The great psychotherapist Milton Erickson tells a story about a runaway horse as a metaphor for therapy.
One day, as the story goes, Erickson was returning home from high school when a bridled horse ran past him into a farmer’s yard looking for water. The horse was sweating profusely but did not belong to the farmer. Erickson and some others cornered the horse. Sensing that the horse was lost, Erickson hopped on the horse’s back and yelled “giddy-up”.
The horse started out along the road but, every now and then, it headed into a field. Whenever it did, Erickson pulled on the reins to keep the horse on the road. Erickson knew if he kept the horse on the road and moving, it would find its way home.
After about 4 miles the horse finally turned into a farmyard. The farmer recognised the horse immediately and asked Erickson where he found him. When Erickson explained he found the horse about 4 miles away, the astonished farmer asked “How did you know to bring him here?”
Erickson replied: “I didn’t know. The horse knew. All I did was keep his attention on the road.” (http://www.evisioninc.com/mentor/storyofahorse.htm).
This metaphor is especially appropriate for the therapy known as the Method of Levels (MOL; www.methodoflevels.com.au). MOL is based on the principles of Perceptual Control Theory (PCT; www.pctweb.org).
PCT suggests that we are designed as control systems. As such, our day to day activity is the simultaneous achievement of a multiplicity of goals of varying complexity. Keeping the world we experience in the goal states we have specified is control.
Psychological distress occurs when control is prevented. According to PCT, the most common way that control is compromised from a psychological point of view is through internal conflict. Internal conflict arises when two of the goal states we are maintaining specify opposite and incompatible states of the world. For example, someone might be maintaining the goal of being relaxed and easy going and also the goal of having things turn out perfectly. Or someone might be maintaining a goal of being liked by everyone and also a goal of getting their point across.
In situations of internal conflict people can feel just as lost as Erickson’s horse. Nothing they do seems to work or doesn’t work for very long. It can feel like you’re hitting your head against a brick wall, or that you’re “stuck”. In a sense, “stuck” is a fitting description of people who are conflicted. Conflict immobilises both goal states so that neither is able to be achieved satisfactorily.
The conflict description of psychological turmoil explains why strategies and advice will not often be all that helpful. Or, if they are helpful, they won’t be helpful in any sort of planned, systematic way. When someone is conflicted there is no logical way for them to get both this and an opposite that at the same time. A new perspective is needed.
PCT describes a learning mechanism called reorganisation that generates insights and new understandings. The familiar “Aha!” or “light-bulb” moment is an experience of the effects of reorganisation.
As long as some of our experiences remain out of their goal states, our reorganising system will beaver away making random changes and monitoring the effects of these changes on the difference between the goal state and the experience. If a change makes the difference smaller, that change will hang around. If the difference doesn’t get smaller, a new change will be generated.
Like Erickson’s horse, reorganisation knows the direction of “home” in terms of closing the gap between the goal state and the experience but, unlike Erickson’s horse, reorganisaiton doesn’t know what the exact destination will look like. The way that the gap will be closed is not known in advance but will be found if the client stays on the path. That’s where the therapist comes in.
Just as Erickson didn’t know which way the horse should go, an MOL therapist doesn’t know what the direction for clients will look like. With an understanding of PCT, however, the therapist knows that clients will find a solution if they keep their attention on the problem.
The subtitle of the first book of MOL was “How to do psychotherapy without getting in the way”. In this sense, Erickson’s metaphor of a lost horse aptly describes the role of an MOL therapist. An MOL therapist greatly respects the capacity of individuals to find their own way.
From an MOL perspective, therapy is a process of patiently, persistently, and sensitively keeping people’s attention on the path, and bringing it back to the path when it wanders. Through this process, people generate solutions to restore order and balance to the worlds they are creating for themselves and can look forward to a horizon of bright, new possibilities.
