, to your office, I’d like you to go over to the window near your desk and roll the blinds open … or, if you are tempted, pull the shades up completely.”

I must have stared blankly at him for more than a few seconds because he soon asked me if I’d understood him and then, even though I’d said I had, he repeated the very same instructions once or twice more. But what perhaps appeared to him as incoherence on my part was actually shock. “Of course, I heard it,” I thought privately to myself. “I’m not an idiot. I’m an advanced, doctoral-level graduate student.” What I wanted to do was shout, “That’s it? Roll up the Blinds? Pull up the Shades? That cost 90 bucks? Geez.”

That night doom accompanied and intensified my usual gloom. Something was different that’s for sure. I was mad or, given the current company of readers better said, angry. I felt cheated. Graduate school wasn’t teaching me anything I could use to help myself. I’d now spent years talking about my mother, my dreams, fantasies and so on—all to no avail. And now, this guy tells me to pull up my shades. “Our profession sucks!” I thought as I prepared for and then went to bed.

The next morning, I drove into the city, fighting traffic while brooding over the previous day’s events. In my memory, I picture other drivers catching a glimpse of me complete with a cartoon-like bubble hanging over my head with “&%$#!” written visibly inside. My mood would certainly have been obvious to anyone who watched me exit my car that day and stomp up the walkway to my office. Sitting down, I followed my usual routine. I turned on the low wattage light fixture that sat on my desk, leaned back in my chair and began looking over the series of hand-drawn dream images currently hanging on the wall.

My attempt to wring some life-changing insight out of my dreams kept being interrupted by thoughts about the previous day. Every now and then I’d turn toward the Levelor® blinds covering the window adjacent to my desk. Rolling my eyes, I’d think, “Pull up the shades, ha! What humbug.” Eventually, however, I thought, “Ah, what the heck,” and reached out, grabbed the rod next to the shades, and began turning. Immediately, light came flooding into the office. I watched transfixed as people walked the pathways around and into the building—sometimes alone, often in pairs, thinking, laughing, being, eating and talking. Birds flitted from tree to tree. Squirrels chased each other or perched high on tree limbs nibbling some newly found treasure. And when I spontaneously cranked open the office window, the sounds of this life happening outside the narrow confines of my office filled the room.

Suffice it to say, the experience was “eye opening”. In the weeks following, I spent more and more time looking outward rather than inward. My energy quickly returned and the depression disappeared. Beyond the impact on my personal wellbeing, however, that very brief encounter—a single session—actually changed the direction of my entire career. Of course, following my experience, I wanted to know, “How did he know to do that?” Together with my colleagues, I’ve spent the last 20 years writing about and conducting research on the qualities of effective therapy and therapists.

Much of what we and others have found, and more, is collected, summarized, and illustrated in this concise, clearly written volume by Rubin Battino. The book reflects his knowledge and experience assembled over many years of clinical practice in a real-world clinical setting. As such, it is a...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 16.9.2006
• Verlagsort: London
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Psychologie ► Allgemeine Psychologie
• Themenwelt: Medizin / Pharmazie ► Gesundheitsfachberufe
• Themenwelt: Medizin / Pharmazie ► Medizinische Fachgebiete ► Psychiatrie / Psychotherapie
• Themenwelt: Medizin / Pharmazie ► Naturheilkunde
• ISBN-10: 1-84590-603-9 / 1845906039
• ISBN-13: 978-1-84590-603-0 / 9781845906030