Tales from the Crisis House: Speak His Language!

In this Atlasphere series, Andrew Schwartz shares his adventures at "Excalibur House," a 28-day psychiatric "crisis residential facility" where he worked as a counselor from August 2002 until July 2004.

Through counseling a wide variety of clients -- some drug addicts, some suffering from hallucinations or delusions, some young and in need of guidance, and at least one with a penchant for kicking holes in doors -- Andrew learned many lessons about communication, psychological health, spirituality, and even politics.

In this first installment of "Tales from the Crisis House," Andrew shares one of his earliest Excalibur House adventures, in which he learned the value of "speaking the client's language."

When I was eighteen, living in the northwest region of France as an exchange student, I discovered a marvelous way to get my entrepreneurial French "host mother" to read The Fountainhead: I acquired for her La Source Vive, the French translation.

I was operating, of course, on the premise that communication requires a common language -- an obvious enough notion when one thinks of languages, such as English, French, Russian, or Japanese, in the ordinary sense.

But it is also true that each individual has a unique personal "language" -- a unique way of conceiving the world -- and if we want to connect with and influence someone, a sensitivity to that someone's personal "language" can be very useful.

I learned the power of this idea early in my Excalibur House tenure through an interaction with a severely psychotic client. I will call him "Phil."

He wore ragged clothes, sported a head of long, streaked, frazzled hair, and spoke in a high-pitched whinny. Whereas many Excalibur House clients were superficially indistinguishable from "normal" individuals walking around on the street, Phil was clearly suffering from some serious loose screws. His official psychiatric diagnosis was the much-reviled "Psychosis Not Otherwise Specified" -- psychiatric jargon for "just plain crazy."

Phil was also graced with the label "hyperverbal"; he spoke often and profusely, and several of my fellow counselors complained of difficulties extricating themselves from his verbal clutches.

In addition, it seemed that no one could quite understand what Phil was saying. They only knew it had something to do with Christianity.


One evening, Phil came into the counselor office where I was sitting, plopped himself down on a couch, and began talking to me. It was my first serious encounter with him.

"It's nine o'clock 'til Tuesday!" he began auspiciously. "And you've got to till your field! You need to till your field I tell you! Or else the Lord will taketh away! The Lord will taketh away, I tell you!"

I sat in my chair, looking at Phil.

"When you can't till the field it's a sorry day! It's a sorry day I tell you, and I would be putting the blanket on the coffin if it weren't getting late and damp, and then he came over like Sturrowfield on a motorcycle!"

Indeed, Phil was confusing me -- but I found him a pleasant enough fellow, if a little overzealous. He continued:

"They were calling from the mountains, and it was time to till the field, and that wasn't happening! It wasn't happening I tell you! Sturrowfield was riding on his motorcycle!"

I attempted to break in: "Who's 'Sturrowfield'?" -- but Phil went on as though I had said nothing at all. This was to happen several more times, after which I gave up trying to query him. I contented myself to sit and listen.


Fifteen minutes later Phil was still talking, and I was beginning to feel slightly fatigued. It didn't seem that this "conversation" was going anywhere -- certainly not in any kind of therapeutic direction, and it occurred to me that perhaps I should do something about that.

He went on -- "The Lord Jesus cried for all to hear from upon the mountaintop! He didn't say it softly, no, he didn't say it quietly! And Sturrowfield was riding on the motorcycle when he said it, and I don't know if Sturrowfield heard him, but he was saying it all through the night, to till your field!"

Phil was showing no signs of fatigue. If anything, he was gaining energy. What to do? Outside of a crisis house, I would simply have safeguarded my own time, ending the conversation by whatever means first occurred to me. But I was at work, and I wanted to change or end the conversation in a way that might be most useful to Phil, the client. I also wanted to change or end it in a way that might allow me to sustain a reasonable rapport with him -- if you could call what was happening between us "rapport."

I set my mind to work on the problem, while Phil continued to speak as though I weren't in the room.


Ten minutes later, while Phil went on speaking, his passion ever mounting, a voice inside my head cried out suddenly: "Speak his language! Speak his language!"

I thought about this for a second. "Speak the client's language" is a general therapeutic dictum I had learned while studying the work of the great psychotherapist Milton Erickson -- a therapeutic innovator known for his novel, highly purposeful, personalized-for-every-client approach to hypnosis and therapy. The basic gist is for a therapist to use his or her best judgment concerning what to communicate, but to follow the client entirely with regard to how to communicate it.

With all my studies, the idea of speaking this client's "language" hadn't initially occurred to me. What would speaking Phil's language mean? And even if I were to somehow succeed in speaking Phil's language, how could I communicate any content through it?

I wasn't sure of the answers to these questions, but uncertainty hadn't stopped me from taking action in the past. Besides, I told myself, one must take chances in order to grow... and I didn't have any better ideas. So I thought: Okay. This guy wants to talk crazy? I'll show him how to talk crazy.

He was going on: "...and that day Jesus came and then Sturrowfield rode away on the motorcycle, because he hadn't tilled the field! He was on his motorcycle! Jesus was saying to till the field! And if you didn't --"

I suddenly jumped out of my chair, pointed toward the ceiling fanatically, and shouted: "You want to hear something fantastic?! I'll tell you something fantastic! Now listen to me! Last year I was walking through fields and tilling them all day and all night! And then I came to a field that was frozen solid! It was frozen solid I tell you! Covered with ice! And do you know what I did? I walked away! I left the field! I was standing on a field that was frozen solid, and I just walked away! And do you know what happened later? I found a field that was more moist and fertile!"

Phil sat stunned. I was somewhat stunned myself. It would be several days before I unraveled the metaphorical content of what I said; while I was saying it, I was struck solely by the remarkable fact that Phil was listening to me. And now that I had finished my impromptu lecture, he sat staring at me with a tentative kind of amazement, as though I were a strange creature from Mars -- or perhaps more accurately, as though I were a human being: the first human being he had ever met. "But..." he started, "but you've got to till the field..."

I responded, somewhat more soberly this time: "Yes. It is very important to till the field, I agree. But sometimes -- sometimes I tell you! -- I find myself on a frozen field -- and now, when I find myself on a frozen field, I walk away! I walk away I tell you! And I walk until I find a field that is more moist and fertile."

His eyes slowly filled with pleasure, until they lit up like firecrackers -- and then he bounced off his chair and began to cackle hysterically: "Ha ha ha! Yes! I like this guy!" He came over to me and shook my hand fervently, cackling all the while. "Ha ha ha! Yes! This guy knows what he's talking about! I like this guy! Ha ha ha!"

Then, the cackling gentleman in front of me -- who previously had seemed incapable of ending a conversation of his own volition -- backed himself excitedly out of the counselor office, shouting feverishly, "Yes! Okay! I'll talk to you later! I like this guy! Ha ha ha!"


After Phil left the office I sat back down in my chair, astonished. It seemed I had somehow caused or influenced our "conversation" to end -- and by Phil's own initiative. I had also made a genuine connection with what some might have described as a not-very-user-friendly character.

Perhaps most significantly, in our several conversations that followed in the ensuing days, Phil spoke less and listened much more -- and when he did speak, he spoke with some consciousness that I was actually in the room.

One week after our initial encounter, Phil ran away from Excalibur House. I don't know what became of him. But from that time onward, I made it my responsibility as a counselor to consistently attune myself -- as sensitively as possible -- to the unique worldview and personal "language" of the individual client in front of me. It was to be a practice that served me well in all my adventures to follow.


Andrew Schwartz is a math tutor and bodyworker who recently finished a two-year stint as a psychiatric counselor. He is a former editor and interviewer for the Atlasphere, has counseled individuals privately and led personal growth groups from his home, and has given talks in various settings on his theory of free will. Andrew also maintains a personal web site, which houses his articles, interviews, music, poems, and intellectual influences.

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