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 (with Dr. Stan Woolams, MD).  I continued each of these pursuits during grad school and found U. of M. especially responsive to helping develop my interests and the direction they were leading me. 

 Following graduate school, I began working at Family Services and Children's Aid in Jackson, Michigan -- as the clinical director, Lloyd Demcoe, MSW, was impeccable, intelligent, and wise.  During this period, I also became a trainer for Huron Valley Institute in Dexter, Michigan where I began teaching and training. 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), body therapies (Al Lowen, John Bellis, Joe Cassium, and received Rolfing), cognitive therapies (Albert Ellis, Aaron Beck, Arnold Lazarus), new-identity therapy (Dan Cassriel), psychodrama (Jacobs, Moreno), Synergy (Illana Rubenfeld), Transactional Analysis (Bob and Mary Goulding, Steve Karpman, Jaqui Schiff, Charles Alias, Jim McKenna, Paul Ware, Richard Erskine, Fanita English, Jerry and Terry White, and others. ).  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,  Erik Fromm, Erika Fromm, Bruno Bettelheim, and others.  I brought John Grinder out of California for (what I believe was) the first time and hired him teach my training group in Jackson, Mi.  We became friends and I assisted in the modeling and early development of what later become known as NLP.  Almost simultaneously, I also began my regular contacts with Milton Erickson, in Phoenix. 

     My contact with Erickson continued long after I left Jackson 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.  By this point, my training to professionals had become worldwide and my opportunities also expanded.   I had the great fortune to study with and sometimes talk at length with so many other luminaries like Gregory Bateson, Bruno Bettelheim, 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.  Sadly, many of these individuals have now passed (Bateson, Bettelheim, Satir, Whitaker, Rogers, May, Fromm, Weakland, Bowen, Laing, Marmour, and Haley) and am I amazed to have ever had the chance to be with them.  These 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 me shape the therapy and content of the training and therapy I've conducted since 1975.

I relocated to Phoenix, Arizona in 2001 in order to work more closely with the Erickson Foundation and teach at Arizona State University.  For five years, beginning in 2003, I was the founding and Executive Director of the Phoenix Institute of Ericksonian Therapy and a faculty of the Intensive Training programs.  I began a five year contract as the Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis in April 2005. As a result of the finical decline of 2008, ASU suffered severe budget cuts that, in addition to other cutbacks, even resulted in closing one of their campuses - the West Campus where I taught.  I also taught my last Erickson workshop at the end of 2008 as I have written and taught all the ideas and information I had about his approach for both scholarly and professional publications.

It seems to me that the spirit of dedication needed to learn therapy skills has changed over the last three decades.  Since Erickson's approach cannot be learned in a weekend or a week, many therapists do not have sufficient opportunity to truly learn it.   In addition, there has been no empirical research on Erickson's approach other than that simulated by my articulation of his technique (Matthews and Mosher) and by the Ericksonian Monographs (i.e. Nugent and others) in over two decades.   While Erickson's name is prominent, very few professional  practitioners are cognizant of the fundamentals pillars of his approach nor are many able to affect the changes he did.  

In early  2009 I reshaped my training efforts away from those efforts in order to promote interventions of positive psychology and tools of intention to other professions.  I am continuing in private clinical  practice as an LCSW. 

New Topic

     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 briefly mention these destinations and the historical depth they each provide for  history, philosophy, religions, and even the history of our healing profession.  I would like to describe photos I took at a few of these (each more briefly than they deserve, to be sure):

 

One of the most moving was visiting the many locations in Israel including the birth place Jesus in Bethlehem and his Mary and Joseph's 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 them 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 what is said to be 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, I suppose, the Spirit of Sarutahiko.      In Hong Kong the Man Mo Miu Temple is said to be 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 foundation still stands and all of the majesty and mystery still permeates the mountain, the ruins, and the amphitheater.  They stand silently and proudly in memory of all who were guided, healed of their troubles, or advised in decisions with enigmatic words from the Pythia.     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.       Located in Southern England, this nearly 3,000 year old structure has almost been the poster-child for inspiration.  When Stonehenge comes to mind, there is little to say beyond emphasizing the deep mystery that draws you that and stays with you after you depart.  The same is to be found in many other trips.  I haven't put together the same elaborate display for many of them yet.  But here are a few photos of 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 interior of  St. Mark's Basilica 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 a 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.

**Please note:  For ease of reading I have left the credentials off of all the names on this page.  However, each of these individuals, unless otherwise noted, are doctors of psychiatry or psychology and have earned an MD or PhD, or both.  My apologies go out to all those listed here who would prefer for his or her degree to have been listed.