ABSTRACT
Carl Whitaker will be remembered for his “crazy” antics in the therapy room. He encouraged his clients to leam about themselves and their family members through the symbolism inherent in interpersonal experience (Whitaker and Keith, 1981). Gary Connell (1996) related this experience with Carl Whitaker: “[Carl] once gave me a bumper sticker which read ‘Anything worth knowing can't be taught,’ to which he added, ‘It must be experienced.’” Batacca sticks are one of the experiential tools that Whitaker found useful in his symbolic-experiential mode of therapy (Kaye, Dichter, and Keith, 1986; Whitaker and Garfield, 1987).
