Summit Education 2 - The Conversation

[Barrett Dorko]

So now they have the Conversation. What neither of them understands is that these conversations are meaningless. They are meaningless to the sayer and meaningless to the hearer. The sayer believes they are heard and the hearer believes they are never said.

From The Conversation in Steve Martin’s Shopgirl (http://www.amazon.com/Shopgirl-Novella-Steve-Martin/dp/0786891076/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1219179732&sr=1-1)

I read this passage in a novella just before falling asleep last night. I marked the page, dropped the book to the floor and slept fitfully.

As I make my way through this second tour for Summit Professional Education I feel compelled to write as I go. After doing just one other tour since December of ’07 I have a distinct sense of confusion as I depart today and make my way to New Jersey. The rhythm of travel I came to know so well the past few years is gone and, as I think about it, I’ve already forgotten a few things. How am I going to teach without my acrylic juggling props on the front table?

Martin’s brilliant insight into relationship at the top of this page went right through me last night and I can’t help but think that this is what I fear the most about doing whatever it is I do on these trips. I prepare carefully and continually and always try to find better ways of getting my point across. Typically though, well, you know what happens, especially if you’ve read this blog over the years.

Maybe tomorrow it will be different. Maybe the massive change in my power point presentation (more about that later) and the new insights I’ve gained here on Soma Simple will ignite some enduring interest. Without that endurance there is no meaning – at least, not to me. It resembles nothing more than Martin’s Conversation.

More tomorrow.

[gilbert thomson]

Barrett

Wishing you good luck with your teaching, and with everything else you're currently dealing with.

I can assure you that your writing and teaching does have a powerful effect even when this is not immediately obvious to you. It has certainly changed the way I practice although we haven't met.

-Gilbert

[Barrett Dorko]

It's noon of the last day and I'm nearly done. In fact, my head is already in the car on the way to the Philly airport and I may struggle to get it into this afternoon's teaching.

My classes have been attentive though remarkably small. A few have told me that the word "manual" should be in the course title somewhere if I want to draw a larger crowd. I agree. I've also found that a few are showing up because they recognize my name from years ago in the print media, and that's nice but it also means that none of these therapists are aware of what has happened on the Internet during the past decade.

I'm still waiting for that special moment when I see something that generates meaningful writing. This blog has always contained such a thing, but not yet on this trip. I have to wait, and, I guess, so will those visiting here. Until then, the possibility exists that my writing today may remain as empty as Martin's character in Shopgirl, the movie. That would be terrifying.

[Barrett Dorko]

Now on Sunday back in the cocoon of the small coffee shop I always visit to write I can see my latest trip with a bit of perspective. It’s unsettling.

After that last post I had to leave quickly in order to make my flight back home. This isn’t the first time I’ve driven to the Philadelphia airport to return a rental car and I shouldn’t have struggled to get there as I did, but instead of reading the signs in front of me I listened to the GPS device and lost a lot of time traveling past the airport and nearly ended up watching a Philly’s baseball game instead. It’s a long and confusing story and I won’t bother you with it here.

Whatever it is that makes me a unique and effective speaker seems to be present but only so long as I force it from my depths. This effort must be evident to others though no one has said anything. What I think I’ve lost entirely is any power of persuasion I might have and I don’t think I ever had much of that in any case. There’s a line in Amadeus ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086879/) that comes to mind. Salieri says to the young, earnest and very troubled genius, “My dear Mozart, your passion is obvious, but you do not persuade.”

After months of pretty much avoiding the issue of our profession’s distinct lack of interest in pain relief and/or neuroscience I walked right into that wall once again and nothing I had done in the way of preparation (including a massive and, I think, compelling change in my power point presentation) made any difference whatsoever. If someone at any of the courses this week disagrees, please let me know here and join this conversation. As it was, not a single student seemed to know places like this existed.

I say things no one hears and they hear things I didn’t say. It still sounds like Martin’s Conversation to me.

[Diane]

And sometimes GPS devices say things/give directions that aren't true.

[Barrett Dorko]

Diane,

True. I'm of the opinion that every external guide can be precisely wrong, as can every internal guide. We make our best guess and spend a great deal of our time lost whether we know it or not.

This community helps me "course correct" regularly and I wonder why so few of us lost among our patients in pain bother to join in at all, even if only to read.

The paradox is this: I appear quite isolated from my peers when one considers my work history and my manner now that there are other PTs within reach, but the teaching I've always done has brought me into close contact with many colleagues. However, we seem not to share any common interest. How this is I have never figured out.

The Conversation is sure to follow any contact we have.

[Mary C]

The Conversation is sure to follow any contact we have.Filter what you said a few years ago in NB through this site and this hearer can now believe it was said.

Is the PT from NS who assisted you on this site? I can't remember his name.

His touch was the "butterfly" for me during the course.

[christophb]

Perhaps as a profession, we've been following the wrong directions so long that we've had to convince ourselves that where we ended up is where we wanted to go. I imagine it would be hard to convince someone that all the hard work used to get somewhere may have been wasted (or at least not used efficiently).

Joe/Jill Therapist: Are you telling me I'm in Arizona? Impossible I've been travelling in Alaska for the last 10 years. Now turn on the AC it's hot out here."

[Barrett Dorko]

Hi Chris,

First of all, I like your new quote beneath the name thing. The clairvoyant abilities of a certain technique and style of thinking is on display there. Given that, the telepathic and teleportational abilities aren't such a surprise then.

I think just one registrant has appeared on the site since my last Conversation but no one has introduced themselves so I have to guess this time and I'm not holding my breath waiting for a contribution, even in the form of a good question.

The term "course correction" keeps going through my head and your analogy of ending up in a totally unexpected place is a good one. Perhaps the effects of this sort of mistake can be tempered with a deep understanding of our intent when we first start to investigate the mechanism of our care. After all, today's manipulators agree (for the most part) that the effect of their coercion is neurophysiologic and not biomechanical. They concede this but are struggling to then alter their theory and method accordingly - especially those who have committed to another unsupported explanation.

When I talk to them it's pretty much just a Conversation ala Martin, and they grow very quiet very quickly.