Creation requires that we begin with nothing - anything else is mere rearrangement. We can only create a new house if we first clear the block or we are renovating. We can only create a new document if we begin with a blank page, otherwise we are editing.

One of the key characteristics of the Ericksonian approach is creativity – to get past any preconceptions of how a client should be, change, respond, and be open to them as they are. One therapeutic option is to begin with some formulation, diagnostic schema, or preplanned treatment and apply it – a rearrangement of the client [always for their benefit, but from the wisdom and power of the therapist]. Erickson invited us into another approach - to give the client as much opportunity as possible to explore their own experience, their own resources, their own goals. This process is creative and requires that we remove anything in the way, so there is then nothing in our way of assisting the client to achieve their experience of having nothing preventing them from becoming how they wish, or perhaps really are.

In 1984 I was completing a personal development programme called “The EST Training” and was one of 150 or so people sitting with my eyes closed, following instructions and imagining that the person on either side of me was dangerous to me, than 2 then 4, then 10 people on either side of me were dangerous to me, then the whole room, then the whole of Melbourne, then Australia, then the world. It was a truly terrifying experience. Then the process changed. If a person on either side of me was dangerous to me, I must be dangerous to the people on either side of me. if 2, 4, 10 were dangerous to me, I must be dangerous to these 2, 4, 10. This extended to the room, Melbourne, Australia, the world. The whole world was frightened of me. At some point, the terror transformed itself into the greatest joke of my life, and the total absurdity remains with me to this day, and continues to tickle my experience just by me remembering it.

How could terror transform into absurdity? There must have been a pivotal point – a nothing point. But how can we get to that point of transformation?

Lao Tzu wrote 2 ½ thousand years ago in #11 of his Tao Te Ching:

“Thirty spokes share the wheel’s hub;

It is the centre hole that makes it useful.

Shape clay into a vessel;

It is the space within that makes it useful.

Cut doors and windows for a room;

It is the holes which make it useful.

Therefore profit comes from what is there;

Usefulness from what is not there.”

Listening is one of the fundamental acts, if not the fundamental act of the solution oriented approach. When we assume that clients have resources, and only experience problems when disconnected from these resources or their resourcefulness, we will naturally want to listen for what resources may be missing in their problem experience, where these resources may already be present in their functioning life, how this particular individual connects experiences, learns experiences, embodies experiences. All these processes involve listening to the particular client rather to some theory, or our own ideas of what might be helpful.

Scott Miller, Barry Duncan & Jaqueline Sparks [“The Myth of the Magic Pill” Psychotherapy in Australia vol 6 no 3 May 2000] write about the importance of listening to the client’s experience, their stories, their goals to form a strong therapeutic relationship. Michael Lambert’s 1992 research is quoted in The Family Therapy Networker July/August 1997 by Barry Duncan, Mark Hubble & Scott Miller “Stepping off the Throne” p27 & 28, in which client factors were responsible for 40% of clients’ improvement, therapeutic alliance for 30%, and technique for a mere 15%. This adds further weight to the importance of listening to the client.

We can know about this, but are so easily seduced into listening to our own thoughts, ideas, plans, outcomes, that we can become deaf to the client’s experience. The temptation, then, can be to label the client as difficult, resistant, having secondary gain, etc, instead of recognizing our own rigidities. Letting these go, while a challenge, can be so rewarding for both sides of the conversation, and nothing is again the issue here.

We have all learnt this, so why is it so difficult, or even near to impossible at times? A colleague reported feeling uncomfortable, saying she felt I was “teaching at her” in a conversation. Her comments had the effect of quieting my thoughts about what should be happening, and the resulting space, or nothing, opened my seeing of her so she actually appeared out of the blur I had unwittingly created. In getting to nothing I could put aside my projections, so we could begin to create a useful and relevant interaction together. 

How often do our clients tolerate us not listening, hoping that one day, someone, anyone,   ANYONE  might see them, hear them, recognize them?

This brings the question “How can we listen to a client, when we are attuned to listening to our own thoughts about the client?” and invites exploration of quieting, if not silencing our thoughts, or perhaps loosening our attachment to them. How can we get to nothing?

When I read Lao Tzu, chapter 56 of Tao Te Ching: “Those that know do not talk. Those that talk do not know” I was reminded of Erickson’s invitation to “observe, observe, observe”. How can we actually achieve this? How can ensure that our thinking and speaking doesn’t interfere with our listening to our client? Perhaps sometimes silence …?

Various writers have commented about this issue. The entry for January 14th in The Dalai Lama’s Book of Daily meditations is: “Sometimes one creates a dynamic impression by saying something. And sometimes one creates as significant an impression by remaining silent.” Wittgenstein’s words “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one should pass in silence”, while they invite silence, also hint, to me, at a respectful listening without trying to explain, and in a mood of wonder and acceptance. Lao Tzu again points to this in chapter 64 of Tao Te Ching: “Knowing nothing needs to be done is the place we begin to move from” and this doesn’t necessarily mean we should sit paralysed, but rather to avoid pushing the river, and merely take action to remove obstacles so there is then nothing in the way of the natural flow. From Lao Tzu again in chapter 32, “Tao in the world is like a river flowing home to the sea.”

Sue-Ann Post wrote in the Today section of The Age, page 1, 10.11.200, “I reckon my cats do absolutely nothing 90 per cent of the time. Now that’s what I call a role model.” With the frantic pace of contemporary life, we all want to learn from such a wise animal.

Erickson’s invitation into hypnosis might include “You don’t need to listen to me. You don’t need to attend to my words. You don’t even need to keep your eyes open, but you can close them NOW” and is echoed by Joseph Barber’s soothing suggestion “With nothing to bother and nothing to disturb”

I appreciate Heidegger’s listening from the clearing which, by finding ways to connect, blend, meld, merge with the other [person, forest, experience], allows us to experience nothing separating us, no boundaries, and permits an immediate gateway into the spiritual realm to appear. For me, this is the place to listen from, a place where listing becomes possible.

But there’s always something. This has even become a cliché. If it’s not the gas bill, it’s the car registration. if it’s not the cleaning, it’s the painting. if it’s not the lawn, it’s the garden – always something in the way of the nothing that we seek.

Also we humans are so intriguingly ambivalent. We can hang out for a holiday, and when it happens, we get bored. We are desperate for THE relationship, and then find ourselves singing the line from Peggy Lee – “Is that all there is? …”

We know the bliss of nothing but seem to fall into filling that nothing with something, even anything. Just as nature abhors a vacuum, human nature abhors the experience of nothing. So there is an area for learning, for exploration, for wondering that emerges from this dilemma – how can we get past the something, the anything, and experience nothing so that what we are seeking has at least the possibility of appearing?

A person can sit, and even though there can be sensations, there isn’t really any need to attend to those sensations that don’t require attention . They can be there, somewhere in the background, but they can be ignored. Even though they are there, it can be as if they aren’t there at all.

A person can be reading, attending to the experience, having their own thought, making their own connections, creating their own learning, and at the same time, there is no need to count the words, recognise individual letters. They can disappear into the general experience of attending to the images, and even though there are many potential diversions, these diversions seem to disappear and the texture, the experience of the story itself can be where the attention simply finds itself.

The same person can listen to music, to the sounds of nature, to the silence of a sunset, and even though there may be other sounds, even though there may be the sounds that are there, or the silence, all this can become background, and only the important and relevant sounds or lack of sounds can be what is attended to.

It is also possible for sensations, stories, pleasurable sounds to also begin to disappear, so then a rather delightful numbness, a sense of peace, and a silence can be there, perhaps the kind of peaceful silence that we could experience if we were in the middle of outer space, or in the middle of inner space, or in the middle of nowhere, or in the middle of somewhere, without needing or even wanting to be concerned about inner or outer, somewhere or nowhere, but simply, peacefully, completely freed and immersed in the experience with nothing happening to disturb the fullness of the sense of peace and completeness.

We can look at the night sky, imagine being somewhere there, nowhere in particular, and watch the universe turn slowly and silently around that experience, and in the experience of allowing such an experience, we can only wonder what might appear in the spaces between the planets; in the spaces between the stars, in the spaces between the spaces as we could look out into the infinite space that the universe is. To be in this experience and then return from it can be an opportunity to look with fresh eyes, listen with fresh ears, experience some event, place, person or interaction and experience it as if for the first time, with nothing in the way of that freshness, that newness, that immediacy.

As you experience whatever is happening at any moment, there is no need to attend to the experience in any particular way; no need to attend to sensations that are of no concern; no need to attend to noises that are not relevant; but simply, relaxedly, effortlessly, allow the experience that is happening to be an experience that can in some way become a space for some new appreciating, some new recognition, some new opportunities to appear, as if from nowhere, not needing to have a use that is immediately apparent, and perhaps only after, or not even then, so that in some way, there can be more room, more space more opportunities to experience the wonder, the miraculous possibilities, the subtle and delightful experiences that are there, that we are, waiting to be experienced, whenever we take the time, create the space, allow the opportunity for whatever that might be to become visible, to appear out of nowhere, or somewhere, or wherever, so we have an opportunity to see them, to hear them, to experience them.

We can find ourselves sitting with a client, becoming absorbed in their experience, and allow any of our own thoughts, out own ideas, our own images, to drift into some silence, so not only can we disappear as an entity, not only can the client disappear as an entity, not only the floor, the walls, the ceiling, the furniture disappear into that same space, but there can then be an experience of total spaciousness and peace, which can then be experienced in any way that is of benefit, or value or use to the client, as they connect in their own way with their own resourcefulness – with the resourcefulness of the universe which surrounds them, and us, and contains an infinite variety of opportunities for learning, for developing, for experiencing.

And as with so many experiences, it’s never necessary to fully or even partially recognise or understand the process of experiencing precisely what is needed to have that be come a part of our reality, because, after all, reality belongs to the universe, and it can be such a wondrous delight to explore some small aspect of what that might be, and how it might relate to us and to our future – individually and shared.

It is possible, then to have some awareness of this experience and have it exactly where it needs to be to be accessible, always with a sense of peace and fulfilment. And that is why I want to thank you for the opportunity to share this experience with you, and the less of me, the more of you can be available for your experience of what can be useful and relevant and satisfying for you, your future and your learning.

Rob