Further Clinical Techniques of Hypnosis: Utilization Techniques ↑
meta_eugzol в посте Metapractice (оригинал в ЖЖ)
Reprinted with permission from The American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, July 1959, 2, 3-21
EXAMPLE 14
A 70-year-old woman born in a rural community had not been allowed to attend school, since her parents did not believe in education for women. At the age of 14 she married a youth of 16, whose formal education was limited to his signature for signing checks and “figgering.” The bride was pleased with her husband’s greater education and resolved to have him teach her, since she resented her lack of schooling. This hope did not materialize. During the next six years she was kept busy with farm work and pregnancies, but she did learn to “figger” excellently but only mentally, since it was apparently impossible for her to learn to write numerals. Neither was she able to learn to sign her name.
At the age of 20 she hit upon the idea of furnishing room and board for the local rural schoolteacher, with the intention of receiving, in return for reduced rates, the much desired instruction in reading and writing.
Each school year for the next 50 years she made and kept her agreement, and the teachers hopefully began the attempt. Finally, some soon, others only after prolonged labor, abandoned the task of teaching her as hopeless. As the community grew, the number of teachers increased until she was boarding, year after year, a total of four. None succeeded, despite the sincerity of her desire and the honesty of their effort. Her children went through grade school, high school, and college, and they too tried to instruct their mother but without results.
Each time she was given a lesson, invariably she developed, after the manner of a seriously frightened small child, a state of mental blankness or a state of frantic, disorganized effort to please that led to a total impasse.
It was not that “Maw” was unintelligent. She had an excellent memory, good critical judgment, listened well, and was remarkably well informed. She often gave strangers, through her conversation, the impression that she had a college education, despite her faulty grammar.
At the time she was seen by the writer, she and her husband had been retired for some years, but she was still boarding teachers, three at that time. These three had made it a joint project for several months to teach her the elements of reading and writing but were finally forced to give up. They described her as:
It’s always the same. She starts the lesson period full of enthusiasm and hope, and that’s the way you feel, too. But inside of a minute you’ll swear that you must be talking a foreign language to her because she doesn’t understand a thing you say or do. No matter what you say or do, she just sits there with those eager, troubled eyes, trying hard to make sense out of the nonsense you seem to be saying to her. We’ve tried everything. We’ve talked to some of our friends who have tried. She is just like a badly scared child who has blanked out completely, except that she doesn’t seem scared but just blanked out. Because she is so intelligent, we just couldn’t believe that she couldn’t learn easily.