Doug:         Yeah, let's do another 5 minutes or so. Okay. Related to tasking, there's a section in your book, Phoenix, that I was fascinated by and I wondered if you could comment on. It's a story about a student of Erickson's who had lost a leg as a sophomore in college. And had, up to that point, been a very outgoing, gregarious, fun loving, loved by everybody kind of guy. Then when he lost his leg in this accident and had to wear a prosthesis, he became very opposite, very withdrawn, very, kind of, depressed and antisocial and lost a lot of his friends, etc.

David:         Yeah, "Now I'm just a cripple."

Doug:         Right and Erickson devised this scheme wherein he had told some of his other students and staff to spread the word that Erickson is going to do one of his practical jokes. And he had - I'm remembering this as best I can - he had one of the students on the given day go up and hold the elevator on the fourth floor, if I recall correctly, and another person was a kind of the lookout. And another person waiting on the ground floor, sort of pushing the button saying, "I don't know, I think the janitor is holding the elevator for his paint cans or something."

And finally, a crowd gathered, people wanting to use the elevator, but they were, of course, all in on it that something was going on that Erickson was doing. And this student showed up with the peg leg and they were all waiting and waiting and waiting and finally, Erickson turned to this boy and said, "Hey, how about you and me, us Œcripples,' walk up the stairs and leave these Œable-bodies' to wait for the elevator?"

David:         Right.

Doug:         And then, they hobbled up the stairs together and basically, from that day forward, the kid was his old self again.

David:         Yeah, and if I remember correctly, then they released the elevator and everybody in the class got in the elevator and they were waiting for them at the top of the stairs.

Doug:         Oh, really?

David:         If I remember correctly, yeah. Well, I think it's fascinating. I mean, there's so much that went on there because, you know, in a sense, Erickson is aligning himself, who is a respect figure, with the guy and now we're the cripples and all the able bodies and I'm sure he used interesting tonality when he called them, Œthe able bodies,' sarcastically saying that they were just too lazy. Disdainful. So the guy was now sort of one with Erickson, if you will, and it gave him a whole other perspective. And what was amazing about it, to me, is that there was no therapy. You know, he didn't ever sit down with him and say, "Okay, let's talk about your depression" or "Where'd this happen?" or "How do you feel about this?" There was no...

Doug:         "You're just as much a man as you ever were."

David:         Right. "Yeah, what's a leg? That doesn't matter. You're just as much a man as you ever were. Now come on, buck up."

Doug:         I mean, the guy never even realized that there was therapy happening, it just did.

David:         Yeah, he doesn't need to. How about that? I don't know what to say about it beyond what you've said, you know. It's a fabulous example of Erickson thinking, "Okay, what change in perception of himself and the world does this guy need so that he can move on?"

Doug:         And how do I create it for him?

David:         Yes, and have a different sense of who he is and his own self-worth and his capabilities. And then instead of telling him that he ought to think this way and he ought to feel this way, he engineered, created an experience for him to actually feel and to perceive those things. And, of course, it doesn't necessarily - I think it should be said - that doesn't guarantee it will work.

Doug:         Right.

David:         But it does, I think, create the opportunity to have a real experience. You know, one of the things that can happen in therapy is that the problem and the person's experience gets put out on a table. And now we're talking about that experience, and a frame gets put around it so it makes it much easier for the client to, in a sense, argue with you about their experience. And to keep it at a distance. And they can agree with you, you know, "Oh, that's right" and "I see that." They can even have some kind of epiphany but, you know, we're talking about "it."

And one of the things that giving somebody either a real world task or experience in the real world, or giving them a vicarious experience through a metaphor or through trance, one of the things that really does is it strips away that dissociation. It puts the person inside the experience of change rather than on the outside talking about the change. Does that make any sense?

Doug:         Yeah, absolutely.

David:         So I think that's a really important thing to keep in mind if we're going to talk about what Erickson did - and one of the reasons why he was so effective - was that, whether it was in the real world or in the vicarious real world of a trance, he was always putting people inside of what subjectively, was a real experience for them rather than talking about them.

Doug:         Right. I think that's fascinating. That's really, really interesting.

David:         Well, should we, on that note..?

Doug:         No, I want to ask you one other question, if you don't mind. Oh, okay. All right. I know I'm pressing my luck here but I have one other thing. I have also noticed that in your work, Erickson's work, and many people's work whom I admire - Bandler, clearly - that humor plays a big part in therapy as well, and in the interventions and the way that people actually make change. Can you talk about that just for a moment? Is that a conscious, if you will, decision to utilize humor? What's the therapeutic benefit of humor?

David:         Well, it's intentional. I'm certainly not trying to be funny or make jokes. Well, let me, I don't know how to put this. Of course I do. Let's see. I certainly won't joke about everything, but I think that there's a tremendous amount of freeing that can happen when people can laugh at themselves and their own situations. I mean, what it does is it puts them, instead of inside, you know, we were just talking about being inside the experience...there are a lot of times when you want people to be disassociated.

You know, you've got people who are taking themselves so seriously that they can't see anything outside of that. Or they are so inside their sadness or their being upset that they can find no way outside of that. What makes something funny is that you are seeing yourself from a completely different perspective, which means you're seeing yourself from a dissociated position and one that's unexpected. That's what makes it funny, is that it's unexpected. And there are times when that really is important.

Sometimes it's important simply so that you can get access to this person and so that they can get access to themselves, so you can actually get them talking. There are times when you want them to be able to talk about their situation and about their problem. And humor is very good for freeing them by putting them on the outside of it. Also, humor can be used as a way to, in a sense, anchor in, program in - I don't like using those words...but teaching this person, let's put it that way, teaching a person to have a different response to some of their usual, typical patterns. So that when they get into a certain situation that they often find themselves in, because you brought them out of it through humor and joking again and again, they've learned to do that, too.

So, yeah, I think it's fine. You know, a wonderful example of a person who does that is...

Doug:         Old "what's-his-name..." Frank Farrelly.

David:         Frank Farrelly, yeah. Frank Farrelly. Fantastic. He's a master at that. Author of Provocative Therapy, a book that I think everybody, if you work with people, I think that's a book everybody ought to read. There's a lot to learn from Frank.

Doug:         Frank has actually sort of re-emerged. He's been doing some programs in England and some of his programs are available now on CD and DVD.

David:         Yes, and I think there's going to be some more coming out as I understand it.

Doug:         That's a great resource.

David:         Yes, he is. He's wonderful and his ability to help people get outside of their patterns through humor is absolutely wonderful, absolutely wonderful.

Doug:         I had a mentor in Jungian psychology once who described it a little bit as the distinction between having a problem or the problem having you or you having it.

David:         Oh, right, yeah, which would you rather have? Which situation would you rather be in?

Doug:         I have it by the tail.

David:         Yeah! Well, that's true, that's true. Get that perspective on it. It doesn't necessarily make the problem go away, but you can laugh about it.

Doug:         Right.

David:         And my goodness, what a difference that is.

Doug:         Harlan, are you still there?

Harlan:         No.

Doug:         Do you have any final questions or thoughts?

Harlan:         No, just this was a wonderful time to get inside David. He hasn't been available or out there as he used to be a long time ago and anytime you get to pick David's brain, it's like mining gold.

David:         Aha!

Harlan:         And, because you've got the marketer on the phone, David's latest book, which is all about modeling, is available only on the web at www.expandyourworld.net and it's an incredible book and DVD.

Doug:         Expand or expanding?

David:         No, expand.

Doug:         Just expand, www.expandyourworld.net.

Harlan:         And the book and DVD is just something that belongs in everybody's library. So if you don't have it yet, I would definitely go there and get it. I have mine right here. Yeah, I heartily endorse it.

David:         You hardly endorse it?

Harlan:         I heartily, heartily. A little bit, I endorse it.

David:         Are you done with this lecture?

Doug:         Yeah, pretty much.

David:         All right.

Doug:         Well, thank you so much, David. This has been great.

David:         Oh, it's been a pleasure, been a pleasure. Good night all and I'll talk with you again some time.

Harlan:         Good night.

Doug:         Good night, everyone.