Clown therapy helps people find answers within

This is how we heal in community, open ourselves to making heartfelt connection with someone who can be with you, listen empathetically, help you look at what’s familiar and see it from a new perspective. Let’s get away from today’s cultural imperative that if you are feeling anything other than wonderful in every moment that you’re suffering from a disease for which there is a pill that can cure you. Let’s listen more and prescribe less. Connecting in this way reminds us not only of our therapeutic skills, but of our shared humanity.

References

1. “When All Else Fails: Some New and Some Old Tools for Doing Very Brief Therapy,” United Kingdom: Crown House Publishing, 2014.

2. “Solution-Focused Interviewing,” University of Toronto Press, 2013.

3. “Hypnotic Realities,” New York: Irvington Publishers, 1976.

4. “Man’s Search for Meaning,” Boston: Beacon Press, 1959.

Dr. Hammerschlag is chief of community mental health at the Gesundheit! Institute. He is also the author of several books on healing and spirituality, including “Kindling Spirit: Healing from Within” (New York: Turtle Island Press, 2012) and “The Dancing Healers: A Doctor’s Journey of Healing With Native Americans” (San Francisco: Harper, 1988). Dr. Hammerschlag’s website is healingdoc.com.