I have recently been collaborating with The Satir Institute of the Pacific (SIP) to run some workshops related to my work around Self-Connection that has been largely influenced and inspired by Virginia Satir; one the founders of family therapy. This post is primarily aimed at addressing current or possible future complaints/concerns regarding what I am and will be teaching . I hope that it will reassure anyone interested in attending a workshop that I am sincere in what I am attempting to do by trying to grow/evolve/expand Virginia’s work.
The anonymous poster makes a serious claim that I am not qualified to say what I am saying and further that it is a 'misuse'. I don’t believe this attitude or complaints is unique within the Satir community. I have already encountered it quite intensively in the past. I have experienced firsthand that the elders in the Satir community maintain a defense of what they believe and experienced of Virginia Satir’s teachings. This is an example of strict orthodox, a dogmatic approach, which defends its position (Status quo) and resists change and growth. I believe this to be the antithesis of Virginia’s work and personhood. She was someone who was constantly learning, evolving, and innovating. She would often say in workshops, “Next year this workshop will be completely different.” or “…all I am telling you is something I put together. Nothing written in blood.”
Here is the complaint for context: You can click on the link for the original post
The poster is anonymous.
The idea being expressed here is that concepts, notions and interpretations that deviate from status quo should not be allowed. This discourages innovation with Virginia’s work and is not congruent with her teachings about the five freedoms. The tone and content of this post is fear-based, rigid, closed, and intolerant. This is a good example of incongruent communication.
Thankfully, SIP is persisting in allowing me to go forward with my workshop. I am grateful. The poster criticizes SIP saying, "I don’t like seeing this notion supported by the Satir Institute." This is clearly an attempt to discourage people from attending the workshop. I am providing a thorough response to demonstrate my credentials and to assure people that SIP is on the right track as a teaching institute. I am aware that people in therapy circles are generally allergic to the word "defense” (i.e., being defensive or using defense mechanisms). However, defense is an important and healthy resource in the appropriate context and should not be neglected here. A body has an immune system to defend against viruses, a doctorate student needs to defend their thesis, a country needs to defend their borders from invasion. My hope is that this post can be a defense that is a healthy conscious response to the anonymous complaint and any concerns people may have. I hope this post can be seen as an invitation to healthy dialogue. I hope to address the theoretical concerns about incorporating the action of ‘melting’ with the iceberg metaphor (content related) as well as highlight the importance of being able to engage in healthy dialogue that is congruent with humanistic values (process related).
Virginia taught a growth model. Intolerance for other people to have their own ideas, to evolve and to grow their unique understanding is freezing the potential of what Virginia taught.
We should aim to create maps that help us navigate life and not try to maintain a rigid loyalty to “the Satir model”. The crystallization of the model in the form of an iceberg has been the freezing of its evolution. I have often wondered why more people don’t know about Virginia’s work. I believe that it is this kind of reactive energy and lack of intellectual curiosity that has held back Virginia work from reaching a larger audience.
Here are a list of points to address the Instagram complaint..
1. The iceberg was not Virginia’s invention. It was created by Jane Gerber, John Banmen, and Maria Gomori. Jane Gerber clarifies this point in the documentary produced by Jesse Carlock called An Oral History of Virginia Satir. The poster is concerned with the metaphor being misinterpreted. The purpose of a metaphor is interpretation. My addition of 'melting’ is an attempt to ground the metaphor in first principles (physics). There are many examples where my addition of ''melting the iceberg’ has been useful in my life and the lives of clients I serve. I have not heard of any feedback where melting creates confusion about the original iceberg metaphor. Only dead things do not move. We have blood that circulates throughout us, air that comes in and out of our lungs and we have bodies that move. From Virginia (Verbatim 445), “…one of the things that I have tried hard not to do, is to get a single image that will say what I do because it isn’t that, it’s process.”
2. Virginia says in Verbatim (transcription of a 30 day training) that we should aspire to the freedom of movement of water as this is the state of any healthy cell. This can be seen, for example, in her practice of ‘parts party’ where she would help people integrate disavowed parts of self by having them interact and move together in new ways. A person frozen in the way they behave, think, feel and who is unable or unwilling to move can be said to be frozen in unhealthy ways. In the survival responses of fight, flight and freeze, freeze represents the level of trauma response that is most severe and entails dissociation. The iceberg is an excellent metaphor for representing what is happening for people stuck in their symptoms. It helps people realize that there is a lot more going on than behavior. What Virginia called ‘survival coping’. Clients have remarked to me, "When I was depressed, I felt frozen." I see the connection to the living and vital Self and the therapeutic relationship, attachment, connection as the force that helps people get unstuck so they can melt the pattern, the form of their coping so they can become a choicemaker as Virginia taught.
I never liked leaving the iceberg metaphor (or the incorporation of the I AM) as part of a frozen structure. Melting the iceberg is a phrase I have been using for the last 7 years as an expansion of the iceberg metaphor to represent transformation, movement and health. When you view the podcast, (https://youtu.be/2Xeae94xJs0 starting at 1:03:00) you will see my various reasons/arguments for this.
Here they are again: Mental illness being described as a frozen state by clients, caterpillars bodies melt and are liquefied and are transformed into butterflies, ice changing into water requires melting, healthy cells being fluid, a phoenix rises from the ashes, a flowing river never grows stale, the benefits of movement on the sedentary states, pathological states of mind being frozen thoughts, feelings, expectations, etc.
The poster writes "this idea of “Melting the Iceberg” does not fit with the Satir Model." In the podcast, John expressed his concern that melting meant that something disappeared. As I explained to John, the law of thermodynamics states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, but the form changes. Ice when it melts becomes water. It doesn't disappear, instead it flows. It transforms. Anyone who has seen Virginia Satir’s work would see that she flows beautifully. I want the metaphor and language we use to match Virginia’s essence and her work. I have been studying Virginia’s work for the past 16 years what she has taught me has transformed me as a human being in all roles. My study has been active and I have found new language and metaphors that I believe point well to the essence of her work.
In my view and experience, melting the iceberg, melting the form, is an appropriate way of representing transformation of form. Isn’t it plain to see in any video demonstration when Virginia makes contact and ‘melts’ the survival coping stances and full engages the person(s) with her dynamic presence?
3. Virginia said “beware of the tyranny of the one right way”. In 2020, I presented at Satir global zoom calls on the Seed model and the Hierarchical model. I received 95% positive reviews. Their were 4 elders who vehemently disagreed with my attempt at integrating these two models. The critics refused to engage in dialogue with me and complained to the president of Satir Global and attempted to censor my presentation from being published on the Satir Global website. When one person made reference to my work as being helpful, one of the critics took two weeks to explain away my alleged 'misrepresentation' without ever naming me as the 'culprit' or inviting me to discuss or debate the issues. All of this flies in the face of everything Virginia taught about communication , congruence and connecting to the life force within people.
At this moment, I need to overcome my old scripts to placate and to avoid conflict. The Satir Institute approached me to provide workshops because they feel I have something useful to offer. I feel strongly that the iceberg metaphor and many elements of Virginia's work need to be updated , evolved and expanded. This is necessary to accurately capture and make intelligible the essence of her work and make it applicable to a wider and current audience. I am willing to debate/discuss the theoretical ideas related to Virginia's work with anyone in a public forum where it can be recorded for educational purposes. If I am wrong , teach me. I imagine a person who has already made up their mind will not accept my invitation to engage in earnest dialogue with me. My mind and my heart is open to learning and my invitation to dialogues is open to anyone who is sincere.
4. Virginia, on video, once said that she wished every person had a tail with an eye on the end of it so everyone could see themselves. We all have blind spots and no one can see their own back.
My view is the Eye, the I, the I AM, the Self, needs to be in relationship to the experience , the iceberg, which is the form of experience and of personality, not positioned at the bottom of experience. The practice of mindfulness meditation is a perspectival shift that allows for a metacogntive shift that helps individuals disidentify with their thoughts and feelings. We need to evolve the metaphor from being frozen which is the final rung of Dante’s’ hell to something flowing , moving and alive like a healthy cell. The Self is better seen as the nucleus of the cell which gives instructions to the forms of experience that serve Self’s growth. The Self must be the force that can move within, between and among the form of experience.
5. Finally, Virginia was one of the first people to teach externalization long before the narrative people.
If we can agree “you are not your experience” and the iceberg represents everything about your experience in different forms of behavior, feelings, thoughts, expectations, perceptions, (elements of iceberg) then why is the Self enmeshed with experience? In my view the iceberg metaphor does not make this distinction and communicate space between experience and the Self clear. The Self can be trapped when it is confused or identified with experience.
Instead the Self can be the leader and the creator of experience.
The Satir institute was offering trainings at a time when I needed it the most. I had been studying Virginia’s work in books and video tapes for 7 years and felt isolated since my cohort did not even have an idea about who Virginia Satir was. I am grateful to the institute then for what I gained and now for encouraging me to share what I have learned and continue to expand in my relationship to Virginia’s work.
My aim is to honour Virginia’s work by growing and nurturing the seeds she gave us. Her work has inspired me and is the foundation for my personal and professional growth.
As she said "try what I have to offer if it doesn’t fit spit it out." Here in this comment I see someone spitting but without trying anything out. The writer of this post admits not understanding what is meant yet is clear that a mistake has been made. This is not congruent with the Five freedoms (The Freedom to feel, see/hear, think, say, risk, and ask) and aims at denigrating someone’s honest attempt to evolve Virginia’s work through study of original sources, attending trainings, creating podcast interviews with Virginia’s students and colleagues and numerous discussions with Virginia's students over the course of 16 years.
Status quo naturally resists change. I can appreciate that students are protective of their teachers. But the use of threat is the antithesis of Virginia’s work. “Most of us….do not tolerate misuse of the work” The definition of intolerance is “unwillingness to accept views, beliefs or behaviors that differ from one’s own.” As Virginia said ‘No one has seen the back of their own head.” We need each other to see each other’s blind spots. Intolerance corrupts the space for healthy dialogue/connection and if we are to grow together we need tolerance and openness to alternate ways of perceiving, thinking and being in this world.
I hope we can aim to learn and grow together and further attempt to fulfill Virginia’s vision of peace within, peace between and peace among.
The Satir community needs to evolve collectively in our way of handling disagreements/differences. I see this as an opportunity to practice congruence.
The process of dialogue we engage here is as important as any content offered by a single workshop. I see it as 'practicing what we preach' ; taking theory into action.
My wish is that we can engage the resources of truth, courage, compassion, freedom and openness together.