| Opinion
& Essays
-
Feb, 1993 Issue #20 |
BEYOND
THERAPY, BEYOND SCIENCE:
a new model for healing the whole person.
Anne Wilson Schaef, Harper Collins, 1992
A Review by Steve Cawdrey 406-827-4381
(Steve Cawdrey was
founder and director of Spring Creek Community School
in Western Montana for several years before taking
a sabbatical to re-evaluate working with children. This book
review is the first of a series Steve will write regarding
what he has learned and concluded.)
I opened my long awaited copy
outside the UC bookstore in Missoula and followed an old quirk
of mine: I read the dedication. At that moment I knew that
this book was really different and that I was in for one of
those life changing experiences.
The dedication is an eloquent
and humble amends to the author's former clients and workshop
participants and others she has harmed in doing a very good
job as a psychotherapist--using techniques, manipulations
and information based on a system that isn't working to help
people and is often destructive. And this is only the dedication.
Did this ever ring bells for me.
The is a book about Schaef's
work and journey over twenty-five years in her profession.
For the last ten years she has compiled a powerful body of
written and experiential work in the unfolding of what she
calls Living In Process. And the entire book manifests
this new paradigm! It is not another author writing and theorizing
ad nauseam about holistic or New Age ideas
while operating from the existing model. I feel included and
invited to participate in this book--and that strikes me as
indicative of the intimacy, trust and spirituality that Schaef
describes as natural in living our process.
The book has three distinct sections.
The first is a very engaging personal story of her life and
career as a psychotherapist. She trained and learned from
many of the "greats" in psychology and theology over the years.
It was helpful and riveting to see these people in human terms.
I found myself picking up the book at any spare moment as
I would my favorite novel.
Here, Anne says it honestly,
"Will I be too vulnerable if I expose myself this way? Will
my attackers and detractors find fuel for their fires (which
they will do anyway, regardless of what I say or do)?...Will
it seem arrogant to share my development and the emergent
threads in that process? ...The process is the participating
fully in our part of the universe and is the information."
The middle section is the first
time Anne has written about the actual work she has done at
her Intensives and Trainings over the last ten years in the
USA, Germany and New Zealand. I found this
section very interesting to read since I have been in the
Basic and Advanced Training these past 3 and 1/2 years. The
description was accurate, thorough and clear. I felt myself
right there watching, listening and participating at an Intensive.
The final section challenged
me to the core: all my training, assumptions and theory on
which I have operated in education and therapy. I have spent
a career on developing alternative educational programs that
would "fix" or "change" a teenager. All the approaches and
systems that I have seen or used evolve from a modern science
bias: objective, analytical, interpretative, cause and effect,
measurable, mechanistic, reductionistic, dualistic. Yet, are
our programs honestly working? The number of families and
children needing help continues to escalate. And what about
the parents who now seek help after their experience at one
of our special purpose schools or alternative treatment centers?
Time for us to consider we may be doing the same thing over
and over and expecting different results. These are indicators
of an underlying addictive process.
In short, the institutionalized
co-dependence in our educational and therapy based programs
doesn't bode well for the long term and we, as the administrators,
teachers, counselors and consultants need to take an honest
look if we are contributing to the problem. Are we too blinded
by "success" or the demand to step back and do a searching
appraisal?
This book could facilitate an
opportunity for us to see a alternative view and even make
a shift if needed. When I took a break 18 months ago, I needed
a chance to truly find a different way and not just continue
changing the content and keeping the processes the same. I
highly recommend reading this book personally, professionally
and organizationally.
Copyright
© 1993, Woodbury Reports, Inc. (This article may be reproduced
without prior approval if the copyright notice and proper
publication and author attribution accompanies the copy.)
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