Winfried Dressler wrote:
> I strictly distinguish between private and professional context and I
> would never use professional interventions in my private context like the
> family (I learnt this during my NLP-training). I don't mind to have
> workshops with the family, but I would not be the facilitator.
(snip)
You raise an interesting issue Winfried.
The problem with work that includes the emotional (in my experience) is,
if you keep that work from your family then you basically eliminate the
whole variety of your emotional experience from the one unit that is
holistic the family. That is very tricky and leads to the common
syndrome of TK, PK and TK.
TK = Therapist's Kids
PK = Preacher's Kids
TK = Teacher's Kids
The problem with applying emotional work to family is that the work is
often only "understanding" deep while family must be knowledge/intuitive
deep. In this model Understanding means literally "standing under" the
structure and realizing how it is put together. Work is usually
understanding plus intellectual play with that understanding involving
others for a specific goal that involves profit. I know of more than one
situation where an emotional worker became so obsessed with the "hunt for
knowledge," and its separation from the family, that they lived their
life there and were devastated when the family unit broke up from lack of
holistic attention. Fortune magazine made the same point about workers
who now "live" at work while "relaxing" at home.
Knowledge on the other hand is later in the development than Understanding
and involves an instantaneous holistic (intuitive) response to an
external situation for the purpose of being wise in life situations.
Love, compassion, and disciplined commitment are the tools of knowledge(of
course I am speaking of what Shakespeare calls "The marriage of true
minds") and are not always happy or easy. The cliched "tough love" hints
at this meaning. Love involves the ability to see history and its results
and making decisions based upon ultimate concern for all involved. So we
could say that Knowledge seems like intuitive, wise capability but is
really Understanding practiced to habit and experienced enough to make
clear long-term future projections followed by the ability to wisely
evaluate the results compassionately. Discipline is the commitment and
courage to complete that wise decision no matter how hard.
So family, IMHO, is involved with the same elements as the emotional
counselor but involves the Mastery of Knowledge. Only the Mastery of
Knowledge is of a high enough quality to use with the woman/man you love
and the developing hungry personality that is your child.
One last point about that is, it is better to do the family thing
environmentally rather than intellectually. The old "teacher process:"
1. create an environment in which the lesson is experienced without
words, remembering that there are many linearitys involved because
every environment must be a complete universe.
2. do it for a long time (allow it to grow).
3. introduce the lesson as a discovery, if the student doesn't get it
immediately then return to steps 1 and 2 for more experience.
4. When step three is comfortable for the student then give the learning
a name or trigger with which the student can call it up when needed.
5. Immediately apply the lesson to a completely new situation where the
situation can be solved by the process just learned.
Pedagogists say: Preparation: Presentation: New Application.
It is only "Known" if they have an immediate response to the new situation
from a place of mastery.i.e. they can DO it.
Most workers, emotional or otherwise, aren't Masters. They teach,
therapize, preach etc. the first three or four years of their training
endlessly throughout their lives. We say that a great singer retires from
thirty years of growth and mastery on the stage to teach the first year of
instruction (that he received) for the next 13 years in the college of
their choice until they retire as first year teachers. A great student
can force them to give from their performer and thus receive wonderful
work but a young student is too knowledge poor to really absorb their
mastery.
IMHO first year teachers or fourth or fifth year teachers are not Masters
enough to teach their own children. The teaching is too complex. They
should let someone else do it who has no holistic issues involved. I
believe that it is only safe to teach your child with your whole being.
They should live with their children and be with them. They learn the
darndest things from you in that situation.
If you are a parent and your child is learning your work, then just let
them be around you while you are doing it until they bring the questions.
Watch for the opportunities, be prepared and don't push.
There is another aspect to the separation between work and family and that
comes from the other side. If you pollute your client or company
emotional work with the holistic situation of the family, reality can
destroy your work. Work is much more fragile in this sense. Thank you
for the opportunity to think on this. Its been a while. Please feel free
to pick.
Regards
Ray
mcore@idt.net
--Ray Evans Harrell <mcore@IDT.NET>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>