{"id":3291,"date":"2021-02-13T21:00:34","date_gmt":"2021-02-13T21:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/?p=3291"},"modified":"2025-04-10T10:14:11","modified_gmt":"2025-04-10T10:14:11","slug":"story-the-blade-of-grass-in-the-crack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/2021\/02\/13\/3291\/","title":{"rendered":"The Blade of Grass in the Crack"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The story \u201cThe Blade of Grass in the Crack\u201d can be told in many situations described by patients as hopeless. It illustrates a fundamental principle of systemic therapy, namely that it is important to identify anything which may be useful, no matter how innocuous, and multiply it until it becomes a force which can hold its own against the stresses which at first appeared unassailable. The story can help clients who have resigned themselves to a situation \u2013 and their therapists \u2013 to adopt a searching attitude and identify solutions which previously appeared impossible.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The prisoner said, \u201cLast night I dreamt that a blade\nof grass grew in a crack in our dungeon, just where the shaft of light which\ncomes through the spy hole in the door hits our wall. It was watered by the\nmoisture which drips from the dungeon roof and the walls. The roots grew\nstronger and forced the crack open a tiny amount, and a second blade of grass\ngrew from these roots, right next to the first. Then we hung a belt on the door\nso that its silver buckle reflected a little light onto the second blade. This\ngrew as well, and its powerful roots widened the crack a little more. We\nrepeated this process again and again until the stone was surrounded by grass\non all sides. When a year had passed, we pulled out the weeds, and the light\nshone through the cracks. We braced ourselves against the stone and pushed it\noutwards with all of our strength, inch by inch over the course of a day. Then\nwe climbed out through the hole and were free.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s a shame there\u2019s no blades\nof grass growing in our dungeon,\u201d sighed his fellow prisoner. The prisoner who\nhad just related his dream stared at the wall for a long time. Then he asked, \u201cAnd\nwhat do you think that<\/em> is?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The story \u201cThe Blade of Grass in the Crack\u201d can be told in many situations described by patients as hopeless. It illustrates a fundamental principle of systemic therapy, namely that it is important to identify anything which may be useful, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[292,143,185,228,128,229,163],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aggression","category-depression","category-fear","category-feeling-and-emotion","category-health","category-trauma","category-violence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3291"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4231,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3291\/revisions\/4231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}