| So we went and we spent time up in the hills with families that had been burned out or bombed out of their homes by the Serbian army and we began to teach them some of these techniques. We taught our approach to members of the Mother Theresa Society who were providing the primary health care in the countryside and we also taught them to the peacekeepers who were there from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. What we saw is that these techniques worked in these situations. People welcomed them. They might have seemed strange—nobody there in Kosovo had ever heard of Soft Belly or guided imagery or meditation, and not too many in the military had heard about these techniques either. But all of these people were willing to do the little experiments with us for a few minutes—do the Soft Belly or do some drawings, and see what came out, see how their thoughts and feelings and their problems came out on the page. And then do another drawing to see how they might find a solution to these problems that had seemed so difficult.
What happened ultimately, and it’s a longish story, is that when the NATO bombing started in 1999, we began to work in the refugee camps in Macedonia where the Kosovars had fled from the war. We began training significant numbers of health professionals. We then came back into Kosovo as soon as the NATO troops entered Kosovo in 1999 and ultimately we trained 600 people in Kosovo and developed a local faculty which continues even now to provide ongoing consultation and supervision. Our model, the same model that I use in Unstuck, is now available throughout the community mental health system in Kosovo. It’s available to two million people, and we have research on the effectiveness of our model in working with children with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Is there anything further you’d like to tell our readers?
One thing I want to add about all the techniques we use, about everything I teach in Unstuck, is that anybody can do them. This is the most important thing. Whether it’s drawings to get people in touch with what’s happening with them and to engage their capacity to use their imagination to solve the problems that they have; the expressive meditations, the quiet meditations; the written exercises that we use to help people develop their unconscious wisdom and their deep knowing about what to do about what’s most troubling to them; or the guided imagery that we use to help people get in touch with their inner knowing, their intuition. Anyone can learn and use them.
I have worked with depressed people from the age of six or seven on up to their 80s, with every conceivable kind of educational level, every kind of background and race. Everyone who is interested can use these techniques and use them in a way that they very quickly discover is helpful to them. This is important—you don’t have to have any particular background or experience to help yourself with the Unstuck approach. I’ve worked with meditation with six and seven year old kids, and gotten them to do the drawings and use guided imagery to access their inner guide—maybe a big animal that they bring with them into the situations that are most upsetting and most depressing to them—being alone or scared of challenges at school.
And this is not just for people who are depressed. These are methods that anyone can use to add fullness to their lives.
I’m glad you said that, because the book’s subtitle is “Your Guide to the Seven Stage Journey Out of Depression.” But the book is written for everyone who is troubled or confused or just going through a difficult time. And the same principles and the same techniques can apply and can be used by any of us at any point in our lives. I wrote it with a focus on people who are depressed, because I have been so troubled over the years by the way that they are treated, by the chronicity of so many people’s depression, by the easy recourse to medication, by the sense of hopelessness and helplessness so many people feel. So I wanted to say to people who are depressed that there is a way. It requires some effort and some commitment, but it’s interesting and it’s sometimes fun. And it can change your life. I wanted to say this to that group of people, whom I’ve been working with for 40 years now and who I feel such a commitment to. But I also wanted to make sure that everyone has access to this information and this perspective, because all of our lives are journeys. All of us will go through challenges. And the same principles apply and everyone can use the same practices.
What projects are you working on now? |
