ABSTRACT
In the mid-1970s, Richard Bandler and John Grinder, developers of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), studied the communication skills of three particular master psychotherapists for the purpose of deconstructing and replicating these skills in a manner that could become teachable and learnable. Virginia Satir was one of these three therapists. I had initially become familiar with many of her microskills and change patterns through the process of becoming certified by Bandler as an NLP trainer. However, when I watched Virginia in action, I felt that there was a large discrepancy between my experiences of her work and NLP’s descriptions. Later, I met a Lakota Sioux medicine man and friend of Virginia’s, Basil Braveheart, who sensed a connection between Satir and myself and put me in contact with her. During our first conversation, I told Virginia that I thought NLP’s descriptions were missing something having to do with the holistic ways she used intentional and attention energy. She agreed and confided in me that she felt guilty that her gifts were being used by some to manipulate and control, rather than to heal, people. We had tentatively planned to meet in Palo Alto, once her traveling schedule subsided, for the purpose of making the patterns I was intuiting more explicit. Sadly, Virginia died after a brief illness later that year, and our meeting never materialized. What follows depicts how I currently interact with the communication model of Virginia Satir as applied to the hypothetical case provided. For more about how Virginia’s work can be viewed in a holistic context, see Hale-Haniff (2004).
