Episode Transcript
[00:00:08] Speaker A: Welcome to Exploring Satir's legacy, the Virginia Satir podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Michael Harden, and I'm thrilled to embark on this journey with you.
Together, we'll embark on a journey of self discovery, empowerment, and meaningful connection. Let's dive in.
Welcome to January 2024.
Happy New year, everyone. In this first episode of season one, you will be hearing excerpts from the interview I did with John Bamman at the 2023 Virginia Satir Global Network online conference.
Dr. John Baman is an internationally known author, therapist, and educator. His training programs have taken him to over a dozen countries in Asia, Europe, South America, and North America.
John's coauthored book, which everybody here probably knows about the Satir model, family therapy and beyond, received a double MFT Satir Research and education prize in 1994.
Dr. Banman is the founding president of the British Columbia association for Marriage and Family Therapy, a former member of the board of directors of the American association for Marriage and Family Therapy, the AMFT, a former member of the board of directors of the British Columbia Psychological Association, a member of the board of directors of the International Family Therapy association, and the founding director of Training for the Satir Institute of the Pacific. In this interview, Dr. John Banman shares his thoughts on the current application of Satir's model and his vision for its application going forward into the future. It was quite an honor to sit down with Dr. Banman, and I know that you will enjoy his insights.
[00:01:56] Speaker B: Well, thank you very much for being here. I'm so excited, John, for spending this time with you. Let me introduce myself first.
[00:02:05] Speaker C: I'm Dr. Michael Harden.
[00:02:06] Speaker B: I am a professor at Fuller Theological Seminary.
[00:02:10] Speaker C: Right.
[00:02:11] Speaker B: I get to train Satir therapists. It's a fantastic thing that I get to be a part of, and I've met a lot of great friends. And now being a board member at Satir Global, so many more friends. I love seeing how many people are here, being at ilearn, being here, so many beautiful people that I've been able to get to know. And this beautiful person right here needs no introduction. But this is Dr. John Banman, and he is a longtime friend and coworker and somebody who was mentored by Virginia Satir.
And I have just gained so much by being mentored by you, John, and I thank you. Thank you for letting me be in your living room right now and having this conversation with you. And we're so excited just hearing your vision for Satir's model going into the.
Want to. I want to start off with really a big question. So if you don't mind.
[00:03:13] Speaker C: I'll just jump right in.
Okay.
[00:03:16] Speaker B: So I know that just talking through you, talking to you and others, that towards the end of Satir's career, she was really thinking quite a bit about spirituality. And knowing you, you have a deep sense of spirituality yourself.
[00:03:36] Speaker C: So I've had this question.
[00:03:40] Speaker B: What have you learned over the years about spirituality and the spiritual parts of.
[00:03:45] Speaker C: Self that if you knew back when.
[00:03:48] Speaker B: You and Maria and Jane and Satir.
[00:03:50] Speaker C: Were writing the Satir model book, what.
[00:03:53] Speaker B: Would you have included in that book?
[00:03:55] Speaker C: With all the knowledge you now have.
[00:03:59] Speaker D: You are starting in a big way, aren't you? Okay.
[00:04:05] Speaker C: Good question.
[00:04:08] Speaker D: See, to me, the time, 30 years ago, spirituality was definitely not part of therapy. And even though Virginia satir manifested that spiritual part, counseling was sort of out of that, or spirituality was sort of out of that aspect of it. So if I were to do it over again, I would put spirituality right.
[00:04:35] Speaker C: In the center of the model so.
[00:04:40] Speaker D: That it would be an open aspect of it.
[00:04:43] Speaker C: I think we know enough now that.
[00:04:46] Speaker D: It'S very difficult to separate therapy and personal growth from spiritual aspect.
[00:04:53] Speaker C: So, to me, I would bring it in.
But one of the things that I.
[00:04:59] Speaker B: Also have heard from you is that spirituality has always been a big part of the model.
[00:05:05] Speaker D: Spirituality has always been part of the model. It's always there. When you look at her book on new people making, it's there.
When you look at some of the other writings, it's always there. When you look at her videotapes, the spirituality is always there.
[00:05:25] Speaker C: We are spirit in nature, and we.
[00:05:31] Speaker D: Are a manifestation of human being.
And so, to me, it's always been there, but it has been sort of like, I'm going to church on Sunday kind of aspect of it. I think it's much more important that it becomes an integrated part of what we're doing.
[00:05:50] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:05:50] Speaker B: And that's always been a very difficult thing for clinicians to include into their therapy. And I would say that it's still that way.
[00:05:57] Speaker D: Well, yeah. Well, we have this idea that we still have the problem with separating or seeing spirituality differently than religion. And so when we mix too much of religion, like the formal, kind of controlled way with spirituality, people have difficulty with it.
[00:06:20] Speaker C: Sometimes we feel it's too personal to talk about.
[00:06:24] Speaker D: And so in the early days, as I saw it, people said, well, when your client comes to you, allow them.
[00:06:31] Speaker C: To talk about it.
[00:06:33] Speaker D: Just allow them to talk. You allow them to talk about it. Now, I think we just take it as a component of a model, and so you don't just talk about it. You include it. You are there.
[00:06:48] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:06:49] Speaker B: And I found with my own clients that spirituality is a part of so many people's lives, even if they're not religious.
[00:06:58] Speaker D: We have a biological component of the satir model. We have a psychological component. We have a social, family component, and we have a spiritual component. To me, all those four domains are an integrated aspect of the human being. And so what I'm hoping that we.
[00:07:21] Speaker C: Can do this, and Michael is supporting.
[00:07:24] Speaker D: That, is that the spiritual part becomes part of the container.
[00:07:30] Speaker C: It's part of it.
[00:07:31] Speaker D: When you look at the second line of it is what. When Virginia died, we found. After she died, we found some notes in her house, and she talked about consciousness as being the fourth birth. And when I might get a chance with Michael today, I would just like to look at. Consciousness is a fourth birth aspect of the satir model, and we might want to take a look at what that is all about. And I hope you like my little quote that's at the bottom there. You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop. If you can capture the meaning of.
[00:08:21] Speaker C: That sentence, you might know what I'm.
[00:08:24] Speaker D: Talking about in my spiritual aspect of the satir model.
[00:08:30] Speaker C: Thank you very much.
[00:08:32] Speaker B: I think it's such an important part of therapy, the growth of a human being. And I love that. As we see the model going forward into the future, you're really encouraging a lot of us to start talking about spirituality.
[00:08:45] Speaker C: I hope so. I hope so.
[00:08:49] Speaker D: Okay.
[00:08:50] Speaker B: So one of the things, also that I wanted to ask was, I've just been so amazed at the energy you have in sharing the satir model.
You often joke that you have failed retirement four times, and I've never seen a person who as active as you.
[00:09:11] Speaker C: Are at really just trying to rethink.
[00:09:16] Speaker B: A model and move it into the future. You highly encourage many of us who are entering into the satir universe right now.
How have you been so engaged with the satir model all this time?
[00:09:31] Speaker C: Well, okay, let's take a look at it.
[00:09:35] Speaker D: First of all, I'm a psychologist, so I kind of got trained as a psychologist, and that didn't necessarily include satir. Satir was sort of an addition to it. I met Satir about six months after I graduated, so all my education was non satir. And actually, I had never heard of satir in my graduate school, even though it was in the United States.
So how do I have all the energy aspect of it? Well, it's like living the model.
If you start living the model. The model gives you access to energy that has greater depth to it. And so I think I'm just tuning into the energy that the model is manifesting or teaching us. So I don't think it's a big deal, really. It's just being me.
[00:10:39] Speaker B: Well, I definitely get to live a little bit of that. As I'm teaching students and having them engage the tier model, I see their energy grow. So many times, new therapists talk about how worn out they are when they're visiting with clients at the very beginning of their training. And my students have really been energized by what they believe they're providing to.
[00:11:00] Speaker C: People who have suffered.
[00:11:03] Speaker D: I mean, therapists tell me that after they see a client in the secure model, after they feel energized, others seem to say, well, I'm so tired. I'm so tired. So to me, it again speaks for the importance of the satir model, how powerful it is and how important it.
[00:11:23] Speaker C: Is to live it, not just to use it. Okay.
[00:11:27] Speaker B: So anytime I'm around all these beautiful people from all over the world who have been able to walk this earth and get to meet Virginia Satir, they always have such wonderful stories about her. And while I want to spend most of our time this morning or this evening for some while, I want to spend most of it talking about the future of the model.
[00:11:52] Speaker C: I want to just, if I could, since we have you here, ask, is.
[00:11:56] Speaker B: There a Virginia satir story that hasn't.
[00:12:00] Speaker C: Really been shared that you would love.
[00:12:02] Speaker B: To be able to share with us?
[00:12:06] Speaker D: Know, I think most people that have heard about Virginia Satir have heard about her love of nature, her gardening, her flowers, and how interest she was in just being out in the woods, in the mountains.
But talking about more personal kind of thing, let's pick up a couple of them.
[00:12:34] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:12:35] Speaker D: One of them. Let's look at one of them that.
[00:12:38] Speaker C: Said.
[00:12:42] Speaker D: We had an iceberg. Let's talk about the iceberg. And that might give you an example. Okay.
[00:12:47] Speaker C: The iceberg has the self at the.
[00:12:50] Speaker D: Bottom is all, you know? And maybe we'll take a look at it later on, depending on where we're going. And at the bottom, it says self. I am aspect of it.
Virginia city had talked about the iceberg, according to Laura Dotson, in 1962.
I didn't meet Virginia until 1970. So this idea of iceberg was in her conceptual frame pretty early, and it's not that unique, actually, except how she applied it. This was very unique aspect of it. Well, she had all these aspects of it. But during 1983, when Maria and Jane.
[00:13:40] Speaker C: And I were doing Wadzill two, she.
[00:13:43] Speaker D: Brought this up to the program, and then it kind of got fleshed out over time in terms of that. And she came to me and said, self means so many different things, and everybody uses self and self and self. We need to have something different.
What can we do?
And what she came up with or we came up with together, was that what Moses experienced in the Old Testament when he met God? And he said to God, who are you? And God said, I am who I am.
And the same concept of I am I am thou art is also true in hindu philosophy. And so we decided at that time that we should put the I am as part of the self.
[00:14:52] Speaker C: That would be a story that people.
[00:14:56] Speaker D: Probably don't know about.
[00:14:57] Speaker B: And that adds so much depth about understanding the self, really speaking to the essence of a person, the essence, the.
[00:15:05] Speaker D: Spirit, the essence of the person who you really are. And then after that, if you have that concept of a person, then you can look at how they experience themselves and what needs to change in that experience so that they can manifest that life energy in its fullest.
[00:15:24] Speaker B: It's such a deep concept. And I have found, and even some of my students have found when they're trying to explain the self to their clients, it is really difficult because so many people haven't even thought about themselves beyond their own experience.
[00:15:42] Speaker D: Another story might be some. She and I were looking at some videotapes, and I was lying on the floor with this old machine that she had, and we looked at this aspect of it, and she was doing some.
[00:15:56] Speaker C: Work with some people, and she looked at it, and she got to tears in her eyes.
[00:16:07] Speaker D: She said, it's so wonderful. It is so wonderful.
[00:16:11] Speaker C: I can't remember what I was doing.
[00:16:15] Speaker D: And she was talking about. Sometimes she just feels like she's channeling things down, but she said, don't tell people that I'm channeling. They might think I'm crazy. But for her, it was so beautiful.
[00:16:30] Speaker C: That she had to recognize herself.
[00:16:34] Speaker D: And so, I mean, she actually had tears in her eyes when she saw what was happening. When the change, the manifestation, the transformation took place right there on the spot. It was wonderful.
[00:16:50] Speaker C: The third one is, when we were.
[00:16:52] Speaker D: Writing the book.
[00:16:56] Speaker C: I would go and.
[00:16:57] Speaker D: Read something to her. We had done some chapters, and I would go and read something to her, and she said, oh, you. That's so wonderful, John. That's so wonderful. And I would say, I'm just quoting you. I'm quoting you literally. I didn't do anything. It's just you that she had this exciting experience of what was there, even.
[00:17:25] Speaker C: Though it was hers.
[00:17:28] Speaker D: So I feel there are times, things that we experience and we don't share. And you're asking me. Yeah.
[00:17:37] Speaker B: Well, I think it's great. The team that was put together to write that book.
How many gifts? All of you were very different.
[00:17:46] Speaker C: But there were so many gifts.
[00:17:47] Speaker B: And one of the gifts that you definitely brought to the project. Was being able to see and identify what was going on. And being able to put it into words. I think that's wonderful.
[00:17:57] Speaker C: And we've all benefited from the book.
[00:18:00] Speaker B: One of the things I want to go back to in one of your stories. Because I think it's an important thing.
[00:18:05] Speaker C: Because not only is she able to do this.
[00:18:11] Speaker B: This idea of channeling. But I think all of us who are engaged in therapy. And stepping into the room with clients. All of us have the capacity to channel.
Talk a little bit more about channeling.
[00:18:25] Speaker C: What does she mean by that?
[00:18:28] Speaker D: Well, I put it now in quantum physics.
When the quantum field basically has all opportunities, all possibilities that are possible. And that maybe that we at the right brain, intuitive nature or the spiritual part. We can connect with that quantum field. And if quantum Field has everything in it. Then can you channel it and make it yours?
I always think of Mozart being one of the great examples. People say all he did is sit down and write down what he just wrote it down.
[00:19:13] Speaker B: It would be downloaded to him.
[00:19:15] Speaker D: So to me, downloading is, I think, the new word for it.
[00:19:19] Speaker C: Instead of channeling now, I'd like to kind of take a shift.
[00:19:24] Speaker B: And really start focusing on how you imagine satir and her model going into the future.
In your words, what is your opinion as far as what the satir model.
[00:19:41] Speaker C: Still has to offer to this world?
[00:19:43] Speaker D: Well, I would say with one word, I'd say everything.
Well, let's take a look at how I perceive the model. That might help in terms of that. See, there are certain aspects that are universal. And does a model. Does any theory or any school include.
[00:20:09] Speaker C: Some of those universals?
[00:20:12] Speaker D: And so it has, to me, that's a different, several level question. So that the therapeutic level, which I'm involved and you are involved. Let's look at the therapeutic level first in terms of, okay, what is happening? What is therapy all about?
[00:20:34] Speaker C: What is the goal of therapy?
[00:20:36] Speaker D: And when you say, okay, to be yourself could be an answer. You wouldn't know what it meant. But just to be yourself. Well, if yourself is a spiritual being.
Living and manifesting in a human body, how can we then help people to manifest that part of you aspect of it? So I think the secure model has that capacity to contribute that to therapy.
[00:21:06] Speaker C: That we will have a way of becoming ourself.
[00:21:13] Speaker D: We are ourself already. We just need to learn how to manifest aspect of it. But then it has more kind of practical ideas. That, to me, is very important. One of them would be that the sainter model is very systemic.
Steve Buckley talked a little about it already in the morning. So it is a systemic kind of system. So we don't compartmentalize. I go to a doctor, he looks at my toe, and then I go to another doctor who looks at my eyes.
We compartmentalize it all. Well, it's all a system. And to me, that has been very important, that it can contribute not just as a superior model, but a general aspect of it that is experiential, that in order to bring about change or growth, you have to go into your experience, and I think it can contribute experiential aspect of it to it. So we already have the spiritual part, we have the systemic part, we have the experiential part.
A part of that is kind of processes that we can have in terms of doing that. And it has a generational component. Now, a lot of people are talking about trauma being multigenerational. We knew about it a long time ago. So it seems like the satir model had things that people now rediscover. Like, I think we have a saying in English, you don't reinvent the wheel.
[00:22:52] Speaker C: Right.
[00:22:52] Speaker D: If somebody already has it. Well, sometimes when I listen to all these new ideas of attachment theory, process theory and all that, it's like we.
[00:23:04] Speaker C: Have all that in it.
[00:23:06] Speaker D: We don't need to reinvent the wheel, and we have to take a little pride, a little more pride than we do about what we have. I think we inherited a beautiful aspect of life that is worth sharing with the whole world. So I would see that we have components of a model that is applicable to everybody, and it's useful for everybody to learn.
[00:23:40] Speaker B: Yeah, I so appreciated how comprehensive it is. When I was going through grad school, it was amazing. When people taught Virginia Satir's model, really, all that we got was how to sculpt. I mean, they showed us some techniques, but they didn't really dig into the depth of how she believed and how that impacted human beings. And I do believe that is, especially right now in our society, is so needed.
[00:24:08] Speaker D: So when you asked me before, how.
[00:24:10] Speaker C: Come you're so committed to this.
[00:24:15] Speaker D: I was going to say to, before I said, why are you so committed to the satir model? Because I haven't found anything better. Yeah, I just haven't found anything better. When I was at university, I was teaching the different schools. That was one of my jobs. And so it's not like I don't know what these other people have said aspect of it. They say something very important, and so I don't want to belittle them, but they don't give us the range of possibilities that satir model gives us.
[00:24:48] Speaker C: Yeah, well, we're up so early this.
[00:24:51] Speaker B: Morning, which is later in other parts of the world, because Satir global sees how involved people are all over the world in spreading the model and its benefits.
And we're going to definitely hear from so many of these beautiful people today as they present on what's going on internationally. But I know it's not the fullness of it all. There's so much more happening that people don't know about.
[00:25:19] Speaker C: Can you share a little bit about.
[00:25:21] Speaker B: What'S going on with Satir's model all over the world?
[00:25:27] Speaker D: Well, let me brag about a couple of countries that I feel very good about. Well, it's not a country that I will start with. I'll start with Hong Kong. Hong Kong has been teaching the city of model for 30 years, and they do a training of counselors every so often. They've had 13 groups go through a two, three year program over the last 30 years.
[00:25:55] Speaker B: Now, you just published a book there, right?
[00:25:58] Speaker D: No, my book got published in China.
[00:26:01] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:26:01] Speaker C: All right. I.
[00:26:02] Speaker D: Mainly China.
[00:26:03] Speaker C: All right.
[00:26:04] Speaker D: So Hong Kong is training basically counselors, social workers, counselors, people there. And so to me, it fits their culture, it fits their background. It gets integrated into this. And so for years and years, superior model has been an important element in Hong Kong. And that's where actually Maria and Jane and I started many years ago when we went outside.
[00:26:40] Speaker C: Of North America in terms of that.
[00:26:43] Speaker D: So that's a very important part.
[00:26:46] Speaker C: And I don't think anybody will be.
[00:26:48] Speaker D: Talking about Hong Kongists as conference go to Turkey. I think we were going to have Seville talk about Turkey. Turkey has beautiful counselor training program and it impacts a lot of people there.
[00:27:04] Speaker C: In terms of doing that.
[00:27:06] Speaker D: And the thing that I'm probably the most amazed about is what's happening in the Czech Republic and in Slovakia. They are training PhD MD therapists till they become satir therapists. Then they have given the institutes, the license, the authority to license people that to me is amazing, just very amazing. I don't know if you're going to hear about that today, but it's worth looking into in terms of. So most, many of the people that we know from Czech Republic and Slovakia are PhD MD people.
[00:27:56] Speaker C: In terms of now, I don't think.
[00:27:59] Speaker D: We'Re going to hear about Thailand. So let me go to Thailand. Thailand has taken it in their psychiatry field. So it was brought by director of, executive director of mental health to all the psychiatrists and they have been training all the psychiatrists. In fact, the executive director became a trainer of Satir model to the point where he's now retired and working with satir model in terms of that. So culturally, if you want to take a second here, culturally, it seems to be very applicable wherever it goes. It's even more fun for me is that when I went to Thailand the first time, they said Satir must have been a Buddhist. She must have been a Buddhist.
It was so funny because I see sainteer model actually beyond religion, higher than aspect of it. So that was kind of fun. But I also went to India and we did a workshop for the family therapy association in India and they said the same know Satya must have been a Hindu. She must have been a Hindu. She has such knack of understanding to the deeper there. We have a christian university here in Vancouver, close to Vancouver. And of course, they feel it's very christian.
[00:29:44] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. So it's very easy to see how it connects with the christian faith, too. My students say the same thing.
[00:29:50] Speaker D: So when you ask the question, remember the basic question, how can it contribute? It's contributing in a way that is beyond walls.
It can go beyond limitations in terms of doing that. Do I want to talk about anyone else?
Sandy will be here and she will talk about China. So China is.
We are trying to work on 65 million people there. And Sandy will talk about that today or, yes, tomorrow. I don't know which one.
What have I left out? Korea has two master's degrees. Two universities have a master's degree, specializing in superior model. And going well, they just sent me the revised textbook that they just published a couple of months ago, so they're doing well with it at the university level and training therapists in satira model.
The kind of question.
[00:30:54] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.
It is just amazing how all over the world people are connecting with Satir's model.
I know I've heard her speak in some of the videos that I've watched, how she's entered these different cultures and her sensitivity to different cultures and making sure that it applies to them, that we're really talking about universals.
And I found that to be true with the multiple cultures that I've been impacted by.
[00:31:25] Speaker D: I should mention Israel. Israel is doing really well. They have two programs going there that have a great impact. I think one of the programs from Israel. No, but two. There are programs from Israel that would be worth listening to in terms of what they're doing.
Tally and Beth are talking on the.
[00:31:51] Speaker C: Program, so we can get a little.
[00:31:53] Speaker D: More hands on aspect of it.
[00:31:57] Speaker C: So let's think a little bit even.
[00:32:00] Speaker B: More into the future, because I know that as you talk to different people and you're really encouraging different people's work, you have a vision of how Virginia Satir's model can be used in the future. What are the possibilities that can open up and how the Satir model can be taken?
[00:32:22] Speaker D: Know, I don't know if I want to be silly for a minute, but people say, where does the satir model apply? And then sometimes they say, where doesn't it fit?
[00:32:36] Speaker C: Kind of thing?
[00:32:38] Speaker D: And when I'm in a sort of a silly mood, I will say, the only people that I haven't been able.
[00:32:45] Speaker C: To use it is dead people everywhere else.
[00:32:49] Speaker B: If they're breathing, it'll work.
[00:32:51] Speaker D: Breathing, they can start. And when you listen to Eileen's meditation thing, it's breathing.
[00:32:59] Speaker C: Right.
[00:32:59] Speaker D: Breathing.
[00:33:00] Speaker C: Breathing.
[00:33:00] Speaker D: Breathing kind of thing. So Sadir had a sense of the essence of life right from the start. When a baby's born comes into this world, breathing is one of the first things, right?
[00:33:15] Speaker C: That's right, yeah. So that's, to me, very important part of it.
[00:33:21] Speaker B: Now, you've also talked about just how you can see how satir's model can be used in business and other.
What are the venues that this can.
[00:33:31] Speaker D: Okay, that's good. Reminder, again, I feel that in business.
[00:33:36] Speaker C: It'S very important that we have leaders.
[00:33:41] Speaker D: If we can have leaders, first of all, who are satir trained, which means, basically that they have high self esteem and they have congruence, they have compassion, they have some kind of positive energy that they live. That would be very good for everybody. But if we could do those aspects of it. But it's very applicable to leader. To a leader, because our business. Because business involves people, and once it involves people, there should be severe model aspect of it. What I'm interested in, in this question, if I could get another minute in.
[00:34:21] Speaker C: Here, is that I would like to.
[00:34:23] Speaker D: Broaden or widen the satir model, and I would like to see if we can be more focused on the pathology of stuff. The sickness, the suffering, I could call it suffering aspect. We would do more of that.
I find that depression, especially mild depression, which is in great increase around the world. Satir model would have a great aspect of it. And you and I talked about yesterday about trauma. See, I feel we have a lot to contribute to trauma. Now, everybody seems to be interested in trauma today, but basically, I think we.
[00:35:09] Speaker C: Should have a trauma program that would.
[00:35:12] Speaker D: Help people to do that. So we have business problem therapy, mental psychiatric kind of thing. What is ADHD kind of thing? It's a disconnection with the self.
Okay. Now, if ADHD is a disconnection with the self at the energy level, then satir model would have a very good way of bringing that together.
[00:35:40] Speaker C: So I want to move it low into it.
[00:35:44] Speaker D: I want to include more of the mental kind of problems that the psychologists and psychiatrists and others like it are working on. And then I would like to expand it on the other side to be more spiritual so that we would learn more. So I have a kind of a.
[00:36:06] Speaker C: Prototype and looked at in iceberg one.
[00:36:10] Speaker D: Is where you basically suffer, where we basically have some of the mental illnesses aspect of it. And we are, most of us, counseling is doing iceberg two. They're at the survival kind of level.
And so we are working very much at level. Iceberg two to iceberg three. Iceberg three is basically your choice maker. So you will hear people like, especially Maria Gamori has been very good at talking about moving people from iceberg two to iceberg three. Well, that's so good. All I want is to have also include iceberg one, so that iceberg one and iceberg two become the focus to.
[00:36:57] Speaker C: Bring people into iceberg three.
[00:37:00] Speaker D: And if we could move the whole world into iceberg three, making their own choice maker, being responsible for themselves, then we would meet some of the universal.
[00:37:12] Speaker C: Goal, meta goals of satir in terms of doing that.
[00:37:16] Speaker D: But there's further, because satir talks about growth. She's very keen on growth. Okay, well, this is kind of managing, being a good choice maker. You are managing your life. You can grow to what I call iceberg four, which would mean I am now co creating my life.
I'm not just managing it in a healthy kind of way, it is co creating it.
[00:37:45] Speaker C: Right?
[00:37:47] Speaker D: Can you hear that word? Isn't that beautiful?
[00:37:49] Speaker C: That's right.
[00:37:49] Speaker D: We're going to co create. With whom? With the universe, with God, whatever. We're co creating it.
[00:37:55] Speaker B: We're active participants.
[00:37:56] Speaker D: We're active participant in our own growth kind of thing in our own development aspect of it. So that, to me, would be a very good addition. Now, some of you people will say, yeah, we're already doing it, but we're not doing it loudly or publicly in terms of doing it. So privately we might do that. And I can name some names in that group that I know that are doing it, kind of. And then I have an iceberg five, which is then going into the whole spiritual consciousness, where you become one with the universe. So to me, taking the secure model, I want to broaden it and deepen it same time so that we can have a full package.
[00:38:45] Speaker B: You talked earlier also just how important it is for leaders to have some of this exposure to this model. And I was so excited to see.
[00:38:58] Speaker C: That somebody was going to be talking.
[00:39:00] Speaker B: About using this within government, because our politics, I mean, politics, it's so divisive. There's no discourse.
[00:39:09] Speaker C: If our leaders had, well, starting at.
[00:39:14] Speaker B: Weitzberg one and all the way through.
[00:39:16] Speaker C: If they were able to connect to.
[00:39:17] Speaker B: Self and be connected to the universe.
[00:39:19] Speaker C: And connected to God connected, it would.
[00:39:23] Speaker B: Be amazing how congruent conversations could actually move us forward in such better ways. So I love bearing here, and I love that so many people are thinking this way, and we're actually even able to see some of the presentations.
[00:39:38] Speaker C: Speaking to this, I remember a long.
[00:39:41] Speaker D: Time ago, 1972, Virginia Satir was in Manitoba, Canada, for an extended time, and she was working with the government. She was working with the cabinet of the government. And there were some very interesting stories that I know about. Okay. Of course, I wasn't at the cabinet meeting, but I heard about.
So there were two ministers were in competition with each other. So there was some friction in the cabinet. And so Satir had them roleplay, so she sculpted them. And it turned out to be, in their experience, it had triggered their childhood brother relationship, where they had been competing with each other in terms of whatever, getting approval from outside. And so she worked out this early relationship so that these two people could be fully there as cabinet ministers and not like a little boy's brother's aspect of it. So we have examples of what you're saying, that she worked with government in terms of making things work.
[00:40:58] Speaker C: Wow, that's exciting.
[00:41:01] Speaker B: I think we definitely need.
[00:41:04] Speaker C: Know.
[00:41:05] Speaker B: We're going to be hearing also some of the people are going to be talking. I know Steve Buckby just about some of the vehicles to change some of the vehicles that Satira included in her model. I know that as I'm training my students, the vehicles are really important to teach these new therapists. However, you and I have had discussions that it's really important to separate the vehicles from the model itself because the vehicles are not the therapy.
[00:41:34] Speaker C: Can you talk a little bit more about that?
[00:41:39] Speaker D: I'm a little judgmental at time.
[00:41:44] Speaker C: We're treating satir model too shallow.
[00:41:50] Speaker D: So I want to start with that. We're looking at it as too shallow. So we're making the vehicle, the model into the vehicle is just a tool to achieve what the model is all about.
And so, yes, we need tools. We need to need specific skills. Basically, we need the skills, but then it becomes too techniquey if you don't include the whole thing. So the being becomes, or should become more important than the doing, as long as we make.
[00:42:31] Speaker C: Doing the focus.
[00:42:33] Speaker D: I think we are belittling the centre model. And so what I hope is that people would have it would manifest, understand, use more of the deeper aspect of satir model and use the techniques as just a means to get there.
[00:42:55] Speaker C: Right.
[00:42:56] Speaker D: So people come along and say, satir, I think you mentioned that already.
They have a stance, right? They do a plague gating or they do a blaming. And people like it. They really like it. They really like it in China, the sculpting aspect of it. But that's just a vehicle for how people.
So to me, we stop too quickly at using it. We're stopping it, too.
I'm really. That's probably one of my big concerns, that we're showing people experiencing and teaching Satir too shallow.
[00:43:39] Speaker B: One of the things that I wanted to share with just John and I.
[00:43:43] Speaker D: Were able to visit with some of.
[00:43:44] Speaker B: My students yesterday, and that was such a blessing to my students. But one of my students asked a question. I think it would be really great to bring it at this point. They talked about how in developing as.
[00:43:55] Speaker C: New therapists, one of the issues that.
[00:43:58] Speaker B: They struggle with is going into the therapy room and being so stuck on.
[00:44:02] Speaker C: Trying to figure out the modality that.
[00:44:05] Speaker B: They can't fully be present.
And I love the advice that you.
[00:44:11] Speaker C: Gave them, talking about we are actually.
[00:44:15] Speaker B: Becoming, as we understand Satir's model and we understand how to see a person as a miracle.
[00:44:22] Speaker C: The way we show up to the.
[00:44:24] Speaker B: Therapy room ready to see a human being, that is a manifestation of this wonderful energy.
It's different than just showing up, thinking about a model and what I need to do.
[00:44:37] Speaker C: And I think sometimes when we're thinking.
[00:44:40] Speaker B: About the vehicles to change, we could be so stuck on, am I going to do this right or what am.
[00:44:45] Speaker C: I going to present that we're not showing up.
[00:44:48] Speaker B: I would love to hear a little.
[00:44:49] Speaker C: Bit more about that. Well, yeah. Well, to me, let's go a little further back.
[00:44:57] Speaker D: First, we want to be and become at same time. I think when I was a student, I couldn't understand that. How could I be and become at the same time? If I'm already being, why am I still becoming? And if I am becoming, I can't be kind of thing. So I had to resolve that, and that's a pretty big issue kind of thing. So now we come to the technique kind of thing.
[00:45:21] Speaker C: I would like people to just drop.
[00:45:26] Speaker D: The idea of the model and go in and say, here's a human being with a divine essence, that they would.
[00:45:35] Speaker C: Have a focus on the deeper part.
[00:45:41] Speaker D: Of it and to listen to the deeper voice of the people where they're hurting and where they're having trouble with and what is going on, and then sort of say, okay, what will my technique come along? I think at the beginning, counselor, it's got to be hard because you want to make some change right away. So what would be a nice change? Change subjective behavior. And I feel already good, but that's not good enough in terms of doing that or even talk about expressing a feeling. And let's look at this aspect of it or get in touch with an experience like a layman or so forth. So I want to see if I don't become a technician in this model because of all the models that would be very disrespectful to the model and also to therapy.
[00:46:43] Speaker C: So what am I saying is I.
[00:46:46] Speaker D: Want the technique to be a tool aspect and have a better sense of the being part. And if I look at the iceberg at the deeper level, then I know what I'm talking about, that I want.
[00:47:03] Speaker C: To be that I am person and.
[00:47:08] Speaker B: Showing up as our own. I am person.
[00:47:11] Speaker D: As you show up, you are the example. You bring that I am into this session so much more important. But it's also, I think that's one of the other.
When we look at the supervision philosophies of different models, and we didn't have a supervision model approved by the AMFT, so we had to come up with what would be an accepted supervision model that was acceptable to the American association of marriage and family therapy. And so we came up with five different things that supervision should include. And I don't want to do the teaching part. I want to take one of them. And is that you can deal with the therapist issue in relationship to a client during supervision, which is not allowed in some of the other models. And so that you need to be more congruent as a therapist, that you go in there in harmony with yourself.
[00:48:25] Speaker C: With the universe, and then you bring.
[00:48:28] Speaker D: That in, and maybe you can then connect with the universal aspect energy of your client and then work through their experiences. Now you have the iceberg to go through their behavior, their feeling, their perception, their expectation, their beliefs.
[00:48:48] Speaker C: And so forth. So it's complex.
[00:48:53] Speaker D: We are complex.
[00:48:54] Speaker C: We are.
[00:48:56] Speaker B: What this is making me think about is just the earlier question on spirituality.
Getting down to the I am the.
[00:49:04] Speaker C: Therapist themselves, our society has not necessarily.
[00:49:08] Speaker B: Nurtured that well as far as us really connecting to that spiritual part of who we are. So here's the next question.
As we think about spirituality and how.
[00:49:19] Speaker C: It fits within Sachir's model, how does.
[00:49:22] Speaker B: The idea of spirituality need to be further developed within the model?
[00:49:28] Speaker C: Well, okay, first.
[00:49:31] Speaker D: Well, first, I think we need to recognize as part of who we are.
And secondly, we need to integrate it more into the model instead of making it sort of an adjunct part of the model aspect of it. Thirdly, I think we need to be there ourselves aspect of it and then learn the skills that help people to.
[00:49:54] Speaker C: Get there in terms of that.
[00:49:56] Speaker D: And there will be some people who don't want to go that far. They don't want to go to iceberg five. Right. Most people don't want to go to.
[00:50:04] Speaker C: Iceberg five that I know of, because.
[00:50:07] Speaker D: That goes all the way to enlightenment. So not too many people want to go there. So we can look at how far the person wants to go. And I would suggest that most people are quite satisfied with iceberg three. And they could be there, but the spiritual part is still there. Even though we're working on the relationship between mother and daughter and husband and wife, we are still having that spiritual component there.
[00:50:37] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't know that people really think, I really do think there's more spiritual manifestations in our life experience that we're not even calling spiritual. So it is a place to explore.
[00:50:49] Speaker D: Well, see, when people go out to us, use an example. People go out in nature, they go out in the woods. I went out to the woods the other day, and it was great.
See, I saw the spiritual part. Other people might have just seen the nature part, but then it's still kind of spiritual, but they don't have to even call it that.
[00:51:15] Speaker B: Well, I know just the time that we spent in your backyard and seeing the squirrels come up and the birds come up and the big trees. There's something calming to reconnect with nature, and I would call that spiritual.
[00:51:30] Speaker C: And I think you have a lot of company, other people.
[00:51:34] Speaker D: And I say that secure model is.
[00:51:38] Speaker C: In the same wave, it's in the same place.
[00:51:44] Speaker B: A lot of exciting things are happening.
And I'm hearing from so many different.
[00:51:50] Speaker C: People working on so many parts of.
[00:51:53] Speaker B: Satir's model and furthering those concepts for you.
Highly engaged in what a lot of people are doing in the field right now with Satir's model.
[00:52:03] Speaker C: What are some ideas that are really.
[00:52:05] Speaker B: Exciting you that are coming from emerging authors and speakers and researchers?
[00:52:12] Speaker C: What are some of those ideas?
Well, let's take.
[00:52:20] Speaker D: Can we do some name calling? Oh, yeah.
Okay, so let's start with you, for instance.
[00:52:27] Speaker C: Okay, so you're working on a book.
[00:52:31] Speaker D: Of counseling, training counselors, how to use superior model. And now that will be basically a philosophical underpinnings with all the conceptual aspects of it, with all the skills that are necessary.
So it has a wide range of approach. It's not just a handbook or a guidebook. It's a comprehensive aspect of it. I think that's exciting to have that.
[00:53:05] Speaker C: Hopefully soon aspect of it.
[00:53:08] Speaker D: And you can talk about it. Right. You're working on it now aspect of it.
Janet Christie Seeley had finished the book just before she died with her experience of sincere model through the years. And that would be helpful to have people read things. I'm so excited about that, seeing that. I don't know where that's going.
Tom can tell us about that.
[00:53:43] Speaker C: Then.
[00:53:44] Speaker D: Something that really worries me is that Laura Dodson was working on a book on spirituality that probably didn't get finished. I have much of the manuscript, but I don't have the finished book. And I don't know if she finished the book.
[00:54:01] Speaker B: And we need that.
[00:54:03] Speaker D: It was really good. It's really good. What I've have so far, and there's supposed to be more. I didn't get the last part that.
[00:54:11] Speaker C: She told me about.
[00:54:12] Speaker D: So that would be a really good answer to what we're asking about how it fits in, in terms of doing that.
There is a fellow called Spencer Wade who is working on the fourth birth, and he's doing quite well. He's got three, four chapters done on that aspect of it. So that would be very helpful in terms of opening up that whole thing that I'm so concerned about in terms of doing that. I hope that Jesse Carlock will with a book on parts.
I gave her a thousand pages of notes from satir that we had transcribed, and so she has some really basic kind of data that she could use to bring about that. That would be very exciting, because now we have Schwartz taking so much of the space of parts that I think.
[00:55:21] Speaker C: We'Re sort of overshadowed.
[00:55:25] Speaker D: There's Richard Kennedy, who's working on parts, but not on the book, but in terms of teaching.
[00:55:35] Speaker C: So that would be another exciting part.
Who else?
[00:55:41] Speaker D: I was hoping that Stephen Buckby would write his mandala, because Mandela is such an important conceptual frame, and to use.
[00:55:53] Speaker C: It in therapy would be a very.
[00:55:57] Speaker D: Helpful aspect of it, because we would kind of round up the whole person in terms of how they experience themselves and different.
[00:56:04] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:56:04] Speaker B: Understanding the self would be so important. And definitely the way that Steve Buckby talks about that, it'd be great to get out.
[00:56:12] Speaker D: So another interesting thing that I'm excited about is there's five, six people who are writing a book on body bodies.
Use of bodies.
You talked about it at one of the conferences about touch. Well, they're taking a look at how to use the body and integrate it. The bio part that I talk about, they're writing a book. They have four or five chapters done.
That could be very exciting, that we should use more of the body part, which Satya also did. She got in trouble with it because he was touching people.
How dare you touch people?
And now I hope it's become much more open. And there is a protocols, right, how to and what not to.
[00:57:05] Speaker C: That's right.
[00:57:05] Speaker D: So it's not misread or misused and so forth.
Those are some of the things that I know are happening in North America.
[00:57:18] Speaker B: One of the things I know that I've seen you get really excited about is some of the work that Johnny is doing in just, you know, he's.
[00:57:31] Speaker C: Probably making such a big contribution right.
[00:57:37] Speaker D: Now in terms of collecting everything, logging everything and using it. It's not just the store, he's not a storage man, because that would be my kind of concern. All we're doing is we're storing things nicely in a better climate than in mine. So him looking at as a contribution, what contribution can they have? So Johnny now has, by the way, he has real to real, you know, the old ones, if you're too young for that. But we used to have these real to real kind of things. And we had tapes from MRI that goes right down to the incredible fifty s. And we have tapes from Epsilon that goes into the son took them and put them onto cds. And so we have Johnny now. He came up here, and as you know, that he came up here and took a whole truck full of stuff along.
[00:58:53] Speaker B: Yeah, I came just soon after that, and I was really wishing I could have come right before. He took so many things before I got here.
[00:59:01] Speaker D: Yeah, well, you go to his place. Yeah. Anyway, the point where. The point is that he's making a major contribution in terms of doing. Of seeing Satir model. But I'm so excited about the real to real thing, because what most people don't, I don't know. Yeah.
We had to go and find an extra player in terms of doing this. So I need to mention his name definitely way up there as a contribution of doing things.
[00:59:35] Speaker C: Yeah, very exciting. Very exciting.
[00:59:38] Speaker B: And speaking of him, and I guess this is a little self serving in that I'm so excited to be a part.
But there's these rumors that this group you've created called the quartet is getting together, and they're talking about exciting things. Share about some of the exciting things.
[00:59:56] Speaker C: You hear in there. Well, we have a male quartet, right? Yeah.
[01:00:02] Speaker D: We have a soprano and elto and a tenor bass.
[01:00:05] Speaker C: Do we?
[01:00:06] Speaker B: Yes, that's right.
[01:00:08] Speaker D: Okay.
One of the things I'm kind of interested on a daily basis is to look at different kind of concepts of what the secure model is. And so what I seem to need is partnership. In terms of being a Gemini, that's kind of an interesting thing. The tucson there is important. So I seem to need some kind.
[01:00:41] Speaker C: Of whatever bouncing back on aspect of it.
[01:00:46] Speaker D: So I don't always work very well just on my own. So to work with this group, to me, is very exciting in terms of saying, okay, let's take a look at. Just take a look at what we're looking at is, what is change? What is change? What is change? We always talk about change, and then we want to know who is changing? Who is doing the changing. Now we have change, and we're doing the changing. And we don't really make that very clear in terms of just the idea of change. And then we talk about transformation. Now we have change and we have transformation, and we want to look at.
[01:01:28] Speaker C: Are they different or are they different level?
[01:01:31] Speaker D: How can we do that?
To me, it's like a brainstorming portet. It's not very musical, I don't think, at this time, but it's very focused.
[01:01:46] Speaker C: On some of the ideas, like what.
[01:01:48] Speaker D: Is real self esteem type thing, what is congruence? So the group, I hope, is working more on deepening present concepts and see how they get integrated into the whole part.
So how do you see it. Part of it.
[01:02:07] Speaker B: There's been some exciting things that I've been able to hear. Steve Buffby bringing in the idea of choice and how we need to be speaking about choice within the change process. That was really helpful for me to think through and start incorporating into what I'm doing with my clients.
The other one, Dr. Faulkner, Johnny. Him being able to be so adamant that we need to be really forward about how systemic Satyr's model is, and sometimes that's missed, and it is a systemic therapy, and for us to make sure that we are putting that forward as we're talking about her model.
[01:02:55] Speaker D: Yeah.
[01:02:57] Speaker B: And you say it's not musical, but, boy, it's music to my soul.
It feeds me. It feeds me.
[01:03:04] Speaker D: Okay.
[01:03:06] Speaker B: We started this whole conversation with a personal question, and I'd like to end our time with a personal question also.
Would that be okay?
[01:03:19] Speaker D: Yeah.
[01:03:23] Speaker B: I've seen a little bit of this, but I'd like to ask the deeper sense of it. How has the satir model had an impact in your life? How has it caused you to live differently since meeting Virginia satir and working in the model?
[01:03:42] Speaker D: Well, okay, that could be an easy answer, but maybe it could be very difficult.
I think that one has to live.
[01:03:52] Speaker C: The model, so not just teach it. The model is to be lived.
[01:03:57] Speaker D: So I would think that, for me, the way it impacted me is it gave me a life, a living model aspect of it. So it has all kinds of attributes that go with it, like love, for instance, because I think the satir model is basically built on love. And so if I can manifest that.
[01:04:27] Speaker C: Kind of love.
[01:04:31] Speaker D: That I experience through.
[01:04:33] Speaker C: That model, then I don't need to.
[01:04:37] Speaker D: Go outside and do all kinds of other things. So then if I live this aspect of it, then, of course, I hope.
[01:04:44] Speaker C: To live it when I see clients.
[01:04:47] Speaker D: That I bring that kind of aspect with it.
[01:04:50] Speaker C: So, to me, it's basically living the model. Yeah.
[01:04:56] Speaker B: I asked you yesterday if I were to be able to ask your wife what does she appreciate most about you?
[01:05:06] Speaker C: And you talked about a generosity that.
[01:05:09] Speaker B: She would have spoken about in knowing you. And I've definitely seen that you're a generous man. You're a loving man, John, and we are all blessed that we got to spend a little bit of time with you today.
[01:05:23] Speaker D: You know, the question that I hoped you would ask, are you finished with me?
[01:05:27] Speaker B: No.
That's a great thing they bring in. What are the questions that I should have asked that you'd like to speak to?
[01:05:34] Speaker D: Well, one question that I would like to look at, or have our group look at is we're to the center model. Where is the satir model going? How do I possibly see it and.
[01:05:48] Speaker C: How others see it in terms of going?
[01:05:51] Speaker D: And can I answer question? Absolutely in terms of that, because I looked at it and I said, okay, the main recommendation for my colleagues is let the centre model just evaporate or integrate into the ocean. Let it just go.
And then when you look at other schools, we looked at ta, reality, therapy, gestalt, whatever other we can list.
[01:06:26] Speaker C: I think there are about half a.
[01:06:28] Speaker D: Dozen or more in terms of. Some of them are gone, come and gone. They have come and gone.
[01:06:34] Speaker C: How can we make sure that this.
[01:06:38] Speaker D: Doesn'T happen to satir aspect to it? Okay, so the way that psychoanalysis kept going, they have changed a lot. They got rid of the Oedipus complex kind of thing as the major drive of human nature aspect of it, and came up with better kind of ideas. And I think that we need to do the same. Otherwise we're going to be in that same boat as these other people are. So I see us, okay, we let it go and we do it. Actually, I saw a book not so long ago that talked about the stances in blaming plague. Super reasonable and irrelevant, never mentioning satir. That's the first time I've seen that in a book. Anyway, so that's the point. It just gets into the stream. There's some good words for it in social science, in terms of it. That would be one way of looking at it. We let it sink in and it will be part of it. And we'll have blaming and plagating in anything and everything. Who wants to do it as a tool?
That would be one aspect of it. The second part would be that we keep it alive and we make it an important alternative to therapy or to personal growth or to management or to business. Well, we make it an important part. We can do that. That would be my hope that we would do. I don't see us doing a good.
[01:08:17] Speaker C: Job, by the way, at this time.
[01:08:20] Speaker D: But we have the capacity and we have the model that we could make really a good kind of thing. So when they compare and they say oh, so and so, eft is the great thing, or CBT is the great thing, they might as well also say, but satir includes all of them aspect of it.
But when I go into a little.
[01:08:47] Speaker C: Personal reflection, I would like to see.
[01:08:52] Speaker D: A third alternative, and that is that we would create the Satir model, would create the center of therapy, that we wouldn't just be one small part or.
[01:09:08] Speaker C: A large part, but that we would.
[01:09:11] Speaker D: Become the center of it. So we would provide systemic for everybody.
We would have experiential for everybody. We would have multigenerational for everybody. It would be a general kind of aspect of it, my sense. But I think we're going to run out of time because a lot of the people who had direct access to are gone.
[01:09:46] Speaker C: And the few that are left, they're getting older.
[01:09:51] Speaker B: A lot of them are here today, and that's exciting for me.
[01:09:55] Speaker D: But we need to get our act together and get going and make this a major contribution to mankind, humanity.
[01:10:09] Speaker B: We do need to encourage a younger generation of clinicians and researchers into the field. There's so much that can be shared and there's so much more work to do. I definitely see this as a life work that I'll be connected to for.
[01:10:24] Speaker C: The rest of my career. Like me.
[01:10:30] Speaker A: As we conclude this episode of our Virginia Satir podcast, I want to leave you with a reminder that the journey of self discovery and transformation is ongoing.
Virginia Satir's wisdom continues to inspire us to nurture healthier relationships, foster open communication, and embrace personal growth. Remember, you hold the power to create positive change in your own life and the lives of those around you. Thank you for joining us on this transformative journey. Until next time, be kind to yourself and others. We hope you enjoyed this new episode. And if you did, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Please share this episode with others who may interested in this topic. Also, feel free to let us know what topics you'd like to see covered in future episodes. Get in touch in the comments or by visiting liftconnectedtherapy.com. See you next week for a new episode.
