Certified Practitioner, Rapid Resolution Therapy
In 1865 Lewis Carroll
wrote about a little girl, Alice, who follows a white
rabbit down a hole and
enters a whole other world where a host of strange characters regularly turn
logic on its head. She winds her way among them intermittently struggling with
her own size and identity. Eventually she runs into the Queen of Hearts, whose
vengeful demeanor and favorite saying, "Off with their heads!" has everyone
intimidated. In the finale, Alice faces the Queenʼs wrath and calls her and her minions out as just a
pack of playing cards. As they rush her, she awakens to find not playing cards
but leaves all over her face, and safe back in her own world with her sister
just in time for tea.
Overwriting is a term RRT Master Practitioner Melinda Paige coined for the powerful clean up that is done in
Rapid Resolution Therapy relative to participants' destructive meanings. Some of us might say, "Oh,
thatʼs just reframing,"
but I think what we're
onto may be something more. Lets take a brief look at the way overwriting is
used in our work.
Overwriting is typically
used after a powerful connection has built up. In looking over many
transcripts, I find Jon reserves most of the best overwrites for the end of the
process, sometimes following ghost busting, sometimes intermingled with it. In
other words, overwriting understands our work is not done until dysfunctional
meanings are cleared. It assumes a substantial amount of collaboration and
momentum toward target is already underway. This is set up by the first stages
of the method, which open up access to the participant's inner mind, as we talk to it in ways it
understands. We can understand why connection must build first, as we would
only incur defensiveness or disagreement if we swung the wrecking ball right at
the outset.
Reframing, as it is
conventionally used, might leave the participant still thinking it over or
debating an alternative view in their mind as they leave. In RRT we invite the
participant to not only look with us through another lens but if we are artful,
to also step through the lens. We ask them to experience themselves differently
as they see how life events haven't
negatively defined them after all and in fact could be construed in a very
different way. Overwriting seems like a much more powerful form of reframing as
we combine it with the participatory aspects of connection. It's the difference between stopping a movie at
several points in the theater to discuss it with the audience versus sitting
beside the participant in the theater while the whole movie runs. It's a movie
so compelling and totally involving that we both forget about the popcorn on
our lap.
Some examples come readily
to mind. Changing internal geography and identity is a huge overwrite, as we
lead her through to the realization that the core of her was never touched by
the abuse. This is so powerful as survivors often feel soiled or tainted by
abuse. There are many overwrites in our lexicon relative to shame.
One of my favorites is the
girl and her father:
"Get it outside of you for
just a moment. A woman told me her father once kicked her across her room and
left her locked in her closet all day. She said that was the moment she knew
she was worthless. I said, I don't
get that. If you and I saw a grown man beating up a kid out in the parking lot,
and I asked you why these things are happening, your first answer wouldn't be, "Well
isn't it obvious, the kid is worthless?" It wouldn't, would it? Maybe you'd say, boy, we just learned something about that
guy. But we wouldnʼt have learned
anything about the little kidʼs
worth, would we?"
This overwrite, which also
uses dissociating the story, usually has massive beneficial impact, as deeper
mind gets how shameful behavior was located in the perpetrator from beginning
to end and never got in even skin deep to the survivor. It is then free to just
sluff off.
We all know the overwrite
of science over moralism. It starts with the story of the tree branch that is
down and casts the participant as teacher to a younger person, teaching a
scientific view of causality versus preference, moralism, or blame. The younger
person in the story is our participant who is still trapped in those
viewpoints. It ends with the participant getting how gratitude replaces pride
but also things like guilt, regret, resentment, and blame. They get it through
and through that they did past events in the only way they could have at the
time and things couldnʼt
have possibly transpired in any other way. Moreover, those events are no longer
in existence. The much better course is to be present, tuned up, and causative
in the here and now.
A final example is often
found on the tail end of clearing abuse when we clear stories of parental
neglect. Iʼve always liked
how Jon will frame the parentʼs
inaction or hurtful responses as neurologically disconnected at the time. It
isnʼt that mom got up one morning and thought through
the best way to screw her daughter up for the next 30 years. She just couldnʼt connect the dots at the time the
participant-child came to her with the bad news of molestation.
Jon paints an accurate
picture of the severe click-off that denial does in the mind when confronted
with overwhelming bad news. "Itʼs
like you tell this guy, ʻYour
house is on fire,ʼ and he says, ʻThatʼs
a very valuable house, Iʼm
choosing not to believe you." The parentʼs
mind literally couldnʼt
take it in, therefore they couldnʼt
connect the dots and couldnʼt
have taken effective action. This often enables massive relief and a sense of
peace for participants. Similarly, in other transcripts, physical beatings,
suicides, rages while on drugs, all manner of out of control behavior is
pictured as a neurological storm, chemicals running around in a badly
disconnected brain. This overwrites the long-carried notion that the behavior
was personally directed at them or meant something about them.
Like Alice of old, we
powerfully wake participants up from the walking nightmare that came from the
meanings their mind attached at the time. We overwrite that story quite
forcefully, but artfully, with proper timing. Listen and watch for when Jon
starts a sentence, "Let me tell you what happened there..." You may just pick up
something that will help your participant step back through the looking glass
into a more positive world, into a more positively embodied existence.
Mark
Mark A. Chidley, LMHC, CAP, a fully licensed mental health
counselor and certified addictions professional, offers counseling services at
his office Kelly San Carlos Executive Center in Fort Myers, Florida.He has been in private practice
since 1997. He holds certifications in Rapid Trauma Resolution (2010), Imago
Relationship therapy (2001), and now specializes in the treatment of couples as
well as individual trauma recovery and anxiety issues. He brings rich experience
from a combined 26 years of hospital work and mental health counseling.
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