Flow and Family Therapy:
In Praise of Lightening Up

Fred Piercy and Tim Nelson

Purdue University

Fred P. Piercy, Ph.D., is head of the Department of Human Development, 366 Wallace Hall, Virginia Tech University, Blacksburg, VA 24061-0416

Tim Nelson is an assistant professor of family therapy at Bethel College, Mishawaka, IN

Flow and Family Therapy:

In Praise of Lightening Up

"I wish to become the finest martial artist in the land, the boy said to the master. "How long must I study?

"Ten years at least, the master answered.

"Ten years is a long time, said the boy. "What if I studied twice as hard as all your other students?

"Twenty years, replied the master.

"Twenty years! What if I practiced day and night with all my effort?

"Thirty years, was the master's reply.

"How is it that each time I say I will work harder you say it will take longer? the boy asked.

"The answer is clear, " the master replied. When one eye is fixed on your destination, there is only one eye left to find the way.

— from Fields, R., Taylor, P., Weyler, R., & Ingrasci, R. (1988).

Sometimes less is more. It's a way of thinking that doesn't come naturally to many of us. Our culture tells us that the harder we try the better we'll do. But sometimes too much effort can cut us off from our own best resource — ourselves. When family therapists are overly serious or anxious or try too hard, they become less helpful.

On the other hand, therapists who are "in flow do more by thinking less. According to Csikszentmihalyi (1990):

...flow is the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter. The experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it (4).

Flow occurs when people lose themselves in sports, the arts, teaching, writing, sewing, mountain climbing, even in conversations with others. When individuals experience flow they feel exuberant, peaceful and totally connected with themselves and others (Piercy & Nelson, 1999).

Perhaps you have experienced flow in therapy — times with your clients when:

• you are challenged, but feel up to the challenge;
• your head and heart are congruent;
• you expect the best;
• you are passionate about your work;
• time and space seem to melt away;
• you are totally yourself;
• you feel focused;
• you trust the process;
• you are fully human; and
• you feel like you make a difference.

The fundamental prerequisite for flow experiences in therapy is confidence in the process. You are fully present and have a positive sense of expectancy (yet no rigid expectations), a trust that good things will happen as you let go of your picture of what needs to happen. In other words, flow comes when you can lift yourself out of a "gotta-try-harder mentality and connect in the present with the best in your clients and in yourself (Piercy & Nelson, 1999).

Unfortunately, our overachieving society teaches us all about hard work, but very little about letting go, trusting our natural abilities, being passionate, and being fully present. What can we do to experience flow in our work as family therapists? Below are a few suggestions.

For Family Therapy Trainers

Robin William's character in the film Good Will Hunting, had it right. Real learning comes through what we experience day to day. Family therapy training should include intellectual knowledge, but should also encourage trainees to connect their real world experiences, abilities and passions to their work as family therapists. Several of our students here at Purdue entered our family therapy program with life-passions that have guided their family therapy education and future professional lives. Judith Myers Avis, for example, applied her passion for feminist thinking to family therapy and has become a leader in feminist family therapy (Avis, 1989, 1992). Cleve Shields brought into our field a background in philosophy and religion that allowed him to provide a cogent critique of the "new epistemologies (Shields, 1986).

David Mackinnon, with his MBA and banking background, was a natural to apply cost analyses to family therapy (Mackinnon, 1998). The careers of these and other family therapists blossom when they apply their passions to family therapy.

Joy is often another missing ingredient in family therapy training. Csikszentmihalyi (1990) says that flow comes when a task is a challenge, but not so challenging that it discourages. Too much challenge, and we get discouraged, too little challenge and we get bored. As family therapy educators, can we challenge without discouraging? Can we connect our students' present passions to our field? Can we provide trust, encouragement and safety so our students can let go and find their best selves? Do we encourage joy? Do we pay attention to times when their spirits and passions fill the room? We believe we should teach our field's theories and interventions, but we should also encourage students to remain close to their own personal strengths, passions, values, and internal wisdom as they experiment with family therapy theories and make them their own.

For the Practicing Family Therapist

The challenge for practicing family therapists is to recreate a system that fits the best in them. Ackley's (1997) Breaking Free of Managed Care is a good resource toward this end. Ackley offers some great ideas to help you identify your strengths and build your practice around them.

Self-reflection also helps. What about therapy has brought you joy in the past? What were you doing when you felt most effective, most fully human in therapy? How can you recapture this feeling? How can you laugh more in therapy?

Perhaps you can create a support group of other therapists dedicated to asking questions about passion, love, connecting, and how to bring them into being. You entered this profession to make a difference and to be uplifted in the process. If that's not happening, you need to look for reasons and solutions.

In the spirit of creating joy in our work, here are a few ideas to consider:

Schedule "down time in your schedule for regrouping, relaxing, meditating, and connecting with your colleagues.

Invite someone into your practice that you like and respect, someone who will support and energize you and your work.

Hang pictures in your office of those who give you joy — your partner, your children, your dog, your heroes — those who make you feel lighter.

Start or end your sessions with a riddle or a joke.

Teach a magic trick to the children you see in therapy. Read stories aloud with them.

Learn to juggle.

Check your clothes closet and ask yourself, "How good am I at letting go? Then do some spring cleaning.

Give homework assignments that involve looking for wisdom in cartoons like "Cathy and "Peanuts, or books by A. A. Milne and Dr. Seuss, or recent movies or videos.

Ask your clients to bring in and tell you about photos of times when they were most joyful.

Conduct a therapy session in the park, or while you walk with a client.

Make time for other joyful experiences, both inside and outside the therapy room.

Case Example

Karla, a family therapy doctoral student, was a master at flow. When she died unexpectedly last year, many of her friends, colleagues, and clients lined up to remember her at her memorial service. Mostly, they talked about Karla's caring spirit and the unforgettable ways she connected with them.

Karla didn't believe in convention. One former client said that Karla would sometimes turn out the light in her office and turn on the little starlight bulbs that criss-crossed her office ceiling.

"We'd lay on the floor, the tops of our heads touching like two hands on a clock. We'd look up at the stars and talk. Somehow my problems didn't seem so big.

After the memorial service, those in the family therapy program went back to the clinic to reminisce about Karla. After a while, Adrian spoke.

"You all know how serious Ping-Chuan, Michael, and I can be, and how we can get uptight in our therapy? said Adrian. "Well, Karla was our student supervisor one semester. She wanted to lighten us up. One night during supervision she invited us to do something different, to stretch ourselves — just for fun. So we played a little.

Adrian then got up and began moving the large bookshelf in the back of the room. As he did, we could see a beautiful finger-painted mural on the wall behind it. Inside a circle of colorful handprints were the words, "Here's to us! Each letter was a different color.

"Karla wanted us to connect with our playful side. She also wanted us to affirm the good supervision we were doing. We kinda got carried away, I guess, said Adrian. "Then we figured we'd better hide what we did with the bookshelf.

We admired the finger-painting and agreed that it deserved an honored place in the room. It was a great way to celebrate what Karla meant to us. Before we left that night, we each touched Karla's handprint and bid her farewell.

Less than a week later, a conscientious janitor washed the finger-painting off the wall. Life is like that.

Karla was peerless at creating magic moments — flow experiences — that brought out the best in us. We've decided that the ideal way to celebrate her life — even better than a finger-painted mural — is to bring flow into our own lives, to lighten up a bit. We invite you to do the same.

REFERENCES

Ackley, D. (1997). Breaking free of managed care. New York: Guilford.

Avis, J.M. (1989). Integrating gender into family therapy curriculum. Journal of Feminist Family Therapy, 1, 3-26.

Avis, J.M. (1992). Violence and abuse in families: The problem and family therapy's response. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 18, 223-230.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: the psychology of optimal experience. New York: Harper and Row.

Fields, R., Taylor, P., Weyler, R., & Ingrasci, R. (1988). Chop wood, carry water. Audiotape distributed by Audio Renaissance Tapes, 9110 Sunset Boulevard, Suite 200, Los Angeles, CA 90069.

Mackinnon, D. (1998). Economic evaluations in marital and family therapy outcome research: Methodologies and applications. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.

Piercy, F., & Nelson, T. (January, 1999). Flow in the consulting room. Family Therapy Networker, p. 46-47.

Shields, C. ( 1986). Critiquing the New Epistemologies: Toward minimum requirements for a scientific theory of family therapy. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 12(4), 359-372.