For Adam (Adam Horvath, In Memoriam)

 

   1. I Woke up Yesterday to Find You Gone

 

There is a hole in the world where you have always been.

Your wry, lopsided smile and all your Adam-ness

Now missing, must live inside us, as memory.

 

You always stood a bit outside.

You didn’t join the latest consensus,

You didn’t just march to a different drummer,

You invented a new kind of drum.

 

You took an inventory of Bordin’s common sense

Notion of therapeutic relationship,

And made a simple measure of Working Alliance

Into a world-standard, used to this day.

 

 

2. Grandchild of the Holocaust

 

You always walked just outside the boundary,

Making your own way.

Last summer we spent several hours

Investigating the Krakow ghetto,

Retracing the steps that led to the Horror

From which your father so narrowly escaped.

Without this you would not even have existed,

The world poorer for your absence.

 

But when we said goodbye, I never imagined

I’d never see you again.

Even now I still owe you one last book chapter,

Sitting in my computer half-revised,

Waiting for me to respond to your remaining queries.

 

Although you are gone I still have

Answers to you to frame,

Not wanting to disappoint your high hopes

That I might help you unpack moments of impasse

in our shared labor of psychotherapy.

 

 

3. Oh, Adam, Adam, Adam

 

You always did what you felt was right,

Even when it -- occasionally –

Drove some of us to distraction.

 

But I was always glad to see you, knowing this:

Here is someone who truly understands

This community of those

Who seek the secrets of psychotherapy,

Not forgetting for a moment

How hard yet joyful this work is.

 

In these final years, this took you

Away from numbers and even categories,

Ever closer to the raw talk itself,

On which the whole enterprise is built.

 

 

4. Your Death Unleashes a Flood of Memories

 

You probably thought you were marginal,

A footnote, but it turns out that

You were always at the center

Of the SPR-sphere,

The web of interconnection that

Links all psychotherapy researchers.

 

Many of us are now wondering:

When did I last see Adam?

What did we say? Or do? Or eat?

 

The threads glow like nerve fibers

Trying to hold you in our minds

Before the traces go dark,

Before we go dark.

 

But you’re still there;

The memories of you still live:

Our shared laughter,

Echoing in the theater of our minds;

Your kindness, passed along

And multiplied in many acts of caring;

Your stubborn persistence, refusing to let us

Forget you and what is important in this work:

As if that was possible!

 

                                                -Robert Elliott; 20 – 23 Feb, Lodi, California

EFT Myth Number 4: The Black Squirrels of Toronto

When EFT was looking for a place to come into being,

It looked in many places.

 

Some were too hot and sunny

Others were too dry and deserty,

While yet others were too wet or hurricaney.

 

It had nothing against snow,

But give me a break!

Polar ice caps, Siberia, Saskatchewan:

Too much snow! Too cold!

 

And then there were the people:

In some places the people were too rude,

Fancied themselves as too important,

Or were just too samey or worried about

What other people thought of them,

To be the birthplace of a weird little

Emotion-empathy science-magic therapy.

 

So EFT just had to keep looking for a place

Where it could be invented or discovered --

Or whatever.

 

No, it needed a place where the people were nice,

Polite, helpful and didn’t think

They were the centre of the universe.

(Well maybe just a little bit, but not too much.)

 

And it needed a place where there were

Lots of different kinds of people,

And where that was not just OK but was celebrated,

Not a melting pot, but a mixed salad

Full of lots of lovely bits,

Because EFT wanted to be the kind of therapy

That’s full of lots of lovely bits

That all fit together into a big beautiful whole

Around emotion-empathy science-magic.

 

 

Oh, yes! And it turned out that EFT was looking

For a place that had cute little black squirrels

(Scientific name melanistic sciurus carolinensis).

 

So, you see, there really was only one place

In the world where EFT could come into being,

Where Laura, Les, Robert, Jeanne, Rhonda,

And a bunch of other people could all come together

At just the right moment in the late 1980’s,

And that place was Toronto, Canada.

 

But please don’t feed the little buggers,

Because there are plenty of pickings

In a big city and they multiply like crazy!

 

                       -Robert Elliott, Toronto, October 2025  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note: This poem is a love-letter to Toronto, Canada, where my family and I spent a lovely year in the early 1990's, while Facilitating Emotional Change, the first book about EFT, was being written.  Diane and I recently returned for Les Greenberg's birthday celebration and fell in love with the place all over again.  

Three Brief EFT Myths for Les Greenberg (for His 80th Birthday)

[New blog entry: three poems in honor of Les Greenberg, on his 80th birthday, using science fiction and fantasy themes to imagine a set of myths about the origins of EFT but told to children (like my or Les' grandkids). The slightly crazy, unruly writing style was inspired by the children's books of beloved Canadian children's book author Robert Munsch. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I did writing them!]

Preface

 

We met when we were barely out of childhood

Heads and hearts full of hopes and dreams

To change the world of psychotherapy

And psychotherapy research,

Which we did

 

Now that we are old,

We might as well make some myths.

For some reason,

These have come out as children’s stories.

 

 

Myth Number 1:  Don’t Kill the Dragon

 

You didn’t kill the dragon.

Afterall, the dragon

Is sacred to the Goddess.

Instead, you listened to her story.

(She was a very old dragon,

Even older than we are

And had a lot of story to tell.)

 

Surprised and pleased

By your empathy and compassion,

The dragon didn’t eat you.

Instead, she opened the place in her chest

Where you didn’t stab her

With your non-existent sword,

And invited you to taste

The thick, rich blood that oozed out.

 

Yes, I know, that’s kind of gross!

But really it was a great honour,

And after all, it was her core pain.

And you were brave and curious enough to try.

 

And then, just like that other hero

In that great big singing story by that German guy,

Suddenly you could understand

Not just what the birds were saying,

But also all the animals.

 

And you could talk to them too,

Because you had used your emotion empathy

Science magic to learn

The beating heart language

Of the birds and animals,

Which is after all the language of emotion.

 

But my favourite part of this story is this:

Then you wrote a bunch of books

And taught a bunch of classes

Where you worked with the rest us

To find and forge the emotion empathy

Science magic, which is very cool!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Myth Number 2:  The Temptation

 

At some point, the science wizard power bad guys

Began to get worried.

So they took you

And your science witch teacher Laura

Up to the top of a tall tower.

 

They showed you the power cities of the world,

And told you,

“We’ll let you be the boss of all this,

If you just come over

To the dark side of the Process

(that’s the magic of one-thing-after-another),

If you just say you believe in our kind of

Science wizard power magic,

Named CBT.”

 

Needless to say,

You were too stubborn to give in.

And for this we are all very grateful,

Because here we are today,

Paper bag princesses all,

(Just like in the book by Robert Munsch)

Doing three things:

 First, instead of eating CBT hamburgers

We live on honey and manna,

Which is kind of like baklava

But is really dried bug juice sap:

It really isn’t as bad as it sounds;

Plus it’s good for us

And is environmentally friendly.

 

Second, we are rejecting patriarchy!

(Which means power guys running everything

And telling women and children

And other folks what to do).

We don’t like this! Yay us!

 

Third, best of all,

We are talking with the beast and the bird

Parts of each other

Using emotion empathy science magic,

…And maybe a little help from

The Merlin apps on our phones?

 

 

Myth Number 3:  Gallifrey

 

This myth might be more for grown-ups;

It is full of Dr. Who references.

 

Les, we know you couldn’t stay in South Africa,

Any more than the Doctor could stay in Gallifrey.

Canada was and is your promised land.

 

You might, or might not, be a Time Lord,

But there is the matter of

Your two hearts:

 

One heart beats even now for Brenda,

Lost for many years, but still alive in you.

 

TARDIS BBC Television Centre; source: Babbel1996 

 

We share the other heart with Shelley.

Fortunately, like the TARDIS,

Your heart is bigger on the inside,

And there is plenty of room here

In its chambers:

Over your 80 years,

You have taken us all,

Your travelling companions,

On too many adventures to name.

 

With you we have found and forged

The emotion empathy science magic

Needed to cross time and space

Regenerating through

Nebulas of vague feelings

And supernova secondary

Chain reaction emotions

To cosmic background stuckness

And the blackest holes of despair.

 

There, fragile, broken, seemingly

Alone in the universe,

At the last moment we suddenly

Emerge through the wormhole,

Discover we are not alone,

And reach our hearts’ desire.

 

                        -Robert Elliott, September 2025

 

 

Blurb notes for A. Pascual-Leone, 2026: Principles of Emotion Change

[Notes: (1) I get asked to write blurbs for forthcoming books, in exchange for getting to read an advance copy. It’s always a challenge to boil a book down to 2 to 3 sentences, and I often end up writing a couple different versions for the marketing folks to pick from, plus some of my other favorite bits. (2) Reference: Pascual-Leone, A. (2026). Principles of Emotion Change: What Works and When in Psychotherapy and Everyday Life.  APA.  Book details: Paperback; Publication date: November 2025; ISBN: 978-1-4338-3660-2; 656 pp; US$54.99]

 

Short blurbs:

Brilliant! Elegant, clear-thinking and highly practical at the same time. Provides the empirical and conceptual foundation for the next generation of Emotion-Focused Therapy theory and practice.

 

Lovely writing, highly quotable, chock full of concrete, wide-ranging practice suggestions with a range of compelling metaphors and entertaining case examples.

 

  

 

 

Longer blurb:

Serious EFT therapists and practitioners of related emotion-based approaches will want to read this book, because it provides a solid, clearly stated scientific foundation for five key kinds of emotion change processes. The author has produced a tour de force based on a rigorous, decade-long systematic review of a wide range of applied emotion research, producing a fresh look at the key therapeutic tasks such as empty chair work, grounding them historically and in the wider field of applied emotion research.

 

 

Other favorite bits:

 

Antonio has done us an enormous service by developing and putting forward a unified grounded theory of the specific emotion processes that drive change in psychotherapy and people’s lives more generally.

 

One of my favorite things about this book is the humility of the author: At the end of an enormous and masterful review, the client is the hero of the story, choosing the emotion change processes that make the most sense to them and using these to change themselves. This book then serves to help therapists support this process.

 

Favorite quote: “While the therapist chooses the intervention, only the client chooses the process” p. 45

 

 

Additional note: This book is due out a couple of months after the second edition of Elliott, Watson, Goldman & Greenberg. (2025). Learning Emotion-Focused Therapy: A Comprehensive Guide. It’s a great complement to Learning 2, essentially providing the basic science underpinning Learning 2, and maybe pushing its edges in places. Antonio has been working on this book for 12 years, and it’s massive, a real magnum opus!

 

 

Bubbles All the Way Up and Down: A Dream

 [Note: This poem, inspired by Gene Gendlin’s approach to Focusing-oriented dreamwork, is a follow-up piece to “Postscript”, which I posted here last November. It was drafted shortly after that piece, but for various reasons I put it aside at the time and have dipped back into it several times, letting it sit with me, incomplete. Recently it occurred to me that (a) “Postscript”, (b) this poem, and (c) “Seventy-five” (which I posted here in June) combine to form an emotional sequence, with this piece connecting the other two. Together, I see them as marking a “time of turning” in my life.  If you want to read them in sequence, you can do so by following the links at the end of the poem. -Robert]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1  A Dream of Fragility

 

Another night, another dream:

 

I’m running a training session,

A small group, about ten people,

In someone’s house, just as we did

In the old days of the approach.

 

And somehow I’m outside

By a busy road

Speaking into a wireless microphone,

With the signal breaking up,

So I don’t know if the people

In the training can hear me.

And then of course my phone rings.

 

So I go to a brief break in the training;

And answer the phone.

You are there, after 50 years,

Phoning at this precise moment

To make contact.

 

I tell you I can’t talk now:

I’m about to do a live demonstration:

A short session in front of all these people,

Which I always begin

By publicly imagining a bubble

Around myself and my volunteer client.

This protects the two of us

From judgement or distraction.

While the audience watches to learn.

 

It’s a good excuse.

But the truth is,

I’m surprised to find in myself

A fragility I didn’t know I had,

As if your phone call

Was the foreshock to an earthquake

Revealing a previously unknown

Fault line in my world.

 

Then phoning you back

Once the live demonstration

And the rest of the training session are done,

I feel my body begin ease

At the sound of your voice:

You are OK, it sounds like.

 

I’ve been so worried about you,

As if I couldn’t afford right now

To lose another foundational

Person in my life.

(Philip and Margaret are both dead.)

 

Then my alarm goes off,

Insistently beeping in the gathered dark,

And the dream of you vanishes

Like the soap bubble

Wish fulfilment dream

That it was.

 

Yet I’m left with:

You are still out there in the dark.

I know where you are,

But I do not know how you are

Or even who you are now.

 

And I don’t even know if this dream

Was about your fragility or mine,

Or even how to tell the difference.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2  Associations: Professional and Personal Bubbles

 

Where this dream of fragility takes me:

 

As a therapist, I’ve long focused

On other people’s fragility:

Anybody’s fragility…

As long as it’s not my own.

The therapeutic bubble,

Well boundaried and one-sided.

 

But this has always been an illusion,

An avoidance of my own fragility,

Another soap bubble fantasy

Of solidity and safety.

 

This makes me wonder about

All the different bubbles

That buoy my life,

Like a fragile raft

In the middle of large ocean,

 

My life like a brief bubble

In the sea of time,

Mostly spent

On all manner of things

Significant and insignificant.

 

The fragile feeling says:

Now there is far less

Of that life remaining

Than what has already passed;

I’m mostly done.

 

Of course, I pretend this is not the case,

I ignore the truth

That compared to most humans

Who have ever lived

I am on borrowed time,

Beyond my span.

 

I let myself forget

That my life is a debt

That can – and will –

be called in at any time.

 

My little life is like

An aneurysm about to burst,

A blood bubble in my brain,

A fragility on which

My continued existence depends.

 

Many questions bubble up in me,

Have I done enough?

Have I made a difference?

Have I lived a worthy life?

Does anyone care?

Will anyone remember me?

Does that matter?

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3  Carrying Forward: The Song of the Bubbles

 

I don’t know how

To answer these questions.

They leave me speechless

And empty-handed.

So I wait. And I wait.

 

And this is what comes:

 

All I know is to go with the bubbles,

To dance to the song of the bubbles.

 

Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble,

We are all bubbles,

Our little lives and loves.

Bubble after bubble:

Bubbles emerging from

Geothermal vents

At the bottom of the ocean.

It’s bubbles all the way

Up and down.

 

Soap bubbles and soup bubbles;

Financial bubbles propelled by excitement or greed;

Bubble tea: floating tapioca beads,

The fad its own kind of bubble.

We are all bubbles,

Our little lives and loves,

Bubbles all the way

Up and down.

 

Speech bubbles evaporating

Into the next frame of my life.

Hope bubbles bursting into despair

Like broken blisters.

Despair bubbles bursting into hope,

Like geodesic domes on the moon.

Our little lives and loves,

We are all bubbles,

Bubbles all the way

Up and down.

 

My life bubble surrounded by the time

before my birth and beyond my death;

Quantum foam, constantly flickering in and out of existence,

No solidity anywhere, afloat and adrift.

We are all bubbles

In time and space,

Our little lives and loves;

Bubbles all the way

Up and down.

 

 

 

                                    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 -Pleasanton, Oct 2024 (revised,  Lodi, July 2025)

-Images generated by AI using Adobe Firefly Image 4, using selected verses as prompts.

-The whole sequence in order can be read by following these links (paradoxically, the first poem is called "Postscript"):

1. Postscript: https://pe-eft.blogspot.com/2024/11/postscript-2024.html

2. This poem: Bubbles All the Way Down & Up: https://pe-eft.blogspot.com/2025/07/bubbles-all-way-up-and-down-dream.html

3. Seventy-Five: Questions and Answers: https://pe-eft.blogspot.com/2025/06/seventy-five-questions-and-answers.html

 

Birthdays and Memories (Poem by Art Bohart)

[My dear friend Art Bohart wrote the following as a present for my 75^th birthday last week. I’m pleased to post it here as a counterpoint to the poem “Seventy-Five”, which I wrote and posted here earlier this week. -Robert]

 

Today

My friend is turning 75

And having a birthday party.

I remember when I turned 75.

I staged my 85^th birthday party

Just in case I didn’t live

Till 85. Robert and Diane came

To help me celebrate.

Sadly, I will not be there today

To help them celebrate.

 

This writing is about some of our times.

It is also about Time. Time,

The great haunter of life.

I think of Time like sheets of wind

Filled with rain. I do not know why.

Through the mist I see “shadows of the things

That once were.” They still are, deep in

My unconscious. I see Robert and Les

Coming up to tell me how much they

Liked my presentation at the Person-Centered Conference

In Leuven, way back in 1988.

Can I really see so far back?

I was 45. I was just (belatedly) starting

My academic career after my earlier one

Of turmoil and neurosis.

Their praise meant the world to me

And gave me the confidence to think

That I had something to say.

I am not sure I’d be where I am today

Without them.

 

Fast forward to 1996. Another shadow

Out of the mist appears.

I am sitting with Robert and Les.

Robert and Les are talking about their new book:

The formal birth of emotion-focused therapy,

A new direction in humanistic therapy,

Perhaps even a saving of humanistic therapy,

A savoring of humanistic therapy.

It is the only humanistic therapy that makes a

Major dent.

Even though I am a person-centered therapist,

It is the one I recommend to most students if

They want to practice as a humanistic therapist.

 

As the slide show through the mist progresses,  

Rome comes into view.

Robert is now a tour guide.

I, who am “public transport handicapped,”

Have planned no trips around Rome.

Robert, who is public-transport literate,

Rescues me. I tag along while he and Diane

Take us by bus and subway and bus

To the see the catacombs.

The next night we roam Rome by foot.

We see cathedrals and fountains and enjoy

A dinner together in the cool evening

After a day of hot sun.

That hot sun brings back the tortured memory

Of how we suffered together on a bus tour we took

In the blazing heat to the Colisseum and nearby ruins.

Diane had to sit down for awhile while I could barely stand.

It was so hot I cannot remember enjoying anything. Did we see where

Caesar is buried? If so, so what? By then I couldn’t care less.

 

Memories of a friend who enriched my experience

Painted into my memory

Coming now as time becomes precious.

I thank him for all the research that has enriched

My understanding of psychotherapy,

All the contributions he has made to methodology

Which helped me escape the strait jacket of positivism.

The development of a revolutionary form of humanistic therapy,

Which has expanded my consciousness of possibility,

The moments of friendship I and Karen have shared

With him and Diane.

If my life were a tapestry, hung somewhere in a

Mythical corridor of a mythical inner museum,

And it is, there would be all these experiences

Painted in, from the years 1989 to the present.

Like those old tapestries that told a story.

He has enriched my life story.

 

And now the show moves forward.

 

Time grows short. In some places hopes for the future grow dim.

The future looks darker.

Still, as we venture into the unknown

I am glad to have him and Diane as traveling companions.