20 Nov The trick of the mirror helps communication (ROBERT GREENE)
Dr. Milton H. Erickson, a pioneer in strategic psychotherapy, would often
educate his patients powerfully but indirectly by creating a kind of mirror
effect. Constructing an analogy to make patients see the truth on their own,
he would bypass their resistance to change. When Dr. Erickson treated
married couples complaining of sexual problems, for instance, he often
found that psychotherapy’s tradition of direct confrontation and problemairing only heightened the spouses’ resistance and sharpened their differences. Instead, he would draw a husband and wife out on other topics,
often banal ones, trying to find an analogy for the sexual conflict.
In one couple’s first session, the pair were discussing their eating
habits, especially at dinner. The wife preferred the leisurely approach——a
drink before the meal, some appetizers, and then a small main course, all at
a slow, civilized pace. This frustrated the husband-—he wanted to get dinner over quickly and to dig right into the main course, the bigger the better.
As the conversation continued, the couple began to catch glimpses of an
analogy to their problems in bed. The moment they made this connection,
however, Dr. Erickson would change the subject, carefully avoiding a discussion of the real problem.
The couple thought Erickson was just getting to know them and would
deal with the problem directly the next time he saw them. But at the end of
this first session, Dr. Erickson directed them to arrange a dinner a few
nights away that would combine each person’s desire: The wife would get
the slow meal, including time spent bonding, and the husband would get
the big dishes he wanted to eat. Without realizing they were acting under
the doctor’s gentle guidance, the couple would walk into a mirror of their
problem, and in the mirror they would solve their problems themselves,
ending the evening just as the doctor had h0ped—by mirroring the improved dinner dynamics in bed.
In dealing with more severe problems, such as the schizophrenids
mirror fantasy world of his or her own construction, Dr. Erickson would always try to enter the mirror and work within it, He once treated a hospital
inmate who believed he was Jesus Christ-—draping sheets around his
body, talking in vague parables, and bombarding staff and patients with
endless Christian proselytizing. No therapy or drugs seemed to work, until
one day Dr. Erickson went up to the young man and said, “I understand
you have had experience as a carpenter.” Being Christ, the patient had to
say that he had had such experience, and Erickson immediately put him to
work building bookcases and other useful items, allowing him to wear his
Jesus garb. Over the next weeks, as the patient worked on these projects
his mind became less occupied with Jesus fantasies and more focused on
his labor. As the carpentry work took precedence, a psychic shift took effect: The religious fantasies remained, but faded comfortably into the background, allowing the man to fimction in society.
Interpretation
A metaphor is a kind of mirror to the concrete and real,
which it often expresses more clearly and deeply than a literal description
does. When you are dealing with the intractable willpower of other people,
direct communication often only heightens their resistance.
THE 48 LAWS OF POWER
ROBERT GREENE
