Dear George: Insights into Healing Relationships

By George Linn and Jan Miller

Dear George: Insights into Healing Relationships is a book of hope and possibilities. Ive been on a healing journey most of my life. The stories you are about to read are based on my own complicated journey and my years in private practice.

Each chapter starts with "a letter to George," a psychotherapist. The letters describe the journey of George and me custom designing a therapeutic relationship. They are my effort to move beyond my past patterns of distrust for the psychotherapeutic system. We co-create something new that drastically reduces the chronic pain Ive been living with for forty years.

All the chapters have three perspectives: mine with George, a novices experiencemy daughters journey healing cancerand the points of view of veterans of the system. These people choose to work with me. They have been in the system for a long time and often have more than one diagnosis. They are system-weary and system-wise.

In my life and practice, I witness transformative shifts, which produce amazing results whether people are dealing with anxiety, depression, chronic pain, cancer, or mental illness.

We use less than 10 percent of our brain capacity, and we mostly operate from unconscious programming or habit. This is why we keep doing what we do, even though it may not work. One way to form new connections in the brain is to open ourselves to possibilities through reading about people who experience these kinds of changes.

Is your unconscious programming taking over? Are you struggling to overcome it? Dear George inspires hope, challenges conventional ideas and theories, and creates more expansive thinking and learning for those with the courage to question current practices.

No hard work no exercises. Just relax, read, and then see what happens.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Mar 21, 2013
• ISBN: 9781452568881

George Linn

Jan Miller is a lifelong explorer of the human condition. At her counselling and training center, she guides clients to challenge the limits and boundaries they place on their health, relationships, and lives. She lives in Verona, Ontario, with her husband, Dick. They have two children and four grandchildren.

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Copyright © 2013 Jan Miller.

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The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

ISBN: 978-1-4525-6887-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4525-6889-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4525-6888-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013903135

Balboa Press rev. date: 3/14/2013

TABLE OF CONTENTS

FOREWORD

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER ONE

Dear George:

Choice: Choosing Your Expert

Novice: Lisa (New to the System)

Veteran: Autumn (System-Weary, System-Wise)

Finding an Expert

CHAPTER TWO

Dear George:

The History: Why Do You Want to Know All This Stuff?

Novice: Goldilocks

Veteran: Turtle

CHAPTER THREE

Dear George:

Creating the Space and Ground Rules

Novice: Lisa

Veteran: Mantha

CHAPTER FOUR

Dear George:

Reality: Whose Reality Are We Looking at Anyway?

Novice: Lisa

Veteran: Intrepid

CHAPTER FIVE

Dear George:

Attention: Please Pay Attention to the Useful Things

Novice: Lisa

Veteran: Cobra

CHAPTER SIX

Dear George:

Fault: Whose Fault Is It Anyway?

Novice: Lisa

Veteran: Freedom

CHAPTER SEVEN

Dear George:

You’re Fired!

Novice: Lisa

Veteran: The Empress

CHAPTER EIGHT

Dear George:

What Story? It’s a Fact!

Novice: Lisa

Veteran: The Princess

CHAPTER NINE

Dear George:

Opening Possibilities through Compassion

Novice: Lisa

Veteran: Squishy

CHAPTER TEN

Dear George:

Really I’m Not Angry, Just a Little Ticked Off

Novice: Lisa

Veteran: Mary Mary Quite Contrary

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Dear George:

The Power of Language

Novice: Lisa

Veteran: June Bug

CHAPTER TWELVE

Dear George:

Rituals for Healing

Novice: Lisa

Veteran: Jax

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Dear George:

Designer Labels

Novice: Lisa

Veteran: Number-One

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Dear George:

Fraud in the System

Novice: Lisa

Veteran: Hypatia

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Dear George:

What Are Families For?

Novice: Lisa

Veteran: Tooney

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Dear George:

Moving On

Novice: Lisa

Veteran: Brook

EPILOGUE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

For Lisa and Chris, my children, whose existence calls me to be the very best I can be.

For Dick, my husband, whose loving kindness and patience with my journey still amazes me and fills my heart with gratitude and love.

For George, whose courage and compassion allowed us to co-create a healing journey. His integrity and willingness to be himself during this process helped me be comfortable in my own authenticity.

Stories do not cure problems, but they open the heart and the mind to new possibilities, they offer new choices, new understanding, renewed hope. These are the elements that treat the soul.

Clarissa Pinkola Estés

FOREWORD

Jan Miller is one of those people who makes me think, That’s the way to live a life. I have known her in different roles over the years. She is a valuable, respected colleague and the first person I refer to when I know a patient needs to be empowered in his or her own healing. People get better in Jan’s presence. She is the only person I know who backs her work with a money-back guarantee.

Jan’s book, Dear George: Insights into Healing Relationships, will empower more people in their own healing than she could accommodate in her practice. In this way it is a gift to the world. It is beautifully laid out in an accessible way that draws the reader into the work. It is a page-turner, and you’ll want to read it in one sitting because you’ll want to find out what happens. At the same time, it is to be read again and again, because there is so much material in each chapter that you need time to assimilate it to make it your own. Reading this book is therapeutic, and it is an investment in your own health.

If all of us pursued our health as Jan does, the world would be a much healthier place. I remember our work together as being a time of learning for us both. Jan brought ideas to the work, and it was an effort to keep up. It was stimulating at times; it was frustrating at times; and most of all, it was exciting to see the possibilities for healing opening up. Since our work together, I have made use of some of the techniques that arose. Now with Jan’s book we all have access to the incredible elegance of her methods for getting the most out of the resources available to us. I am grateful to her for that.

I feel fortunate that Jan chose to work with me. Some of these letters are humbling to read, and I cringe a bit. Yet honest humility is healing, and we can all use that. So, truly, Jan Miller is the real thing. Reading this book will change your life for the better. It has changed mine.

George (yes, that George) Linn, MD, FRCPC

INTRODUCTION

You will be in and out of hospitals all your life. I’ve done everything possible, and you have not improved. You will cope for a while, but not all the time.

An eighteen-year-old girl sits pale and silent, listening to a man in a three-piece suit. He is sitting behind a large mahogany desk.

I want you to know how well you did on your entrance testing for acceptance into our post-secondary program. But with your psychiatric history, we can’t accept you into a program where you’ll be working with people. Perhaps you could think of something to do with your hands.

A young woman (twenty-one years old) is listening, pale and silent. She sees the three-piece suit and the mahogany desk.

You are always going to be in pain. The problem is your approach to your condition. It’s like having to walk across a hot bed of coals, and you walk stoically, saying nothing. You need to complain and say ouch more often.

A mother with young children is pale, silent, and exhausted. She looks at the man in the three-piece suit behind his mahogany desk at the chronic pain centre. She wonders how he knows about the rest of her life, since she finds it hard enough to figure out each day.

What do you expect me to do? You’ve done everything, and you’re still in pain. What do you think you’re doing wrong?

A middle-aged woman sits across from a medical specialist, a female neurologist in a smart three-piece suit. The woman is starting to wonder if the suits are the problem.

There’s a big difference between the eighteen-year-old girl and the middle-aged woman. The girl was afraid. The woman is angry.

The girl thinks the message is about her, as she locks into various systems: mental health, medical, and educational. For many years she will listen to similar diagnoses and prognoses. She will most often be silent, subdued, and afraid.

The middle-aged woman knows the message is more about the limitations of the specialist and not about her. She won’t continue to work with any expert who has no optimism or hope for her but is still willing to experiment on her. She has learned that working under those conditions does not lead to successful results. However, she is still silent and pale.

She is angry, though, and fed up with years of listening to low or no expectations for getting the outcomes she wants in her life. She wants to work with people who can help her to get results and who have hope and optimism as part of their working style.

The unnecessary suffering created by pronouncements, diagnoses, and prognoses runs deep and can be difficult to transform. The effects of these messages delivered by experts are powerful and profound. They haunt people for years, if not all of their lives. I know this because the eighteen-year-old girl, the twenty-one-year-old young woman, the mother, and the middle-aged woman are all me, and my response to that suffering is this book.

This is my own version of that ouch recommended so many years ago. I finally found ways to move past the pronouncements, diagnoses, and prognoses to be open to possibilities—and you can too.

This book is about parallel journeys. One part is my journey with George, a psychotherapist and an expert, shared through the letters I wrote to him. These letters are a record of our developing a working and therapeutic relationship. The other parts of the book are my experiences of guiding novices and veterans through their journeys to health. These snapshots are my experiences of our relationships; their versions might be different.

A novice is a beginner, an inexperienced person—someone new to the system. The novices in this book include my daughter, on her journey with a serious health condition. Each chapter also contains a snapshot moment with a veteran. A veteran is someone with a lot of experience in a system.

These are stories of my work in supporting people who are system-weary and system-wise. They have generously given me permission to use their stories and have all chosen pseudonyms to reflect their journey and protect their privacy. The stories come together to help you generate ideas of how you can be your own expert, trust yourself, and get the experts in your life to work with you.

The letters to George, which reflect my journey to health, and the two snapshots in each chapter are not a how-to manual for working with experts. Instead, I hope you will find these stories activate your own thinking in new and creative ways. Relax, read, and let your brain do the work.

CHAPTER ONE

Dear George:

I am looking for someone to work with me for a few sessions, specifically with my history of status migraines.

I appreciated your input on the research project I did for my Health Certification Training course with the NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) World Health Community. When our mutual friend Jim said you would be interested and supportive of it, I was at first sceptical. I didn’t know you, but I have my own bias of your profession. You were an invaluable asset. Since I was examining my work with people experiencing multiple chronic and acute health conditions, I realized that you work with many of the same kind of issues. I was excited that the research showed statistically significant improvement for each participant. You observed that researchers are happy with results regardless of outcomes as it gives them a starting place for a new hypothesis. I guess because I am not a researcher by profession, my bias was for positive outcomes. In the work I do in both my personal and professional life, I believe everyone can get results, and I want and expect them for myself.

You were interested and supportive of my approaches and seemed to understand what I was trying to do. This is why I’m asking you to work with me now. With my request that you consider me as a patient, it’s important that we both have choices about if and how we might work together.

I’ve been experiencing status migraines since 1971. At that time I was making a major transition from an environment where psychiatry had been playing a large role in my life. I moved to a new town; no one knew me. I decided I’d be a different person, the kind who wouldn’t need the particular services I did in the past. It was a difficult time, but nonetheless a successful transition—with one exception. I started having migraines. They soon became overlapping and continuous, which generated the diagnosis of status migraine.

My goal is to be free of migraines. I think that goal is a good one, yet I seem to lack energy when I think of achieving it. My intention is to work with someone who can help me reframe old experiences. Specifically, I’m looking for someone who can go beyond history, diagnosis, and prognosis, to help me think about that transition time and its consequences.

My metaphor for what I’ve been doing over these past thirty years is this: I’ve been working with a large puzzle with many tiny pieces. At first I was trying to find the pieces I thought were missing. Then I was sorting and grouping them. I even thought I had whole sections put together. However, I’ve spent a lot of time and energy trying to figure out how to exclude the difficult psychiatric years, since I think that part ruins the look of the puzzle. I would like you to help me include those pieces in a way that lets me recognize them as an essential part of my journey.

My health goal is possible. I know people who have turned around difficult diagnoses. I am capable of doing it, which means I believe I have the skills and resources needed. It’s important for me to work with someone who believes in possibilities too. I want someone who understands that I have been in this process for a long time. I have made changes. I no longer believe there are missing pieces to this puzzle.

Just so you know, in making this request, I’m also deciding not to hold it against you that you are a conventionally trained psychiatrist—an expert. I will do my best to keep any relationship we develop as free as I can of preconceptions from the past. The fact that you work in a traditional psychiatric setting at the hospital is a little more of a stretch, but again I knew this would be part of the package when I decided to ask you to work with me.

If you are interested in my request, please contact me.

Sincerely,

Jan Miller

Choice: Choosing Your Expert

When life gets complicated, we feel stuck, which in my case resulted in a kind of paralysis. As things went from bad to worse, I kept waiting for someone else to do something. I felt ill-equipped to figure it out and hoped with each referral that the expert would show up and fix things. In my mind, an expert was the person who specialized in this kind of problem. When nothing was changed or fixed, my reaction was to be quiet. I certainly didn’t think I had much to offer. After all, if I knew what to do, I wouldn’t have to be there. I didn’t feel there were any choices. Referrals happened. Sometimes I was informed of the referral, and sometimes it was a surprise. I felt like I was in a small boat tossed on the ocean, hanging on as best I could.

Now I know that there are many opportunities for choice, and it’s okay to ask for things as they make sense or occur to me. I’ve learned that I can choose who I want as my expert. Some experts are even open to being interviewed.

In the case where a consultation has been arranged, it’s still possible to meet the person for the first appointment and decide if this relationship will be helpful to you or not. You can offer choice as well. After all, some experts may be just as surprised to see you as you are to see them. In some systems, people get the next available person rather than the best fit.

It’s important to remember there can be choice over the kind of care you get. Most experts have a preferred way of operating. They have a range of skills and can be flexible if you work with them and guide them as to what works best for you. In a healthy relationship, everyone takes responsibility for his or her part.

Remembering you have choice will help you ask for what you want. We always have power, even if it is to choose our attitude about what is happening. When we start choosing what we want, we start taking responsibility for our lives. It can be very freeing to be part of creating our experiences and changing them if we so desire.

Victor Frankl, the author of Man’s Search for Meaning, writes, When all seems to be snatched away, what alone remains is the last of human freedoms—the ability to choose one’s attitude in a given set of circumstances.

Novice: Lisa (New to the System)

A Novice Learns about Choice

We are sitting around the living room. We have a family friend visiting. She’s had surgery, and since she lives alone, she has come to our house for a couple of weeks to recuperate. She is complaining about her aches and pains, and in true supportive manner, we all join in.

I’ve got a stiff arm, says my husband, Dick, cheerfully.

My leg’s got a bruise, pipes up our thirteen-year-old son, Chris.

I’ve got a bump, says our fifteen-year-old daughter, Lisa, pulling her T-shirt down off her collarbone. Sure enough, there sits a most unusual bump.

There’s a sudden silence. This is a showstopper.

How long have you had that? I ask.

I don’t know. Suddenly she looks like a fifteen-year-old. She yanks her shirt up and gives a look that says, It’s none of your business. I’ve been seeing this look more often since the onset of adolescence.

My very loving husband and excellent father to both our children, suddenly out of character, says, You will go to the doctor!

Predictably, Lisa flounces out of the room, announcing, I will not!

It’s funny how some things stand out in life—at least, for me they do. It’s as if this situation is being marked out for me. She’s fifteen, and we could push her in all the wrong directions without even trying.

I feel like a referee, blowing my whistle and sending everyone back to his or her corner. I follow Lisa to her room. I knock. Can I come in? There’s a grunt that I take as permission.

That’s an unusual bump, I say, hoping I sound casual. Do you know anyone else who has one?

Another grunt—sounds like a no.

I decide not to be put off. Since it’s rather unusual, is there a reason you wouldn’t want to have it checked out by the doctor?

I’m not going to the doctor. He’s a man, and I’m not taking any of my clothes off.

Oh. Relief washes over me. Of course! Fifteen—how could I forget? Naturally, this would not be a cool thing to do. I could go with you if you like, I offer helpfully and hopefully. If you don’t want to remove any clothes, I’ll be there, and no clothes will be removed.

It’s a good offer. Both my kids know how little tolerance their mother has for any professional or expert messing about in their lives.

All right, then, I’ll go with you, she says reluctantly.

The family doctor isn’t too worried, since she has no other symptoms, and he puts her on antibiotics for a week. A week later, he checks, and the lump hasn’t changed. I think she should see a paediatric specialist, he says. I know one.

I ask, An expert? I’ll think about it and get back to you.

I drive the five minutes to our home. My husband hands me the phone at the door. I take it and hear my doctor’s voice.

I have a friend who’s a paediatric specialist. I could get you in there tomorrow. I really think you should go.

I recognize the pleading in our doctor’s voice, and I also recognize the careful and reasonable way he’s talking—that don’t jump off the bridge voice. I’ve heard this voice before. It’s also the one I’m now using with my fifteen year old. Okay, that’s fine, I say.

The next day, we go to the specialist, and we find he’s nice, not pushy. He’s also quite insistent. He can get us in to see his friend, a paediatric surgeon, in two days.

If it was my daughter, I’d go, he says.

I’m starting to feel alarmed. In my job, I sometimes work as an interpreter in the area hospitals, and I know that getting in to see specialists takes months. There is no tomorrow or the next day in this system.

Another expert, and he’s using if it was my daughter, I’d go ammunition. He may have been warned by my family doctor about my tendency to slow everything down. Lisa is agreeing to take time off school. This expert sure knows how to appeal to adolescents. I guess we’re going to see his friend. There are a lot of friends in this system. I don’t remember that from my past.

The paediatric surgeon is a nice young woman. Lisa agrees to take off some of her clothes. I stay with her. This woman is very matter-of-fact. She can get us in for a biopsy within a day or two.

It might be nothing, she says reassuringly. Lisa has no other symptoms. And she loves animals—there is this thing called cat-scratch disease that makes the glands swell. But a biopsy will say for sure.

A couple of days later, I’m sitting in the waiting room for day surgery outpatients. It’s full of people, and the only empty chair is next to me. Some people are nervously leafing through magazines, some comforting fussy children waiting to go in for their procedure. Others, pale and silent, like me, are sitting quietly, waiting.

The young female surgeon appears and sits in the empty chair next to me. It will be seven days for the results. She reaches out and grabs my arm—or does she just put her hand on my arm? If this was my child, I’d be very worried, she says.

Suddenly I’m in a kind of split attention, like I’m a computer with two screens pulled up at once. One screen has this nice young woman who is obviously worried and has hold of me. The other screen has the people in the waiting room. Poor things, you should not be hearing this just before you go in for your procedure. It will probably now take a lot more anaesthetic to get you under.

What would you be worried about? Would you be worried about cancer? I ask. There. The word has been said. I say what no one else is saying.

It’s too early to say. We’ll know in seven days, she says. She looks upset. I wonder if I should try to comfort her. I think she’s given up the idea of cat-scratch disease.

I need to get out of here. I feel like the oxygen levels in the room are dropping. I know someone in this hospital, a woman. She and her family are friends through my husband’s theatre involvement. She’s an occupational therapist. I go to the reception area of her department and ask if she’s there. They say she’s with a patient.

I have to see her. The tears are starting to flow; the silence is about to be broken. The reasonableness is starting to fade.

The receptionist looks appalled. I can put you into a little room and get her as soon as I can, she says.

A broom closet would do—anywhere quiet and private.

The room is typical of hospitals, a couple of not-too-comfortable chairs, a small desk, things hanging off the wall for blood pressure. I sit and feel the disintegration of the positive, reasonable wife and mother who’s been taking charge this past week. The eruption comes from a place deep inside, and I shake with sobs and tears.

My friend arrives. What’s happened? She looks shocked to see me like this.

I sob uncontrollably. I can’t speak.

There’s some kind of time distortion happening. I’m somewhere forward in time, or is it back in time? Breathing seems impossible. Where did the oxygen go? Finally, I choke out, "No one will be positive about this. We have to take a positive approach, but no one is going to go along with being positive."

I hear a small voice in the distance. I’ll be positive Jan, I will.

That gets my attention. I look at her finally with pity. No, you won’t. I know this world, and you will want to but you won’t know how.

This will never do. I’m exhausted. If I fall apart like this, I’ll never be any