Emergence Techniques Used: Visual Dialogue
Personal Skills Age (estimated age at the time of the original injury): 6
Key(s): bikes, blue eyed, blonde boys, thoughts of cowardice
I can not imagine the child of holocaust survivors having an easy childhood. Dr. K was no exception. Despite his difficult childhood though, Dr. K had become quite successful in both his professional and personal life; he had a thriving practice as a psychologist and had a wonderfully loving wife and three children.
I had met Dr. K through his practice, as we both have offices in the same office suite. Over the years, then, we had had many professional and personal conversations, and I always found him to be a very gentle, loving man.
I also found him to be somewhat of an unusual man in ways, for one thing, how he got to work. He sometimes rode a motorcycle.
Somehow, I found this to be quite interesting in that he was a devoutly orthodox Jew. So much for stereotypes. None the less, I always found his love of motorcycles curious.
This story actually took place early in my discoveries about emergence, at a time when I naively thought I could just tell others about emergence and have them easily grasp the significance. And it was on this note that I approached Dr. K and asked him if I could show him what I was working on.
I remember arriving at the office that day and casually noting that Dr. K had indeed ridden to work on his motorcycle. For some reason, seeing this always made me smile, perhaps because I love people who are bold enough to be themselves even when this puts them somewhat beyond the norm. Still, in many ways, this was quite out of character for Dr. K, as he was by nature very traditional man.
As we began our conversation that day, I remember trying to show him the theoretical constructs which underlie emergence, at least the things I had been able to find the words for.
The result?
Pretty much just blank stares despite both our efforts to connect.
I continued more earnestly. Nothing seemed to make sense to him though.
Finally I asked him if I might try to show him by doing emergence on him, as it might be easier for him to understand after having had an actual experience. As I asked, I worried a bit too, as I knew this would in all likelihood cause something painful to emerge in him. Thus, I advised him of this.
Even so, he agreed to try it.
At this point, I sat across from Dr. K in somewhat of an ethical bind. I knew all to well how deeply emergence goes. But Dr. K was not my client. How far should I go? I also did not have a clue what to work on and despite many conversations, I had little sense of anything wrong in his life.
At this point, I did what I always do in such situations; I trusted my instincts and just blurted something out.
"You are a Jew boy!"
Oh my God! How could I have said such a thing!, I thought. But I forced myself to continue and asked him if any scenes came to him.
Sure enough, one did. In fact, this scene, one in which Dr. K said he had happened at about his age six, emerged almost instantly.
I then asked him to describe the scene, and he began by telling me that in this scene, he saw himself surrounded by a group of boys. He went on to describe them as " taunting, Aryan boys." He then said they had taken his yarmulke and his bicycle, and were tossing his yarmulke from boy to boy, taunting him with every toss.
(article in progress)
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