Gavin Jinks completed his Human Givens diploma in 2002 and is now employed by Derby City Council as a Training and Education Officer where he uses HG ideas on a daily basis. He also sees clients in private practice. He sends us the following case:

"Two years ago a woman came to see me. She was so distressed that she could not complete a sentence without breaking down in tears. Eighteen months previously she had been a pub landlady. The work was very busy, and she was finding it very stressful. She started drinking at work, and it soon became a problem. On one occasion she had been drinking heavily while at work and in her own words had '..made a fool of myself in front of a pub full of customers.'

"Eighteen months later, although she lived several miles away from the pub, she was very concerned about going out for fear of being seen by anybody who had witnessed her 'shame'. She was drinking a lot, and her relationship with her partner was very poor. She was very distressed indeed.

"Almost as a means of giving myself time to think I asked her when she got home to draw a straight line through that day's date on her kitchen calendar and write the words 'Day 1'.

"She came back to see me a week later, calm and relaxed. She said that as soon as she had written 'Day 1' on the calendar she realised that the events were in the past and that she could put them behind her. I am sure that had I merely said to her that all of these events happened a long time ago etc she would have resisted the intervention. Instead, using an intuitive metaphorical task had an almost miraculous impact, reframing the situation for her."

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© Gavin Jinks (2006)

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