The Assumption of Non-Objective Reality: A Missing Link in the Training of Strategic Family Therapists

Abstract

Years ago as a swimming teacher I found myself in a dilemma. I had taught groups of children in day camps for many years. Here I was with my first private student, launching a career in private practice and I couldn't get her to go in the water. My client was six-year-old Mei Mei who had been adopted by a wealthy childless couple on their foreign travels. The couple had looked forward to providing her with all the things she couldn't have before, purchasing a new home with a swimming pool for her enjoyment. But they couldn't get her to go in the water–they thought she had a water phobia, so they called me. And I tried. I offered to hold her hand, to sit on the wide pool steps together. Nothing worked. The more I tried the more she resisted. Feeling discouraged I struck up a conversation with Mei Mei's new mother who was sun bathing as she soaked her hands in a large plastic bowl preparing for a manicure. I asked her if Mei Mei was comfortable in the bathtub. She answered “Yes, as long as she doesn't get water in her face.” I had a crazy idea–borrowing the bowl, I filled it with familiar tap water, placed it on a table next to the pool and encouraged Mei Mei to splash it. After awhile I suggested that she probably couldn't blow a bubble in the bowl. She responded to the challenge and practiced all week. At the next lesson I filled the bowl with pool water and proceeded with the bubble blowing, commending her for her developing expertise. The next week we sat on the pool steps together, holding the bowl below the surface of the pool, blowing bubbles. At the next lesson, the bowl was given back to mother. Step by step Mei Mei and I moved into the pool. By the end of the summer she was swimming and diving.