Virginia Satir: The Patterns of Her Magic
by Steve Andreas
DESCRIPTION: This book provides a detailed analysis
of how family therapy pioneer Virginia Satir--one of the greatest
therapists of our time--helped people solve problems in relationships.
The first section of the book describes 16 key themes in Satir's work--the techniques
and ideas she used to move people from their current situations to their desired
outcomes. Satir skillfully reframed perceptions and attitudes, and installed
useful presuppositions about positive intentions, alternative choices and learnings.
She did this using physical contact, exaggeration, and humor. She directly challenged
limiting beliefs and overgeneralizations, and used a wide range of hypnotic language
patterns to help clients see events in new ways.
The second section is a richly-annotated verbatim transcript of a 73-minute videotaped
session with Linda, a woman who started out with great resentment toward her
mother, but who ended with a deep appreciation and loving understanding of her
mother's behavior and attitudes.
A follow-up interview with Linda, conducted three years later, shows the permanent
impact of the changes Satir had achieved with her.
Steve Andreas' insightful commentary reveals the subtlety, precision, and wisdom
of Satir's methods, both verbal and nonverbal. Therapists and other professionals
who seek positive change in their clients can learn a lot from his book.
EXCERPT: I would like all of us to live as fully as we can. The
only time I really feel awful is when people have not lived a life that
expressed themselves. They lived with all their "shoulds" and "oughts" and
their blaming and placating and all the rest of it, and I think, "How sad."
I once was with somebody I liked very much--an older person, when I was considerably
younger than I am now. That person said, "Spend at least fifteen minutes a day
weaving dreams. And if you weave a hundred, at least two of them will have a
life." So continue with a dream and don't worry whether it can happen or not;
weave it first. Many people have killed their dreams by figuring out whether
they could do them or not before they dream them. So, if you're a first-rate
dreamer, dream it out--several of them--and then see what realities can come
to make them happen, instead of saying, "Oh, my God. With this reality, what
can I dream?"
I proceed from the theory that my therapeutic job is to expand, redirect, and
reshape individuals' ways of coping with each other and themselves, so they can
solve their own problems in more healthy and relevant ways. Problems are not
the problem; coping is the problem. Coping is the outcome of self-worth, rules
of the family systems, and links to the outside world.
Human contact is not about words. Human contact is about eye connection, about
voice, about skin, about breathing. Words are something you can read in a book,
you can see on a billboard, and they can be totally differentiated from human
beings. Words help when people are congruent.
And I suppose that before I leave this world, one thing that I would wish for
all the world to know, is that human contact is made by the connection of skin,
eyes, and voice tone. These are the things that taught us before we had words.
How our parents touched us, how they looked at us, what their voices sounded
like, were all recorded in us.
TOC:
Foreword by Richard Bandler
Introduction
The Major Patterns of Satir's Work
The Transcript: "Forgiving Parents"
Summary
Appendix I: Presuppositions
Appendix II: Physical Contact (from "Of Rocks and Flowers")
Appendix III: Eye Accessing Cues
Appendix IV: A Satir Meditation
BACKCOVER: (From the Forward by Richard Bandler) In the transcript that
Steve Andreas has analyzed here, he has taken to heart not only Virginia's caring
attitude toward people, but the specific ways in which she achieves the outcome
she seeks. The most powerful thing you can learn from this transcript is that
Virginia never wavers from what she sets out to do. And what she sets out to
do is what the client asks her to do. She tries everything she can, and everything
she does relates directly to the client's desired state.
The terminology and the way in which Steve studies Virginia are perhaps different
from how most people would, and perhaps similar to the way in which I would approach
a study of her. But I think what this book offers the sincere student of Virginia
Satir is more than just an attitude. It offers a profound example of how tenacious,
persistent, and resourceful Virginia was, and at the same time, how precise and
methodical. If Virginia was one of the people you ever envied in your life, or
would ever want to emulate, rather than emulating her tonality, style, and jargon,
or the kinds of things she said, I think it is time we got serious enough to
emulate her skill. And that requires that we sit down and break it into pieces,
and find out what this genius was doing, so that we can do the same kind of work
with the same kind of tenacity and heart.
Steve, I think you have done a beautiful job. For those of you about to read
this book, read on and learn. The wisdom of Virginia Satir will be worthy of
study for centuries to come. I think this book stands as a real tribute to what
she did and what she cared about. And although this is different from her own
teaching style, as Virginia said, "We are all slow learners, but we are all educable."
AUTHOR BIO: Steve Andreas, and his wife Connirae, are internationally-known
trainers and researchers in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). They
were the co-founders of NLP Comprehensive in Colorado, through which
they conducted training seminars and Certification Programs, and also
produced videotapes and audiotapes.
The Andreases have written two other books about NLP: Heart of the Mind: Engaging
Your Inner Power to Change With NLP and Change Your Mind-And Keep the Change.
They have also edited four books by Richard Bandler and John Grinder, the co-developers
of NLP.
Steve Andreas--under his former name, John O. Stevens--wrote Awareness: exploring,
experimenting, experiencing, based on his work with Fritz Perls and Gestalt Therapy.
He also edited Fritz Perls' Gestalt Therapy Verbatim, Perls' autobiography In
and Out the Garbage Pail, and Carl Rogers' book Person to Person, co-authored
by his mother, Barry Stevens.
During the last twenty years the Andreases have focused principally on developing
new NLP patterns of intervention for personal change, and teaching them to others.
They have developed specific processes for resolving experiences of grief, shame,
guilt, anger, resentment, and being criticized.
The Andreases live with their three teenage sons in Boulder, Colorado.
PUBLISHER'S COMMENTS: (Introduction by Steve Andreas) Virginia Satir is
almost universally acknowledged as one of the most powerful and effective therapists
of the century. Throughout a career spanning some forty-five years, she developed
systematic ways of helping people grow and change. Her remarkable warmth and
precision in working with people was developed by her fine ability to observe
what worked--and what didn't--to move people closer to their desired outcomes.
When learning from experts, it is usually much more important to observe what
they actually do, than it is to listen to what they say about what they do. Our
descriptions of our own behavior are often biased and myopic, and we all know
how to do much more than we can explain to someone else. This was particularly
true of Virginia, who was continually moving away from her psychiatric-based
training of the 1940s, and intuitively pioneering new ways of helping people
learn how to deal with life's inevitable problems.
Most therapists' descriptions of their therapy tend to be global and unspecific.
Virginia, for instance, would talk about "gaining trust," "making contact," "building
positive self-worth," and the importance of the "human connection" and an "I-thou
relationship." Although she demonstrated these skills exquisitely, she was much
less able to specify exactly how she accomplished them, either verbally or nonverbally.
To learn how she actually achieved these things, we have to study her work itself.
Although few therapists are willing to demonstrate publicly what they do--they
prefer to practice privately--Virginia was a happy exception. Not only did she
conduct thousands of public demonstrations during her long career, she also freely
allowed videotape recording. Probably as many videotaped hours of Virginia's
work exist as of all other prominent therapists combined. Used with a verbatim
transcript, a videotape makes it possible to analyze the fine details of verbal
communication, the accompanying nonverbal communication which is even richer
and more complex, the ongoing interplay between the verbal and nonverbal communication,
and the flow and sequence of the session as a whole. Repeated review brings an
ever-deepening understanding of the process of change.
The heart of this book is a verbatim transcript of a 73-minute videotaped session
of Virginia working with a woman, Linda, in a weekend workshop held in 1986 at
the peak of Virginia's power and skill, only two years before her death in September
1988. In this particularly moving individual session, Linda moves from great
anger at and resentment of her mother to feeling compassion and love for her.
A follow-up interview with Linda over three years later verifies the lasting
positive impact that this session had on Linda's life and her relationship with
her mother.
This session is particularly interesting for at least two reasons. Virginia was
known primarily as a family therapist, and in family sessions she alternately
focused her attention on different family members. In contrast, this session
focused only on Linda, so it is much easier to follow the patterns and sequence
of her work.
The second reason is that Linda was not an easy client. Although very expressive
and willing to share her feelings, she also had what Virginia described during
the session as "a highly-developed ability to stand firm on things." Since Virginia
had to work very hard to change certain understandings in Linda, we are treated
to a particularly rich display of her versatility and persistence.
Commentary and descriptions have been added to the verbatim transcript to clarify
and characterize what Virginia was doing at each point as she patiently leads
Linda step by step toward forgiveness. The first chapter describes the important
themes of Virginia's work, making it easier to understand their significance
as they appear throughout the session.
Many therapists have the warmth and compassion that Virginia demonstrated so
abundantly, yet they are largely ineffective because they don't know what to
do. Others have technical communication skills; but without the nonverbal human
qualities Virginia emphasized so much, their work is much less effective than
it could be. Virginia is a particularly worthy teacher because she possessed
warmth, compassion, finely-honed perceptions, and specific skills and techniques.
To make sure his students had a little humility in using what he taught (something
many might say he lacked himself), my old teacher Fritz Perls used to say, "Just
because you've got a chisel doesn't make you Michelangelo." On the other hand,
how much could Michelangelo have accomplished without any chisels at all? Imagine
Michelangelo trying to carve a marble block with only his fingernails to release
the vision imprisoned within the stone. Great work needs both the tools of the
trade and the vision and humanity to direct those tools. Virginia Satir demonstrated
an extraordinary measure of both. If we want to honor her genius, I know of no
better way than to study her work carefully and learn how to do what she did
so beautifully.
