By the time I entered graduate school at the University of Michigan in the Social Work program, I had begun an intensive post-grad training program in Gestalt Therapy and also contracted to endure several years of training to obtain clinical membership in the Transactional Analysis Association (Stan Woolams, Kristi Huige, Mike Brown).  I continued each of these pursuits during grad school and found U of M especially responsive to helping my interests and the direction they were leading me. 

     Following grad school, I began working at Family Services and Children's Aid in Jackson, Michigan -- as the clinical director there, Lloyd Demcoe, MSW, was impeccable, intelligent, and wise. I also became a trainer for Huron Valley Institute in Dexter, Michigan. During these years I taught Gestalt Therapy, and TA and was able to acquire further training in areas including Gestalt Therapy (Betty Dickenson, Bob Goulding, Erv and Miriam Polster, John Pierrakos, etc.), body therapies (Al Lowen, John Bellis, Joe Cassium, Stan Keleman, Feldenkrais, Rolfing, etc.), cognitive therapies (Albert Ellis, Aaron Beck, Arnie Lazarus, etc.), new-identity therapy (Dan Cassriel, etc.), psychodrama (Moreno, Jacobs, etc.), Synergy (Illana Rubenfeld), Transactional Analysis (Bob and Mary Goulding, Steve Karpman, Jaqui Schiff, Charles Alias, Jim McKenna, Paul Ware, Richard Erskine, Fanita English, etc. ), and so on.  I published in a few of these areas during that time, began a private training and clinical practice and got to meet and talk to many influential therapists and philosophers around the US, including Gregory Bateson, Margaret Mead, Sheldon Kopp, Bruno Bettelheim, and so on.  I brought John Grinder out of California for the first time and had him teach my training group in Jackson. We became friends and I assisted in the modeling and early development of what later become known as NLP.  Of course, it was in this period I also began my regular contacts with Milton Erickson, in Phoenix. 

     In addition to studying with, discussing ideas with, and sometimes teaching with these larger-than-life therapists, this period of my life availed me another set of fantastic opportunities.  This part is more difficult to frame for therapists and especially for the scientifically minded.  The word is pilgrimages!  Spiritual development is often told as  tales of pilgrimages and I have been blessed to have had many.  I can only mention these destinations and the historical depth they each provide for our history, philosophy, religions, and even the history of our healing profession.  I would like to just mention and show photos I took at a few of these (each more briefly than they deserve):

 

One of the most moving was visiting the many locations in Israel including the birth place Jesus in Bethlehem and his youth-home in Nazareth  – and, of course, Jerusalem: the place of his crucifixion and burial.  Experiences here are too personal to relate and, perhaps, too obvious to detail.  The greatest part was the ability to spend a good deal of time alone, searching the depths of my experience and beliefs from childhood.       I have watched the wind lift leaves from the grounds at Epidaurus (Piraeus), Greece, as if ancient Greeks still stirred to movement at the temple of Asklepios.  Asklepios was worshiped for centuries and his followers, called therapeutes (the first therapists) established hundreds of dream houses around the Mediterranean.  The healing that took placed in Epidaurus consisted of rituals, theater, and primarily, dream houses (abatons).  The remarkable testimonials drew such famous people as Hippocrates, Socrates, and Sophocles to be follows of Asklepios.  Even Galan stated that he owed a depth of gratitude to the dream work done in the name of Asklepios.      In Japan, at the Tsubaki Taisha Jinja (Grand Shrine), I had the great opportunity to speak for several hours with Rev. Dr. Yamamoto.  Rev. Yamamoto is the 96th high priest of the Tsubaki Jinja, a Shinto shrine.  Most importantly, perhaps, as the 2nd highest Shinto priest in Japan and keeper of the ofuda (enshrinement) of a deity called Sarutahiko -Okami.  Sarutahiko is the Shinto God of guidance.  It was this deity (and with this same priest) that the founder of Aikido, Morihei Ueshiba O-sensei, became enlightened and informed of the way in which Aikido should be conducted.  Several days at Tsubaki and many purifications later, I received a misogi (purification) in the 12,000 year old sacred Koryu-Myojin's waterfall that few Westerner may experience. As my son and I left, the shrine that evening, we were all alone, save the sun down, the bamboo trees, and the harmony that surrounded, including the Spirit of Sarutahiko.      In Hong Kong the Man Mo Miu Temple is the oldest temple of Taoism in the world.  Within the temple, thick with incense, are said to be two Gods:  the God of Culture and the God of Power.  What one can not deny, in any case, is the ambience of great reverence, faith, and spirit.      In Greece, Delphi still exists on a great mountain overlooking miles of valley.  It was here that the Oracle of Delphi sat in the Temple of Apollo and gave advice on living, and guidance on healing.  Much of the Temple still stands and all of the majesty and mystery still permeates the mountain, the ruins, and the theater that stands silently and proudly in memory of all who were guided and healed of their troubles.     Then let’s consider Turkey.  The Apostle John, accompanying the Holy Mother Mary, preached and died in Turkey in and around an ancient city called Ephesus.  Traveling to Ephesus today one can still find the house wherein these teachings and guidance unfolded two thousand years ago. One of the original ancient wonders of the world, the library at Ephesus, still stands.      And there are so many more, like the Po Lin Monestary in Hong Kong, which gives the world the largest statue of Buddha and contains holy artifacts from the tomb of Buddha.  Meditation and rituals there, as in these many other sacred Buddhist places about China and Buddhist and Shinto temples about  Japan, carry the message of solitude and depth, and a balance and inner peace all healers and all patients seek.       The same is to be found in my trips to Stonehenge, the most ancient Hindu temples of Bali, the Whirling Dervishes in Istanbul, the ancient Palace of King Minos in the sacred city of Knossos, Crete, the grave of St. Mark in Venice, the Temple to Apollo in Didyma and the Temple to Athena in Priene, Turkey, and the healing pools of New Zealand.      Each of these sacred places, and few others, have touched me and impressed upon me the historical importance and spiritual value of guidance and the healing missions of people spanning thousands of years.  These have been some of the greatest gifts I have received and which have affected me at a depth I can not yet fully express in words and yet which accompanies me in every training and therapy session.

     My contact with Erickson continued long after I left Michigan, Family Services, and Huron Valley Institute.  I stopped training in Gestalt, TA, NLP, psychodrama, and body therapy and concentrated on 'figuring out' how Dr. Erickson's approach could be understood and replicated.  Also, my training was becoming worldwide and my opportunities also expanded.   I had the great fortune to talk at length with so many other luminaries like Virginia Satir, Carl Whitaker, Carl Rogers, Rollo May, Erika Fromm, Paul Waltzlawick, Dick Fisch, Jay Haley, John Weakland, Sal Minuchin, Thomas Szasz,  Murry Bowen, R.D. Laing, and Judd Marmor, etc.  Those years were wonderful opportunities that can never be recreated due to the death of so many of those great individuals. Yet, each of them helped shape the therapy and content of the training I've conducted since 1975.

     I relocated to Phoenix, Arizona in 2001 in order to work more closely with the Erickson Foundation and Jeffrey Zeig, Ph.D., continuing the relationship with Zeig that began way back in 1969 and marked the turning point of my shift from engineering and mathematics to social science and psychotherapy."