| Library | Conferences | Members |
| Press Room | Tomkins Relational Educators | Store |
|
||||||
|
|
Bill ThrashBill Thrash
Our school lacked sophistication. I learned little there save for Vocational Agriculture, which I have never used except as the basis for farm stories, typing, which has proven invaluable, and English grammar, drilled into me by a teacher who stood for no nonsense from her students. Working in a butcher market, a café, and the post office put me in touch with kind and skilled mentors whose patience and approval taught me to find intellectual mentors who would open the world for me. I left Grandview to work for two years as an offset printer in an insurance company, then matriculated at Texas Wesleyan College, where I majored in English and prepared for Perkins School of Theology at SMU by taking philosophy courses from a displaced Cuban Jesuit priest. He made it possible for me to understand theology and gave me quite a jump on the approach required in order to appreciate Silvan Tomkins. I won a M.Div. at Perkins, became disenchanted with the politics of the church, taught high school English and journalism, and coached golf for eight years. During that period, I completed an M.A. in English, wrote a thesis about the gods in the Iliad, and learned how to teach by tapping into the interests of the students and giving them the freedom to pursue those interests within the comfort of individual contracts. Much as I loved teaching those teens, financial reality forced me to move on for a couple of years and sell books and educational systems. I taught English at a community college, setting up several innovative programs in cooperation with other instructors whereby students could go to the Learning Resource Center and learn through a multimedia presentation how to write a variety of term papers. I also initiated the first team teaching module for freshman literature so that three instructors could run a class for ninety students. Sometimes the students were all together, sometimes thirty were with their primary instructor, and sometimes they worked in small groups to address poetry, short story, and drama. I moved to another college that was opening in the district, and became the first Director of Staff Development for the district. I initiated many more programs, including peer teaching and creative academic presentations for the faculty that were held in our planetarium. Provided in 1993 with funds for training, I spent a month at Bob and Mary Gouldings' Western Institute for Group and Family Therapy, learning TA/Gestalt/Family Systems, and the following summer attended Irvin and Marian Polsters' Gestalt Institute of San Diego. As a Clinical Provisional Teaching Member of ITAA, I conducted groups and trainings at the Southwest Institute of TA in Dallas for several years. My clients and trainees always inspired me to seek more knowledge and supervision. I became proficient in Eidetic Image Therapy, Ericksonian hypnotherapy, and Radix, a neo-Reichian approach encouraging the release of backed-up affects that we called "blocked feelings." All this involved several years of personal work, training, and supervision. As Director of the Radix Institute I spent the next ten years traveling throughout the USA, Australia, and Europe, leading trainings and workshops. With two colleagues, I developed men only workshops that over and over again revealed men to have as much internal affective experience as do women, material that emerges only if they are afforded a protected setting and trainers who can accept their pain. Through all this work and training, I remained dissatisfied with the theoretical constructs underlying our work. We did help people, but something was missing. Nothing anyone had to say really adequately explained what I saw happening in the lives of people, and frankly, something seemed absent. Eventually I would discover that I had focused on many of the same questions that Silvan Tomkins addressed so profoundly. I finally took several years off, during which I published Powers That Shape: Memories, Images & Fables. The book was written to evoke memories, images, and stories (SARS) from peoples' lives, a hope well rewarded by stories told me by many readers. I kept reading the literature of psychology, searching and searching, wondering why I lacked the heart for continued private practice. Then I found Shame and Pride, and subsequently, AIC. Now light came to the dark crevices of my understanding and I found renewed interest in my work with people. The SSTI project regarding violence in our culture and the opportunity to help many children and professionals learn the psychology of affect and script continues to pique my interest and kindle ongoing hope for our world. |
I grew up in Grandview, a small cotton-farming Central Texas town, as the only child of a divorced couple. Life with my maternal grandparents molded me in ways I continue to discover, for my grandfather was a rapturous storyteller and my grandmother was bipolar.