WHAT’S IN A NAME?
The way we use words can be very powerful. A technique I put together, after attending a ‘Women in Business’ luncheon, some years ago uses the clients name as a stimulant for change. This “What’s In A Name?” therapy that I use and share with you came to my subconscious after a business luncheon.
At the luncheon many years ago, we had a guest speaker Anne Rennie, an author, who successfully wrote Romantic Thriller novels. After being introduced, Rennie put her name on the whiteboard vertically and then wrote a positive word for every one of the letters in her name before proceeding to explain how she structured her novels.
Rennie’s successful model for her romances incorporates the handsome man, the beautiful lady, then the man of deviousness who came between them to cause trouble and the consequent misunderstanding that made them part. The plot eventually shows the lies of the devious man that then causes the original romance to bloom and reunites the handsome man and beautiful lady who live happily ever after.
After my subconscious (and my stomach) had digested this lunchtime meeting, a light bulb went off in my head suggesting the following technique as a way of helping clients gain insight to their situation(s).
That is not un-similar to many of our client’s histories that start off with some happening that gets between them and happiness. When they work with this in therapy, then release the inappropriate happening they are able to move on to live a happier life.
Whilst this therapy is very simplistic it is a powerful way to elicit both the cause and solution for my client. I ask my client to put their name vertically down on a piece of paper – so let’s pick a fictitious name: Betty. (If anyone knows a Betty it is purely coincidental) I ask Betty to give me a word to tell me how she feels, using each letter in her name and put that next to each letter. (You could use both first and last names.) The words I chose were…
How do I feel? How Do I Want to Feel? What Needs to Happen? How Will I Achieve That?
| Bitter | |||
| Empty | |||
| Tired | |||
| Torn apart | |||
| Yo-yo* (sometimes Up, and sometimes Down) |
Betty couldn’t think of anything starting with Y and how she feels, so I asked her just to think of a word starting with the letter ‘Y’, and Betty said ‘Yo-yo’. I asked how that might refer to feelings about herself. Betty replied; *“Sometimes I feel Up and sometimes I feel Down”.
I then asked Betty, could she give me some other words that would describe how she wants to feel and to put those words in the next column. (In these next columns the words can start with any letter and be more than one word.) Betty chose the words –
Lovable
Whole
Energetic
Together
Feel fantastic
The page now looked like this:
How do I feel? How Do I Want to Feel? What Needs to Happen? How Will I Achieve That?
| Bitter | Lovable | ||
| Empty | Whole | ||
| Tired | Energetic | ||
| Torn apart | Together | ||
| Yo-yo* (sometimes Up, and sometimes Down) | Feel fantastic |
To get Betty to fill in the next column; ‘What Needs to Happen? I asked her; “What would it take to move from the Betty that feels ‘Bitter’, to Betty that is ‘Loveable’?” Hypothetically the answer might be; ‘To forgive myself.’ This then would go in the next column.
The next line down moving from ‘Empty’ to ‘Whole’ is to “be good at something”, and so on down the line. Get the idea?
The page now looked like this:
How do I feel? How Do I Want to Feel? What Needs to Happen? How Will I Achieve That?
| Bitter | Lovable | To forgive myself | |
| Empty | Whole | Be good at something | |
| Tired | Energetic | Have some fun | |
| Torn apart | Together | Stop Worrying | |
| Yo-yo* (sometimes Up, and sometimes Down) | Feel fantastic | forget the past |
The last column may be difficult for Betty to answer in which case it would require your counselling skills to help her come up with a solution. And of course, in our first line that would depend on what Betty feels she has done that she finds it difficult to forgive herself for.
“What do you need to forgive yourself for?” “What stops you from forgiving yourself?”
Sometimes the client even knows what happened wasn’t her fault. However, if as a child Betty is told that it was her fault, that can become part of an internal life-long feeling. Take this scenario from a past client (pseudo name, Anna):
After Anna’s mother remarried, she suffered child sexual abuse from her stepfather. A court case proceeded against her stepfather. The court found him guilty and sentenced him to weekend detention for two years. The stepfather committed suicide. Anna’s mother told her that it was her (Anna’s) fault and that she would have to carry that guilt for the rest of her life.
As the reader of this article; If this was your client, how would you help release that guilt?
There are many therapies to use and the therapies that work best for you, are the ones to use. Of course, that shouldn’t stop us from looking at other therapies that may take less time to solve the issue(s) of our clients.
Hypnosis, EFT and Psych-k are Bruce Lipton’s recommended therapies to change inner programming. Why? He says, ‘because they reach the same brain wave level of where we made that first programming where we are able to release that and replace it with a new programming’. I wouldn’t be limiting my recommendations to just those therapies as I have used many therapies that seemed to meet the right needs at a particular time in therapy.
Parent, Adult, Child therapy in Transactional Analysis… using symbols… Imagery… visualisation… Metaphor… a variation of EMDR using something as simple as a flashing light and a light touch on the shoulder saying “disconnect now” … as well as talking direct with the subconscious mind, higher self and guides in trance. All these and more are just as powerful used in the right circumstances. But many therapies that I use are stand-alone therapies, mainly used with the conscious mind that become more powerful when used in the lowered brainwave trance state. And why wouldn’t they be? The subconscious is the powerhouse of who we are that houses our memories and feelings.
Have a go at doing this for yourself and see what you come up with. If you want me to run through with you how it works, make a booking and we will work things out.
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