Tom Fahy and Gabriele Eaton, members of the Mandala Group, Inc., facilitated an experiential and didactic program that revealed the late pioneer-in-system-consulting Virginia Satir’s model for human development and systems theory. Tom is on the faculties of Loyola University’s CORD program, and the Satir Institute of the Southwest. Gabriele consults to not-for-profit and corporate organizations. 

To give you a flavor of this excellent experiential evening, I am writing from my personal and observed experience of it. Virginia Satir got her education in psychology and family systems (she may have invented the term “family systems”) from early work in Gestalt and NeuroLinguistic Programming. I’ve studied Gestalt at the OSD program in Cleveland, so the evening felt familiar to me even before I knew that fact. 

Gently guiding fifty of us through some experiential exercises, Tom and Gabriele proposed four ground rules: to work with our whole bodies; to stretch—try things that might feel uncomfortable; to exercise real, personal choice in the experiments we tried; and to keep the evening safe in our choices for ourselves and each other.
With these ground rules in place they led us through a carefully constructed, multi-part experience to discover and then act out a metaphor for our individual entry into a group. For me this meant noticing how I tend to gird myself when entering a new group. The picture I formed was of a “roly-poly bug who completely surrounds itself with it shell when it senses danger. Acting this image before the group tonight meant revealing an internal physical image. It is totally different from the confident, welcoming appearance I try to present when meeting new people. 

In the debrief that followed several people, who physicalized their metaphor, reported new insights about how they saw themselves, and how that internal picture influenced the choices they made in public. Key learning included using one’s body to overcome compulsive, self-imposed head trips, and expose unconscious rules, beliefs and assumptions. 

In the didactic piece that followed Tom and Gabriele talked about the Five Freedoms we have, if we are aware of them: The freedom to see and hear what is really going on around us. The freedom to say what we feel and think. The freedom to feel what we really feel, and to notice it. The freedom to ask for what we want, and the freedom to take risks. 

In addition reflecting Gestalt-based consulting, the Satir model focuses heavily on the consultant’s Use of Self in client interventions. So, consultant self-awareness is integral to effective work in helping clients increase their consciousness.

When we are functioning well with the five freedoms; when our words match our bodies, that is called “congruence.” When we are out of congruence, that is likely to mean we are relying on some “coping stance.” Coping examines our dysfunctional relations with ourselves, others, and the context in which we are together. Coping mechanisms take forms of blaming, placating, super- reasonableness, and distracting. So, of course, we acted out our primary coping stances. The group was pretty evenly divided among the four stances. Those of us who were “super-reasonable” (in our heads entirely) stayed isolated from everyone, but we could hardly stand the overly-helpful placators among us.

The Satir Change model looks at those coping stances (including our own). It examines the implications for change management in finding ways to help the client transform blame into its strength—assertiveness; placating to compassion; super-reasonable to problem solving; and distraction into meaningful withdrawal and humor.

Also like Gestalt, the Satir Change model is similar to the Cycle of Experience.

Old Status Quo -> Foreign Element -> Chaos -> Transforming Idea -> Practice & Integration -> New Status Quo -> Old Status Quo.

In one-and-three-quarter hours Tom and Gabriele helped us scratch the surface of concepts and innovations Virginia Satir had developed over a lifetime career in family and organization systems. To learn more and experience this elegant set of models, an introduction to Satir-Based Organization Development is scheduled September 23—26, 1999. Consultants interested in applying may call 773-327-6995.