"Once Upon a Time"
During my last session at the New England Leadership Workshop with Harvey back in December, my Co-Counselor suggested using a generalized understatement: "It sometimes happens that someone forgets how good she is." This was quite effective, and I moved on to a somewhat elongated version, "It sometimes happens that someone forgets how good she is, but finally she remembers, and she never forgets again." This produced even more discharge. I thought about the way Harvey emphasized "finally" in his demonstrations and spoke of the strengths of the client and help from supernatural allies. This brought back something from my childhood ñ stories.
It all of a sudden made sense to add "Once upon a time" to the beginning of the understatement. This seemed to give me license to make up my own story and add appropriate details. The person I was telling the story about was very much like me, but she wasnít me. She was the main character and the heroine; so of course she was good. Similar to characters in stories I had heard as a child, the heroine had to battle evil ñ which was clearly pseudo-reality. I started telling my own life story through the developing fairy tale. Because it wasnít me but rather a story, I was able to tell in some detail some of the hard things in my life. Keeping in mind that this was a story similar to one I would be telling to a child, I found it easy to keep a distance from the distress, emphasizing the good parts and going over the bad parts without dwelling on them.
Here is how my story went:
"Once upon a time, a beautiful baby girl was born on the golden shores of a silver sea. Her mother and father and brothers and sisters were delighted to have her, and they rejoiced in her birth. But when the infant was only a few weeks old, a plague came to the land. Sickness struck her older brother and sister, and the family became afraid that she, too, would be harmed by it. So they hid her away and moved the whole family to a faraway land. There, it was as if an evil spell had been cast on the family. As the years passed, no one seemed to notice, but they no longer acted as though they liked each other. Little by little, even the young girl forgot how very good she was. But finally, after many years of struggles and trials, she remembered. And she never forgot again."
Clearly one could go on in great detail. I have tried this technique as a counselor with my regular Co-Counselors and in a demonstration at a workshop. There is endless room for variation. With one client it worked well to alternate telling lines of the story ñ the counselor saying one line, then the client filling in details or heading the story in the most relevant direction. For some clients, stories they heard as children have come to mind and easily fit into their own story. A "big bad wolf" or "witch" can well describe someone with ugly patterns. Positive descriptions of the heroine/hero also seem to be useful.
Deborah Robinson
Hanover, New Hampshire, USA
originally printed in Present Time Vol 107, p. 19