The Cameron Method - Newsletter Archive
21 November, 1997 - Your Computer as Therapist?
It's not such a strange idea. In the earliest version, "Doctor" or "Eliza" as it was called, would repeat the messages you typed in a slightly different language and ask you if that's what you said, in a manner suggestive of Carl Rogers' nondirective therapy.
Though it may have originated as a spoof on Rogerian psychotherapy, lots of people including therapists got hooked on the program and would spend hours in a kind of circular soliloquy with their computer. They even formed what would have to be described as an emotional relationship with their electronic alter ego.
Did it do any good? Apart from helping to launch the idea of computer- based therapy, it helped legitimatize the too-often stigmatized practice of self-talk or talking aloud to oneself.
Harvard Medical School professor of medicine and psychiatry, Warner V. Slack, M.D., is the author of an important new book on the latest advances in medicine and computers, titled CYBERMEDICINE: How Computing Empowers Doctors and Patients for Better Health Care (Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 1997).
In his book, Dr. Slack maintains that soliloquy, (with or without a computer) can be a valuable tool of mental health. He writes, "Contrary to the common notion that soliloquy is a manifestation of mental illness, we believe that it is normal behavior---behavior that serves to help maintain emotional equilibrium." (p.62)
Comment:We completely support Warner Slack in his argument for soliloquy as a means of keeping on track emotionally. In fact, the Releasing Strategy we use is actually a high-impact method for self-therapy, self-control and self-motivation through a type of speaking aloud to oneself. It is a method designed to help you let go of harmful, limiting, counterproductive, or stressful thought and reaction patterns.
It is also a key to making successful use of your computer to achieve a higher level of mental and emotional well-being, and performance in any area. Our CompuMindTM software uses a three-stage process to make significant changes in the user's inner mind, in the unconscious emotion-backed directives that are controlling so much mindset and behavior.
Stage One: Using a direct form of visual-tactile biofeedback called ideomotor signaling, you obtain percentile measurements of positive and negative emotions;
Stage Two: Contemplating the results of the ideomotor inquiry displayed in the form of color graphs, you decide which of the inner mind measurements you want to improve. Then, using the Releasing Strategy templates, you get the job done; and
Stage Three: You revisit the question area you have been working on, and determine---again, with simple but revealing percentile measurements---just how far you've come in the desired direction.
This software, like The Cameron Method that gave rise to it, can be a major self-help and psychotherapeutic breakthrough even beyond the advances Warner Slack hopes for in his book. Exciting things are in prospect!
From the Cameron Method Files:From the Files of The Cameron Method: A salesman was having a terrible time with sales rejection. He called us with the statement that he couldn't pick up the phone to cold-call anymore. He was afraid he was going to lose his home and go bankrupt. Using the Releasing Strategy, he was able to have positive impact on the old patterns that had been holding him back. He said that after he used the series we had given him that first day, he was able to make follow-up calls and set appointments with leads he had been holding from an ad he had run two weeks earlier.
In an in-depth personal analysis with another client, we discovered a lifelong pattern of a belief that "she was not really welcome" in her natal family as well as her step-parent's family, which translated into adult life as not ever feeling welcome---anywhere. This client was not in sales, and had stayed many years in very safe (bureaucratic) employment. But in any organization, as well as social settings, she felt the same closed-out feeling over and over.
After confirming that this was the belief pattern, we investigated the inner mind for its bases. There were eight reasons accumulated mostly in her first seven years. As we were releasing each old snarl of a reason, she visibly lightened up in front of me and years seemed to drop from her face. She was very happy not to have to repeat this experience anymore.
If you notice a "trend" of a certain type of negative experience in your life, you may be re-experiencing, or replaying an old program. Do yourself a favor and Release it!
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