Shaun Hardie

There is a story about a marble statue of Jesus that stood in the courtyard of a small church in France. His hands were stretched out toward the village. During the war, a bomb exploded nearby and shattered the statue. When the fighting ended, the villagers gathered the pieces and put it back together. They found almost everything. But they could not find the hands. Some wanted to replace the statue. What good was a statue of Jesus without hands? Then someone placed a plaque beneath it: “I...

You can define cognitive defusion. You can explain it to your supervisor and you would pass a question on it. Then you run it with a client and they say, "I guess that was interesting." That gap is where most practicum students get stuck, and it is almost never comprehension. It is setup. The concept in one sentence: defusion helps a client see that they are not their thoughts. They are the one having their thoughts. The technical term is deliteralization, which is more useful to a trainee...

Thursday I was on a golf course instead of in my office. Thursday is when I write. Saying yes to the invitation meant pushing my sermon prep to Friday, and if you have ever tried to finish anything on a deadline, you know what that costs. I said yes anyway. I spent eighteen holes with three men I had never met. About four and a half hours, and I do not think we stopped talking the whole time. I also lost a lot of golf balls. I could stand on the tee box and picture exactly where I wanted the...