When Eugene Heimler came out of the concentration camps after World War II, he thought deeply about what had enabled him to survive the camps, where there were overwhelmingly high frustrations and where so many others died. His question was summed up by the following words:
“On what does it depend whether we are defeated by life or whether we succeed?”
His answer was that he was able to find some sources of satisfaction from positive experiences in his past, and that these recollections of satisfying and pleasurable experiences gave him the strength to survive. However, in addition to being able to draw upon love received in the past, he knew that he had to do something in the present about his dangerous situation. Thus the relationship of satisfactions and frustrations became of great importance to him. He also realized that work, or any activity that is meaningful, is of vital importance to us in order to survive. This realization was a result of his experiences in the camps, where the prisoners were forced to do utterly meaningless and senseless work, such as carrying sand and rubble from one end of the compound to the other. This so called “experiment” was repeated continually, and many prisoners either died or committed suicide.
All this led to the development of a new approach that was particularly designed to help the unemployed and those who sought meaning and new outlets in their frustrated lives. The approach, today known as the Heimler Method, was further developed through Dr. Heimler’s work with the unemployed under the auspices of the Hendon Experiment and the Hounslow Project - projects in England that Dr. Heimler directed.
Theory and Method
Heimler's theory reflects John Donne's well-known statement that "no man is an island entire of itself": that it is our relationships, positively or negatively perceived, that give life its meaning. For Heimler this means that society has a pivotal role with its more deprived members, to permit connection and meaning in their environment and that we can exist as sane or useful people only as long as we can transform and utilize the negative in us.[6]
Heimler's principles include the importance of the relationship between satisfaction and frustration. He observed that "those who functioned in society ... had the common feature of a subjectively felt satisfaction that corresponded with their level of bearable frustration."[7] Too much frustration or too little satisfaction is detrimental to good functioning for an individual. The person's life experience is valued and used as a resource for healing in addition to recognizing where their energy is distributed. This enables the person to make changes that will allow more positive use of energy.
Another important principle which Heimler introduces is the use of the individual's past experience to dialogue with the present experience and project on to the future. Using a process, called the "Fragmenta Vitae", the person is enabled to become aware of the current emotional triggers and helped to access their early antecedents recalling childhood stories with the same emotional content. By engaging with the child in the past, the individual is encouraged to dialogue between the present and the past and to a projected future. This can help break patterns from the past and provide for an altered future outcome.
Heimler understood his theory in a developmental model with three levels. Briefly put: Level 1 (L1) is the infant world of instinctual responses to pleasure or pain; Level 2 (L2) "revolves" around L1 as it were by taking the growing and developed child into social interactions with all the satisfactions and frustrations this can entail; while Level 3 (L3) revolves around life itself, often as a more dominant force in later life, but as well, a creative force that many people tap into from earlier years. All these levels are relatively fluid as development ebbs and flows.
Heimler identified that "when a psychiatric or medical history is taken, it is looking at what is wrong or what went wrong" [and he continues:] "... rarely ... will you find ... that which seeks what is right with people".[8] The HSF method sets out the whole of a client's current experience so that positive and negative can be set together and the client can see her/himself as a whole. In this methodology, the individuals stand firmly at the center of their own world, exerting their will and abilities to change their own situation. Rodway sums up Heimler's philosophy as: "the belief that man has choices, that choices should be made available to man and that freedom is equated with self-determination as man makes his choices".[9]
Heimler's approach engages with the need to clarify the crux of the problem so as to facilitate a remedy. Although the concepts of social functioning were not new, Heimler sought a practical integrative tool which would "focus on the positive and how frustrations, abnormalities and difficulties could be turned into ultimate gain".[10] Heimler recognized that his ideas were not original but he sought an integrative whole which would offer a therapeutic tool. Along with his colleagues he produced a visual scale that showed to both therapist and client the connection between the individual's subjective experience and objective reality.
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“On what does it depend whether we are defeated by life or whether we succeed?”
His answer was that he was able to find some sources of satisfaction from positive experiences in his past, and that these recollections of satisfying and pleasurable experiences gave him the strength to survive. However, in addition to being able to draw upon love received in the past, he knew that he had to do something in the present about his dangerous situation. Thus the relationship of satisfactions and frustrations became of great importance to him. He also realized that work, or any activity that is meaningful, is of vital importance to us in order to survive. This realization was a result of his experiences in the camps, where the prisoners were forced to do utterly meaningless and senseless work, such as carrying sand and rubble from one end of the compound to the other. This so called “experiment” was repeated continually, and many prisoners either died or committed suicide.
All this led to the development of a new approach that was particularly designed to help the unemployed and those who sought meaning and new outlets in their frustrated lives. The approach, today known as the Heimler Method, was further developed through Dr. Heimler’s work with the unemployed under the auspices of the Hendon Experiment and the Hounslow Project - projects in England that Dr. Heimler directed.
Theory and Method
Heimler's theory reflects John Donne's well-known statement that "no man is an island entire of itself": that it is our relationships, positively or negatively perceived, that give life its meaning. For Heimler this means that society has a pivotal role with its more deprived members, to permit connection and meaning in their environment and that we can exist as sane or useful people only as long as we can transform and utilize the negative in us.[6]
Heimler's principles include the importance of the relationship between satisfaction and frustration. He observed that "those who functioned in society ... had the common feature of a subjectively felt satisfaction that corresponded with their level of bearable frustration."[7] Too much frustration or too little satisfaction is detrimental to good functioning for an individual. The person's life experience is valued and used as a resource for healing in addition to recognizing where their energy is distributed. This enables the person to make changes that will allow more positive use of energy.
Another important principle which Heimler introduces is the use of the individual's past experience to dialogue with the present experience and project on to the future. Using a process, called the "Fragmenta Vitae", the person is enabled to become aware of the current emotional triggers and helped to access their early antecedents recalling childhood stories with the same emotional content. By engaging with the child in the past, the individual is encouraged to dialogue between the present and the past and to a projected future. This can help break patterns from the past and provide for an altered future outcome.
Heimler understood his theory in a developmental model with three levels. Briefly put: Level 1 (L1) is the infant world of instinctual responses to pleasure or pain; Level 2 (L2) "revolves" around L1 as it were by taking the growing and developed child into social interactions with all the satisfactions and frustrations this can entail; while Level 3 (L3) revolves around life itself, often as a more dominant force in later life, but as well, a creative force that many people tap into from earlier years. All these levels are relatively fluid as development ebbs and flows.
Heimler identified that "when a psychiatric or medical history is taken, it is looking at what is wrong or what went wrong" [and he continues:] "... rarely ... will you find ... that which seeks what is right with people".[8] The HSF method sets out the whole of a client's current experience so that positive and negative can be set together and the client can see her/himself as a whole. In this methodology, the individuals stand firmly at the center of their own world, exerting their will and abilities to change their own situation. Rodway sums up Heimler's philosophy as: "the belief that man has choices, that choices should be made available to man and that freedom is equated with self-determination as man makes his choices".[9]
Heimler's approach engages with the need to clarify the crux of the problem so as to facilitate a remedy. Although the concepts of social functioning were not new, Heimler sought a practical integrative tool which would "focus on the positive and how frustrations, abnormalities and difficulties could be turned into ultimate gain".[10] Heimler recognized that his ideas were not original but he sought an integrative whole which would offer a therapeutic tool. Along with his colleagues he produced a visual scale that showed to both therapist and client the connection between the individual's subjective experience and objective reality.
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