Pages 66 and 67... I teach the people I treat and the people I train to scratch their "buts." The word "but" is often a problem word in the process of communication.

In the first place, but is a think-stopper. It is a principle word in the internal argument between Parent and Child ego states known as the "internal dialogue." When attempting to solve a problem situation by listing alternative courses of behavior, the "but" can stop our thinking either at the Parent level or at the Child level. The Child expresses an alternative, the Parent says, "But...", the Parent expresses a suggestion, the Child replies, "But...".

In the second place, "but" is a signal of a defensive stance. Usually it is used, in give-and-take conversation as the inital word in a defensive statement. So, if you mention that I have, in some way, failded to keep an agreement, my initial reaction will be to think of a justication and begin my defense with the word, "but." Often, "but" is used as a "prior" defensive ploy, a defense used before a statement that carries some risk: "I don't want to change the subject but..., "I don't want to make you angry but..., "I'm not prejudiced but..., "I don't want to make you angry but...," "But" clauses used like that are like putting up the boxing gloves to fend off the strike before the other fighter gets in the ring.

In the third place, "but", when used as a conjunction, tends to place in opposition the two clauses it connects. It tends to make the two connected statements irreconcilable. Such a sentence seems to start out in one direction and wind up in another. So, a mother, saying to her five-year-old son, "Billy, I love you, BUT if you slam that door one more time I'm going to put you out in the back yard and keep you there all afternoon," makes it difficult for Billy to believe both statements: "I love you...," - "I'm going to put you out...."

Consider again the scene with the mother and the little boy. She wants him to stop slamming the door. Whether he does or not may well depend on what goes on inside his psyche when he feels unloved and defensive. "Billy, I love you, AND if you slam that door one more time I'm going to put you out in the back yard and keep you there all afternoon!" The "and" brings both clauses together and makes them both believable. The "and" gives Billy a better chance of handling his defensive feelings in a constructive way.

More Book Excerpts

Here are practical, easy-to-read essays that portray what one practitioner perceives happens in psychotherapy. He reports his perceptions in a style that is both admittedly subjective and is easy to understand. What Einstein is reported to have said about the universe seems applicable to all of life, and to psychotherapy: "When I stand at the edge of the universe and look out it appears to be more like a great idea than a great machine."

In listening to troubled people he works with every day, he jots down ideas for monographs and eventually writes up some of them. Out of some five hundred of these ideas, here are 65 which he calls "discoveries" or "observations" or "solutions to problems." They are "Serendipitous" in that they appeared unexpectedly along the traveled way. His main reason for writing them is so his children (both of whom are successful psychotherapists), and his students will remember some of his thoughts and his ideas of how therapy works.

About his therapy he says, "I use lots of metaphors in my work, ala Milton Erickson. Central in this book, as in my practice, is an emphasis on Communication. As a Transactional Analyst, first trained in Psychoanalysis, I hold Sigmund Freud*s two basic ideas sacred: 1) the causative nature of all behavior, and 2) the importance of the unconscious. Hence my interest in Dream Analysis and Body Language. And because I firmly believe 'The way you talk is the way you is,' I place a lot of emphasis on semantics."

Serendipity: Discoveries Made While Doing Psychotherapy,
by H.D. Johns (250 pages; Perfect bound; catalogue #05-0963; ISBN 1-4120-6062-1)