William Wise

Introduction:
William Wise offers a Whole Systems Approach to healing and personal transformation. Based in the Hakomi Method of Body-Oriented Psychotherapy, his work integrates Family Systems Theory, herbal and nutritional support, and spiritual issues. William specializes in individual and couples counseling, weight loss, anti-aging and dynamic health, and a holistic approach to illness recovery.

Whole Systems Examples:
Let me tell you a story about someone we'll call Bob*. Bob's life hasn't been going so well lately. He's not keeping up at work and his marriage is stressed. He's tired all the time and frequent headaches make it hard for him to stay focused. His doctor told him that there is nothing obviously wrong with him and suggests that he get more rest and take some over-the-counter pain pills when needed. Bob doesn't have a defined "disease" yet his quality of life has been spiraling down for some time now. Traditional medical approaches look for ways to relieve the symptoms of his discomfort. Traditional psychological approaches look for ways to help him better deal with the stresses in his life, perhaps looking for seeds of his problems in his childhood.

A Whole Systems exploration might turn up a combination of factors. Bob's been stressed at work for some time. Because of this he usually wolfs down a bagel for breakfast and skips lunch, just grabbing an apple on the run. As things start to unravel, he keeps remembering his father's prophecy that he "will never amount to anything" and his own childhood self-recrimination that he was too fearful to somehow save his mother from his father's abuse.

His low protein, high carbohydrate diet triggers several bodily responses. He becomes more sensitized to pain and is subject to low-level inflammation, making his headaches worse. The fact that his body isn't detoxifying well adds to his distress.

Because of his guilt over failing at work, he is too quick to go along with things at home that would normally be dealt with through disagreement and negotiation with his wife. The more he accommodates to her demands and frustration at his failings, the worse he feels and the more poorly he does at work. His stresses and diet have reduced the serotonin levels in his brain, making him even more depressed and non-functioning. He is fearful and doesn't see a way out of his situation.

How do we help Bob from a Whole Systems perspective? We start with a thorough exploration of his life. Since he has recently seen his doctor, we know that there is no medical condition that must be addressed. We explore with him his diet, daily schedule, and the nature of his relationships with significant people in his world. We help him bring into awareness his feelings about himself, his current struggle, and his childhood experiences and beliefs. Based on his completion of a self-diagnostic survey, we also surmise that he is feeling the results of a toxic lifestyle. With help, Bob gains some perspective on the whole of the forces dragging him down. He improves his diet, uses some herbal supplements to help him deal with stress, and does a colon and liver cleanse to reduce his toxic buildup. On the emotional end of things, he gains insight into his childhood-generated core beliefs about himself and his relationship with others and finds better ways to relate to his wife. By approaching his situation from many angles at once, we help Bob to get his life back on track in a relatively short period of time. The synergy created by this kind of work generates benefits that positively affect every area of his life.

In his provocative book, We've Had A Hundred Years Of Psychotherapy And The World's Getting Worse, Jungian Analyst James Hillman points out one of the major flaws in our current approach to healing.

The heart of his indictment is that we have narrowly focused on internal psychological issues and ignored the larger context of people's lives. To a large extent, modern medicine can be accused of doing the same thing by focusing on the body to the exclusion of the whole person.

Here's another story. Mary's* situation is different. She is completing a course of chemotherapy for breast cancer. She is following her doctor's guidance concerning her treatment and she also wants to do everything she can to assist herself in her recovery. After reading Dr. Andrew Weil's recommendation that people with cancer "must work to improve general health and resistance by making changes on all levels: physical, mental/emotional, and spiritual," she decides to take a holistic approach. In our work together, we explore the many factors that support maximum health and recovery such as childhood experiences and beliefs, the nature of current relationships, nutrition, detoxification, immune system support, visualization of a positive future, and sense of spiritual purpose. Her desire to live is strong and she wants to give herself every possible opportunity to heal on every level.

*Note: Bob & Mary are composites.

Principles of Health and Healing:
For true change to take place, we must understand the basic principles that guide our efforts toward wholeness. These principles guide my work:

(1) Each person is biochemically unique:
Therefore, each solution is in some way unique: your solution.

(2) Events have multiple causes and therefore must have multiple solutions.
This is equally true with physical diseases, emotional problems, and plane crashes.

(3) Mind-Body Holism:
There is no real separation of mind and body. Our thoughts and emotions affect our physical health and our health affects our thoughts and emotions. We can't effectively treat one without the other.

(4) Unity:
Not only is there an essential unity between the mind and the body, there is also a unity between: the various organ systems of the body; you and the people in your family; you and the toxins in your environment; and you and the community in which you live.

(5) Organicity:
You are an organism. You can fix a car or a bookcase but you can't heal them. And they can't heal themselves. A doctor can set a fracture but cannot heal it. He must wait and see if it will heal from within. Living systems self-organize, self-create, self-maintain, and in many ways, direct their own evolution. We must take this into consideration when we assist in someone's healing process.

(6) Nonviolence:
"Nonviolence is a practical recognition of organicity. It is a policy of going with the grain, of staying with what is natural because that's what works. Going against the grain, using force against a living system is asking for resistance." Ron Kurtz, the originator of the Hakomi Method.

(7) Mindfulness:
To be completely healthy, we must learn to listen to our bodies, to be aware of our thoughts, and to fine-tune our health program based on a combination of knowledge, awareness, and intuition. Pain and distress are messages to us from our bodies. We need to pay attention to them, not just cover them up.

About William Wise:
William has worked in the field of health and human services for over 30 years. He has held positions as varied as social worker and supervising social worker for Los Angeles County, therapist at a private mental hospital, child welfare worker in Aberdeen, Washington, Director of Comprehensive Health Planning in Washington State, director of a United Way service agency, pastor of several churches, and workshop facilitator for Wings, a self-development company.

William has been in private practice in Eugene since 1985. He has facilitated workshops at Breitenbush Hot Springs and numerous workshops and trainings in Eugene. Although centered in Hakomi Therapy, he has also studied Rogerian counseling methods, Transactional Analysis, NLP, and the methods of Milton H. Erickson. William has also explored both Eastern and Western methods of spiritual transformation.

Background:
1963 Graduated from Westmont College
1969 Graduate Certificate in Social Services from U.C.L.A.
1977 Issued Ministerial License
1984 Ordained to the Priesthood
1986 Consecrated as an Autocephelus Bishop
1986 Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) Training
1988 Certified Hakomi Therapist
1989 Certified as a Teacher for the Hakomi Institute
1992 Began studying shamanic healing under Michael Harner, Ph.D., Sandra Ingerman, M.A., and Leslie Conton, Ph.D. Taught classes in shamanic healing
1994 Began intensive study of herbal and nutritional supplementation
1998 Ongoing student of Psychoneuroimmunology, the science of mind-body healing.
1998 Ongoing student of Functional Medicine as developed by Jeffrey Bland, Ph.D.

William Personal Mission Statement:
"To make a positive difference in people's lives through the alleviation of suffering, be it physical, financial, psychological, or spiritual."