Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Thu, 10 Sep 1992 09:26:51 EDT
From:         goldstein@SATURN.GLASSBORO.EDU
Subject:      therapy

To: Harry Erwin, Bill Powers, interested others on CSG-L.
From: David Goldstein
Subject: Mahrer and method of levels
Date: 09/04/92

Bill Powers(09/02/03) has pointed out the similarity between the
therapy methods of Alvin Mahrer, the HPCT technique of the method
of levels, and the ideas which Harry Erwin expressed (09/02/92). He
asked me to describe the Mahrer approach so that others could see
the similarity.

Alvin Mahrer's brand of therapy is called Experiential
Psychotherapy. He has written a brief manual describing it
entitled: How to do Experiential Psychotherapy. It was published by
the University of Ottawa Press in 1989. Unlike standard practice,
two hours are set aside for a session. During each session, he
takes a patient through the same four steps:

(a) Step 1--The patient is asked to let awareness go to whatever is
the top thing on the patient's mind. The therapist helps the person
achieve a very intense level of whatever experience is selected.
There are very specific ways which Mahrer spells out how to do
this. The purpose of intensifying the experience is that it becomes
easier for the therapist to experience what the patient is
experiencing and also, Alvin Mahrer says that these are the optimal
circumstances which he has found to encourage significant changes
of experience within the patient. Failure to achieve a strong level
of experience may result in the decision to end the therapy
session.

During this process, the therapist and patient have their eyes
closed and are sitting in easy chairs which are placed side by
side. The patient describes the experience and the therapist lets
the words and the way they are spoken create an experience inside
the therapist. As much as possible, the therapist is suspending
his/her own experiences during the process and plugging in the
described experiences of the patient. Alvin Mahrer says he is not
thinking when he is doing this. Unlike most other therapies, and
like HPCT Therapy, Mahrer does not give interpretations.

(b) Step 2--Alvin Mahrer has found that when the level of
experience becomes very strong, patients undergo a change in
experience. The new experience which occurs is described as being
at a deeper level. The therapist helps the patient identify,
welcome and accept the deeper experience no matter what it is. The
deeper experience becomes the center of attention for the remainder
of the session. Usually, the deeper experience is one which the
patient does not usually or only rarely allows himself/herself to
experience.

In HPCT terms, I think what has happened is that the patient has
"gone up a level."  The deeper potential, in other words, is a
higher level reference experience. It becomes the wanted
experience. The next two steps are designed to allow the person to
experience the deeper potential within the session.

(c) Step 3--The patient is asked about past situations in which the
deeper experience was or could have been present to some degree.
The patient is asked to relive these past experiences. This time
the patient is encouraged to try to achieve the deeper experience
as much as possible. This may require them to be/behave very
differently than they did when the past situation actually
happened.

(d) Step 4--The patient is asked about present and future
situations in which the deeper experience occurs or could occur.
The patient is asked to imagine and describe how they will
be/behave in these present and future experiences in order to
achieve the deeper experience. They rehearse and make a commitment.
Mahrer again spells out very specific ways in which the therapist
can achieve this step.

I hope from this brief description you can see why Bill Powers sees
a similarity between Experiential Psychotherapy, HPCT Therapy and
the ideas of Harry Erwin. Steps 1 and 2 are basically the method of
levels done one time. Steps 3 and 4 are ways to help a person
control the new experience which was identified in the first two
steps. Harry Erwin's procedure sounds very much like Mahrer's
therapy and the HPCT method of levels.