CREATING AN AUTHENTICALLY POSITIVE LIFE

CREATING AN AUTHENTICALLY POSITIVE LIFE

One of the things that Milton Erickson was most well known for, was his ability to connect with and nourish the goodness in each of his clients.  There is a story about when Dr. Erickson was a staff psychiatrist at a mental hospital.  One of the patients believed he was Jesus.  Erickson said to him, “Well then, you’re a carpenter, right?” and the patient affirmed.  Dr. Erickson sent him to work with the carpenters that were doing some repairs at the hospital.  After some weeks, he stopped telling people that he was Jesus, and sometime later, was released.
Erickson didn’t delve into the patient’s childhood, or have him release his repressed emotions.  He didn’t explain to him that he was very sick and needed to take his medication.  He found a gift and worked with that.  He gave the man opportunity to have an experience that would validate his sanity and his worth.
What do we discover when we see beneath and beyond the negative trances that create a limited self identity?  We can hold our clients so that we reflect back to them their wholeness and their basic goodness?  Without by-passing the pain that needs to be expressed and the wounds that need healing, we can also bring into the conversation what they can look towards- not just a neutral state of no longer ‘sick’, but a state of aliveness in which they are focused on nurturing their gifts and bringing them into the world.