There are many, many useful ways of organizing the whole process called psychotherapy. One of the ways that is quite simple, and therefore elegant, is to treat every psychological limitation like a phobia. A phobia can be thought of as the paradigm case of psychological limitation. A person who has a phobia made a decision, unconsciously, under stress, sometime earlier in their life in the face of overwhelming stimuli. They succeeded in doing something that humans often have a hard time doing. They succeeded in one-trial learning. Every time that set of stimuli comes up again later in their life, they make exactly the same response. It's a remarkable achievement. You change over the years, and despite external contextual changes, you are still able to maintain that stimulus-response arc.

The thing that makes phobias sort of interesting is the fact that the responses are so consistent. If a person says "I can't be assertive around my boss," they are essentially saying "Somewhere in my personal history I have an experience or a set of experiences of being assertive. I cannot get to that resource in the context of my boss." When a person responds with a phobic response to a snake, that's a similar situation. I know that at other times in their experience, in their personal history, they have been able to be quite calm and courageous. However, in the context of a snake, they can't get to that resource.

Up to this time in the development of psychology and psychiatry and counseling, people haven't tried to organize information to go directly after things. Freud set up a rule "You must go into history," so we've decided if you can understand how something developed historically, you can work with it. I think you only need to do that once or twice, though. Given that you understand, historically, how people are capable of creating phobias, you don't need a historical understanding of each and every phobia, as long as you understand that there are similar processes at work. The way in which people get phobias is fascinating. However, once you understand something about the structure you can go ahead and change it, because all phobias are going to work in the same way. People have strategies which produce phobic responses. Who here has a phobia?

Woman: I've got one about driving a car across a bridge and falling in the car into the water.

If you were observing her, everything that you need to know about changing her has already happened. Would you like to get rid of it? Is it something that restricts your behavior?

Woman: Oh, I'd love to get rid of it!

Are you sure?

Woman: Of course. Yeah, I'm sure. I just wasn't sure I wanted to share it, but I've already shared it!

But you didn't need to share it! You could have kept it a secret. We don't need any content. In fact, we prefer not to have any. Is there someone else here with a phobia who would be unwilling to talk about it? Any time we ask for volunteers, you keep the content to yourself. None of you knew what Linda was thinking about this morning. That's the format we'll always use for demonstrations, so feel free to demonstrate. One way for us to respect your integrity as human beings, whether it's in private practice or in a group demonstration like this, is for you to keep the content to yourself. We don't need it. We operate with process anyway. Content is irrelevant, and besides that, it's often depressing. We don't want to hear it. And when you tell people the content of your problem, you look like a fool. It's a good thing we interrupted you before you told them what the content was, right? OK. What's your name?

Woman: Tammy.

Tammy. Very good. (He contorts his body and several different intense expressions pass across his face.) Any weird non-verbal analogue is good, especially if you get clients who have been in therapy before. You need to do something to throw them off balance— anything to break up their patterns. Because otherwise they will come in and tell you the same thing they told everyone else. They will come in and tell you a prerecorded message. We once heard a tape recording of a client with the therapist before us, and in the whole first session with us she said exactly the same thing; the same words in the same order. We were fascinated to find out how much she could reproduce. It was almost identical until we intervened in the process. I jumped up and started roaring about God. "God said 'You will change!'" The easiest way to do therapy is to enter the client's reality. This woman was extremely religious, and the easiest way to assist her in making a change was to make myself an intermediary between God and her. That's what all priests do, isn't it? It was acceptable to her. All I did was feed back information that she had given to me from her unconscious—which were the instructions she needed.

Now, Tammy, let's pretend that we don't know that this is about bridges. Would you give me a code word for the phobic response that you have had for some years?

Tammy: Pink.

Pink. She's phobic of pink. Now you have as much information as when she says "I'm afraid of driving across bridges." You still have no idea what the response is, where it came from, or what the dimensions are internally and externally. Secret therapy and code words vividly point out the illusion of understanding another person when they use words that do not refer to sensory-based descriptions.

Now, before we begin, let me ask you something, Tammy. Would you think of a situation in which you expressed yourself with what you regard as a fine representation of your full capabilities as an adult human being, as a mature woman. Sometime in the past few years—it may have been a stressful situation or maybe just a happy occasion— you behaved in a way that you found particularly satisfying. I want you to take your time and find such a situation, and let me know when you have it. Do you understand the request? (She nods.)...

OK. First of all, I hope you all noticed a distinct change in her face, in her breathing, etc. Those of you who were watching her could see that Tammy constructed a visual image. She searched visually and she went up and to her right. She is a normally organized right-hander, cerebrally. She didn't see the situation from inside of it. She saw herself in the situation. As such, her kinesthetic response was not as strong as it would be if she did the following.

Would you make that image of yourself again, and when you see it clearly, I want you to step inside the image so that you are actually back in that situation that represents for you an example of your full capacity as a woman. When you can actually feel in your body again the feelings of competence and strength that you associate with that situation, just reach over with your left hand and hold my hand….

OK. I have no idea what her specific experience is. I do know, however, from the remarkable, dramatic change that Tammy just offered me non-verbally, that she succeeded in carrying out my instructions. And I agree with her. That looks really good. That fits my hallucinations about what competence, etc. is. Tammy, do you happen to know what the original experience was that this phobia is connected to?

Tammy: No, I don't.

OK, that's typical. It's typical that the person only knows that in certain kinds of situations they have a very powerful kinesthetic response—in fact in your case I would describe it as an overwhelming response. That response is so overwhelming that in the past when you have been in these situations you literally exercise no choice. You have found it to restrict your behavior in the past, right?

Tammy: Oh, yes—in my dream world, too.

Most phobic people do not know what their original trauma was, and, indeed, it is not even necessary to know that. I'm going to do it as if it were necessary, but it's just part of the mythology.