Originally published in The Dyslexic Reader, Issue 11 Copyright (c) Fall 1997-year DDAI.

Putting Self in the Picture- By Ronald D. Davis

In a conversation with a counseling trainee, I was being told about how she was working with a problem ADD. student. After she had the student do Symbol Mastery on the concept of consequence, the student could recite the definition back to her verbatim, but there was no change in his offensive behavior. So she had him redo the concept by having him model each of his offensive behaviors. This time she had him include both a model of himself and the offended party as well as the activity that caused the offense. In doing this, he made the connection between what he was doing and the offense the other person took. That connection allowed him to realize he was causing the problem himself, and like magic, the offensive behavior stopped.

After hearing this, I reflected back to the time when I was a child. I grew up in a severely hostile environment. My father beat me almost every day. Around the same time I was learning the alphabet I began to make models of my father from red dirt and water. I made these models just so I could smash them and grind them back to dirt.

I made models of the beatings, too, so I could smash them and grind them back to dirt. I made models of what would happen after the beatings, and I would smash them. Eventually, I made models of what would happen before the beatings.

At that point, a curious thing happened. The beatings stopped!

Without realizing what I was doing, I had stumbled onto the concept of consequence. Before, things had just happened – without warning, reason or cause I had no idea of cause and effect until I created the concept for myself. Without trying or intending to, I simply stopped doing what I had been doing that brought about the beatings.

I now realize that in every one of my models there was a figure of me. I had included the idea of self in every one of the basic concepts.

There is an important lesson here for all of us to learn. Whenever a basic concept is being mastered, the clay model must include the concept of self in relation to that basic concept. This is what makes the difference between something that is learned and a concept that is now a part of the identity of the person. If the model doesn’t include self, the person may or may not make that connection. There is the possibility that the person hasn’t truly mastered the concept.

This doesn’t mean that all Symbol Mastery models must include self. What I am saying is that the basic concepts like consequence, responsibility, time, etc. must include self to be certain that the concept is truly mastered.