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Debrah Roundy
Posts:17
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| 02/17/2008 9:20 PM |
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I am writing this excited and eager to share. But I am also thinking that many of you will chuckle at the newbie and say, “Ya, I did that ten years ago.” Still I want to share a success.
I am a special education teacher and therefore have a unique population to work with. I have had some interesting experiences and needs that come with this very vulnerable population. It was looking for tools to help these people that led me to NLP classes. The more I thought about it the more I thought, most of you probably don’t work with the special needs population and might enjoy looking at NLP from my perspective.
As an example of vulnerable, one year I had eleven girls in my class and before the end of the school year seven of them had been molested. I have never had a year go by without at least one child molested or abused. School counselors find this population difficult to deal with as they do not respond in “normal” ways and so our counselor sends them back to teacher for counseling. I’m the teacher.  I have a Special Olympics team and one of my Special Olympians, Angel, was having a difficult time with a traumatic event. She was willing to work it through with me. We were on an overnighter this weekend. I planned to use the evening after swimming to work with her and I had planned to use the time line.
Our hotel room was so crowded and cold that going to the time line for the first time did not feel right. I decided to do instead the V-K Dissociation. Only one problem, Angel is blind. There is no visual. She has been blind since she was one month old and has no memory of ever seeing.
“How could I do this,” I thought. I remembered my NLP teacher, Judy DeLozier, counseling us to be creative and to listen. I could create instead a sound booth.
Angel and I talked about how CD’s are made. We talked about the recording studio where the singer or speaker produces the audio and then about a sound booth that was a separate room that was sound proof so that those in the recording studio could not hear what was being said, but those in the sound booth could hear everything going on. We talked about it being of Plexiglas and separate and safe.
Then instead of producing an image on a screen she produced the sounds of the situation from the safety of the sound booth. Her eyes are prostheses so I watched for other clues to anchor. She was able to access safely from the sound booth the memory that she wanted to change, and add auditory and kinesthetic resources. I then I collapsed anchors.
It was very fun to do and to see it make a difference in the way she felt about the event.
(permission to share has been granted from Angel, and Angel is not her real name)
(I have written permission for all of my students to work with them using NLP, and to share with the NLP population what I am doing) |
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Jerry Beach
Posts:99
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| 02/28/2008 8:58 AM |
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Debrah, that sounds like some excellent work you did with Angel. Did you have her run the whole trauma process, running the "recording" backwards with her associated in to it? Were there any places where, being a sighted person, you found yourself using visual language out of habit? If so, how did she/you adjust to that? What was easy for you and what was challenging? What would you do differently next time, if anything.
It would be great if you can provide some followup information, if that is possible. How long it's been since you did this work, and do you have information about how Angel is doing, now?
Thanks for sharing this. |
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Debrah Roundy
Posts:17
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| 03/01/2008 8:27 AM |
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Jerry,
Thanks so much for reading and responding.
We just had a few minutes that night, and I just did a little peice. I could tell the incident we worked on was bothering her terribly and if I could help her heal just that one it would improve the quality of her life. (also I am just a beginner at NLP myself and primarily work with little strategies with my school class)
Angel lives quite a ways from me and has some severe issues. She is in and out of a crisis unit several times a year. She chooses to be suicidal on occassion and is far beyond my skills, time and availability.
I met her as an athlete in Special Olympics and befriended her before I even heard of NLP. I saw an athlete who was alone and needing a friend. My little team of athletes kind of adopted her making her feel accepted.
Her house is on the way to my parent's home so I try to drop by on my way when I visit. She has small children and they are running about along with dogs and the neighbors. It is hard to get the privacy and time we need to do much.
I have only done two processes with her. Some weeks before I did visual squash adding resources to chose from instead of cutting herself when she is frustrated. I have been pleased since that when she gets to that point of frustration she is now choosing from her resources rather than making cutting a first defense to anxiety. One of the resources she put in was calling her therapist. I trust that it will enhance her quality of therapy by me adding approval of therapy and assisting her in making that an available tool.
After working this little tiny piece I mentioned above both she and her husband have reported that she is feeling better. The last time I talked with her by phone she was the most happy I have ever heard her to be so it made a positive impact.
Yes, we did run the audio backwards, and future paced it also. I also did some reframing.
I once reverted to visual language. It was a challenge to come up with all audio descriptions. However, interestingly to me, she uses a lot of visual language herself even though she has never been able to see. Can a person be blind and yet visually oriented? I often wonder. If this is true, could it be contributing heavily to her depression?
She is such a sweet little gal, and so willing to try. I am in the middle of the farm fields of Idaho and so is she. She would benefit so much by having weekly sessions, and going back and healing her past, and learning how to use state management and all that wonderful NLP. But for me, if I can just improve her life quality in even a tiny way I am happy.
I do believe that with the little work I have been able to do with her, I have assisted her in extending the time between needing to be hospitalized and improved the quality of her life.
In the future I hope I can do some time line work with her. I have had several ideas of how to set up the time line such as using bean bags on the floor or taping foam numbers to the wall so she can feel her time line. Maybe someone else has some ideas.
When di I do this work? I first met Angel 2/07. I went to NLPU 7/07. We did visual squash about 11/07, and we did this little auditory dissociation 2/15-16/2008. (It was just before and after midnight.)
I have called her twice since to see how she is doing, but most often we go back and forth with e-mail. She has an auditory reading device on her computer to read her e-mail. Last night (2/29) when I called she was almost bubbly and that is the first time I have heard her sounding that good. She was light and carefree sounding. Generally there is darkness in her voice.
If I can make even a little positive difference in her life, however, I have made the world a better place.
Deb
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Jerry Beach
Posts:99
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| 03/01/2008 2:08 PM |
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If I can make even a little positive difference in her life, however, I have made the world a better place.
I certainly agree. Thanks so much for sharing this. It's a very nice example of how the influence of NLP can weave its way out into the community. |
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Debrah Roundy
Posts:17
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| 03/10/2008 9:42 PM |
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| It has been about a month and she continues to be up beat, much more so than before. It makes me eager to find an opportunity to work with her again for a longer period, too. |
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Debrah Roundy
Posts:17
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| 04/14/2008 6:58 AM |
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I am pleased t report that Angel is still holding stable. For her this is an incredibly long time and I am pleased. I do think it really made a difference.
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Debrah Roundy
Posts:17
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| 05/10/2008 10:41 PM |
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To my great pleasure, she is still holding stable. This is the longest I have seen her go without talking about suicide or self injurous behaviors. There is an entirely different feeling about her. |
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Gerrith Lassen
Posts:3
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| 10/06/2008 3:34 PM |
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Deborah, I´m writing from Norway and I like to give you some feedback and ideas about the work you are doing. First: your curiosity, kindness and warm heart is the mayor key in this field between you and Angel. You are doing a fantastic job by seeing the potential of a human being with special need. This is for me after my wife and I was working in health care since 1971 in entire Europe - real good news. Still in 2008, very few people see or experience the fact : there is a soul and a human being behind this eyes...!
The same dramas and often huge dramas from the past are mayor obstacles the get the same good life - with quality and dignity - as the peoples around them. No way to chance work as we do, no ability to advance on job, little chance to take a new education or starting own business and chancing life completely. People with mental disabilities are often get stuck in the system, the public health care is offering. sampling pens or toys for the rest of there life...
For blind people in Scandinavia on surface no mayor problem today to get family and getting all the help around them, they need - special tools in kitchen, traffic light with sound, help in underground and buses and all library's has thousands of books on CD and cassettes. Behind this curtain, there is little help. There are very few NLP Practitioner working in this field.
The mayor part of people with special needs are treated by traditional psychiatric methods - getting medicine against depression, anxiety or getting lucky pills like candy...
A lot of work to do on this field for NLP, also in Europe.
The reason, why I like to write here, are two facts. One: My Master trainer in NLP in Denmark is blind. He participated in one of the first NLP classes, John Grinder and R. Bandler was setting up in late 70s and early 80s. He brought NLP to Scandinavia and Europe and he learned me to see ...!
He was V K and makes a lot of jokes about this. Talking about: my 3th eye or my unconscious view tells me... He told us, our preferred rep systems are not depending on the information we get from our perception system. No different occur, whether we are born blind or get later on. He was researching this for nearly 30 years in the most of the world. His name: Ole Vadum Dahl.
He started his own NLP Institute and people from all over was studying there because his knowledge, kindness, humble way to meet every single person and his excellent ability to integrate and perform the wonderful patterns and tools of NLP. Judy Robert and Tim was a part of the Trainer stuff on his Institute.
(He also started a Air taxi company, with jet planes for business people and sponsored free domestic travel for blind people).
Second: This blind man give us the opportunity to "see" the world with his "eyes".
Without TV and all the other time-thieves, he was more able to concentrate fully on NLP and his excellence was occurring much faster, then by the "seeing" people.
His ability to pick up a person between a group of 100, by hearing the name just ones,
and after a couple of minutes he was able to know all the names of the entire group, and at the same time, calibrating the slightest movements in voice of everyone single person in this group during the whole education, the 4 years to NLP Trainer, Coach or Counselor etc.
If he can use and integrate every single pattern and tool in NLP, Angel can do it.
So Angel has a lot of potential inside here self, without knowing this yet.
He also was talking about creating the eye of the tornado and step inside. For him essential. "Outside me is windy and noisy - inside me is calm and balanced...
Going in second positions with all the seeing people or being jealous and angry about not seeing like them, lifts me out of balance and I feel the storm of feelings at once", he told us.
This is where you can do a great job as a Practitioner. Finding the eye of here tornado,
and your tornado....
Keep up the good spirit Deborah
The kindest regards from Norway
Gerrith
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Debrah Roundy
Posts:17
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| 10/06/2008 10:48 PM |
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Thanks for your reply Gerrith.
I was just communicating with Angel again today. She is starting to write poetry instead of cutting herself. I told her that she could come up with at least three other ways to relieve her stressful feelings other than cutting. She came up with ten. I then invited her next time she felt compelled to cut to try one of those 10 to test it out.
Gradually she has found that the things she came up with are as or more effective than cutting and I never scolded her or told her not to, just invited her to try some other things too.
One thing that has been interesting is often she wants to know what things look like. Using the NLP skills I have developed I have been able to describe sighted things in kinesthtic or auditory language. She so appreciated it. I think this would make a fun game for an NLP training session.
Gerrith, you are very lucky to have such a sensitive NLP teacher. You must treasure your learnings.
Debrah |
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Gerrith Lassen
Posts:3
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| 10/09/2008 7:21 AM |
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Hi Deborah
The firt comes up in my mind, was the description of princess Madeleine of Sweden after a long periode of cutting here selv.
She descriped the fact, everybode around here telling here what to do, a kind of outsourcing here entire life. The only influence in own life she was able to controll by here selv, was eating / not eating and cutting. After the doctors forced here to eat after a periode of anorexia, she had only one option left : cutting. The solution for the royal family was not the solution to find 3 other ways to relive stress - they give here back responsibility for own body and mind and life. Cutting stopps at ones. Perhaps you concider this just for a moment.
In healthcare we are good to take care of all aspects and needs and spesialists and doctors know a lot more about my body and mind, as I do... The marked know what I should buy and how to life, my perents know better, frinds tell me what is good for me ... Outsourcing every aspect of my life, nothing left to me. Cutting - yes the only thing I have influence on, if you take this away from me, I am as good as invisible or death.... . This are a story from real life - a apect I did newer think about as an NLP Practitioner, Master and now Trainer and I meet this strategy also in the Scandinavian healthcare and especialy in work with people with special needs. The Intention of the system is good. To help everyone to fix there life. A lot of specialists around every single person. Pretending to know mutch more than the person do about here selv. Producing papers, making desissions. - But at the same time kits demand a lot, perhaps the husband, the society, espectations all over and the person feel like a ball in the wind. The key is inside every body. Taking back there own life. What is me, what is outside me ?
A spontanious feedback you can keep in mind - perhaps it is a pathway somtimes you need it.
Gerrith |
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Debrah Roundy
Posts:17
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| 11/02/2008 5:38 PM |
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Gerrith,
I loved your comment, "This blind man give us the opportunity to "see" the world with his "eyes". " My Angel is like that also. She opens my eyes to the problems she faces that we who are sighted are unable to see.
She is still doing well and I am glad. I do wish she lived closer so that I could work with her more.
I agree with the Princess Madeleine that cutting gave her the opportunity to have some control over her own life. It is too bad she could not have an NLP practitioner to open her world to me choices. I do think that is what made the difference for my client, realizing that she had many choices and that I accepted cutting as one, rather than condemning it. Allowed her to feel accepted and willing to try some of the other choices she had come up with and know that they were her choices, not anyone else’s.
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Don Blackerby
Posts:1
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| 11/10/2008 12:32 PM |
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Hi Debrah and Gerrith,
I want to respond to both of you and applaud both of you for your contributions to a special kind of need in our population. I work with struggling students and learning disability students but usually not to the level that both of you are talking about. So, I am kind of in awe of the work and experiences that each of you have had.
The only experience close to that with me was with a young man in his mid-thirties who had lost his eyesight when he was in the military service. He was in his mid-twenties at the time. He successfully attended and was certified by me in NLP in Oklahoma, USA. I will have to say that teaching the Basic NLP Certification Course with him in the class was a VERY exciting and interesting experience for me. I probably learned more than he did. Since I was taking the NLP Health Training at the time (around mid-90s), I decided to work with him after the NLP Certification to see if he and I could facilitate bringing his eyesight back. We had some very interesting experiences together to where I thought at various times that he was about to proclaim "I can see!!!" but alas I did not complete that journey.
My tip for you is one of those networking kind. The reason I tried to help him get his eyesight back was because a graduate of the NLP Health Training had accomplished that feat with a yound lady in her early 20s. I was SO impressed with his report back to the NLP Health Community that I wanted to try it myself.
The NLP Health Graduate had taken the Health training in the second or third year that the health training was offered (at Anchor Point in Salt Lake City, USA). The young lady was born blind (her optic nerve had never developed) and he was able to get her to see again. She eventually could see and read writing, go to movies, and had passed her driving test among many other accomplishments.
The young lady and her mother both appeared at a NLP Health Training session about 1993-95 and reported on the project--what it was like before and what it was like in the present. I believe she continued to progress but I lost touch with her and I do not remember the Health Graduate's name. HOWEVER, you should be able to obtain that information from either of the former owners of Anchor Point, Tim Hallbom of www.nlpca.com or Suzie Smith of www.nlpu.com or maybe even Robert Dilts of www.nlpu.com --all three were involved in the NLP Health Training at the time.
As a matter of fact, the story should be written up on this IASH web site. So, if you find out any more about them, I would like to hear about it. Since both of you are so inspiring maybe another inspiring story will help you both down your road to success in working with clients who are similar to her and to the clients you already have.
Anyway, good luck to both of you and bless you for your life's work and your dedication to it.
Don Blackerby |
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