Today Thanksgiving day is celebrated in Germany…
a day for remembering the source of our food and drink, of the air we breathe and all things we possess…

They are, first of all, not the results of industrial production and our consumers’ behavior.
They are a gift that we reiceive.
These pictures were harvested by my colleague, “landscape therapist” Susanne Seelig,
who allowed me to show them to you.

They were taken in my region, near Landau, in the Palatinate.
I would like to share them with you as an expression of gratefulness and adoration to the source of all life.
 

Some of you have had problems viewing the video of Luise and her pet bird Käptn. I think it must have been due to the German “HD”-movie format I chose. Here’s the film in a different format. I hope it works! Have fun!

Here’s a video which I would like to share with you. I find it quite funny… It’s a story without words about the friendship between my niece Luise and her musical bird Käpt’n – and alsoabout the love of music which they share – even if they may have a slightly different style of listening.

The video can also be used for therapeutic storytelling, for example for illustrating tou couples or family members that conflicting interests can go well together with loving each other. Some little quarrels here and there don’t need to hinder harmony in a relationship…
httpv://youtu.be/?feature=player_videoeditor

The name of the blog means “Hypno-Systemics” or also “Hypnotic Storytelling”. The term “Hypno-Systemics as well as “Hypno-Systemic Therapy”… or Hypno-Systemic Coaching, Consultation, etc., refers to a combined approach of Systemic Therapy and Coaching (i.e., all the methods which originate from family therapy) and Hypnotherapy (mainly in the tradition of the American therapy pioneer Milton Erickson). The term “Hypno-Systemics” has been introduced by a German trainer called Gunther Schmidt who is one of my teachers and who uses Systemic principles (like those of Steve de Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg) as well as Erickson’s hypnotherapeutic techniques.  This type of consultation can be applied with families, teams and single people in relatively “awake” states, i.e. without explicit rituals of trance induction. My working style is called “narrative hypnosystemics” because it’s working a lot with stories, metaphors, inner films and so on. But mostly I call it “Therapeutic Storytelling” because for me most of what I hear, say and do in consultation is “a story” or “a game”.

Meanwhile, I have succeeded to get the “Blade of Grass” book on the website of Amazon.com. Strangely, the system wouldn’t allow me to state that the books are new. So I sell them as “used – like new”. Maybe I’ll get that changed in the next few days. They’re new anyway. Just in case anyone wonders why I’ve got 200 used books all with the same title on my shelf…

Not all but many of the stories I am relating in this blog are written down in my book and E-book “The Blade of Grass in the Desert” which was released this October. There will also be stories which I write as life goes on, and there may be some which are – unfortunately – otherwise only available in some untranslated German books like the “Handbook of therapeutic Storytelling”. If you are interested to discover which of the stories can be found in “The Blade of Grass in the Desert” you will find the table of contents in the preview of the “Blade of Grass” E-Book on amazon.com or on amazon.co.uk. The book is also available in a paper version. You can order it from me, from amazon.de or amazon.com.

Welcome to my blog!

I’ve been writing a blog in German since a few years. Doing this in English is new territory for me. Inevitably, I will make some mistakes… Never mind! This is a blog about therapeutic storytelling and other means that can make therapy and any kind of counseling and self-counseling quick, effective, and fun! I am convinced that therapy should be quick, and that it should be fun, both for the therapist and for the client. There should be a lot of things to laugh about and to find interesting. I am aware that life is not always fun and that most of my clients are more in the mood for crying than for laughing when we meet. I remember a 30 year old woman in the hospital who, according to the doctors, was going to die very soon. When she heard that I was a chaplain (whatever she imagined a chaplain to be like) she told me that she didn’t wish to be supported. I told her that I would love to invite her for a dance tonight, but that this didn’t seem possible in the state she was in at the moment. In hospital I don’t believe in making a solemn face and carrying the patient’s depression from one room to the next like a multi-resistant germ, and in my therapist’s office I wish to enjoy my work, and I hope that my clients enjoy our talk as well. As for the woman in hospital, we had a lot of fun together.

Not to mention that therapy and consultation are at their best if they are not only fun but also highly effective. I would like to share my stories about how to effectively reduce suffering and increase happiness. I would like to share them not only with my clients or patients or with those specialists who attend my training seminars but with you!