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Another powerful element of Virginia's effectiveness was her insistence on action. She understood that people change only if they fully experience the events or perceptions that words can only point to.
Words don't have any energy unless they spark or trigger an image. The word, in and of itself, has nothing, nothing. One of the things I keep in touch with is, “What are the words that trigger images for people?” Then people follow the feeling of the image. (1989)
Virginia frequently pointed out that people tend to stay in, or return to, behavior that is familiar. Actively trying out a new behavior is one way to make it familiar; Virginia often suggested to people what to say and how to say it. She would sometimes even say it for them, demonstrating nonverbally exactly what she wanted them to do.
As you move into new behavior and allow yourself to do it, it becomes familiar, so that a step toward change is to act “as if.” Now it used to be a long time ago that to act “as if” meant that you were a fraud. Actually, what it's doing is giving our systems a new set of things to respond to... Whenever I want to help people to do what's comfortable for them, instead of what they've been used to doing, then I help them plan some ways so that they can enact in front of me that new possibility. (1989)
After ten-year-old Lisa responds to her mother's crying by saying, “Everything was so sad and everything,” (1983, p. 84) and that people in the family were feeling unwanted, the dialogue goes:
Virginia: I'd like to make a suggestion to you, because maybe this could be helpful. I am going to find out if everybody in the family does know what it feels like to be unwanted, but I wonder what would happen if you felt that way and you said, “You know, right now I'm feeling nobody loves me.” What do you think would happen if you put words to that?
Lisa: Then my mom would probably say to me that she does love me.
Virginia: Then maybe your mother would come to you and say she does love you? Would that help some things?
Lisa (nodding): It would just make me happy again.
Virginia: It would make you happy again. OK. You're sitting down here, but I wonder if you could, just for practice, just so everybody could hear and you could hear: “Right now I am feeling nobody loves me.” Would you say those words?
Lisa: Right now I feel like nobody loves me. (1983, p. 88)
As family members tried out new ways of communicating, Virginia paid close attention to the nonverbal behavior to see if there was congruence. If she noticed incongruence, she would ask about their perceptions and feelings in order to make their experience and communication more complete and understandable. She especially asked about the feelings and yearnings that lay unspoken beneath the harsh words or the cold silence. Virginia assumed that such yearnings could be fulfilled through clearer communication.
Now let me be sure. You have a look on your face which doesn't—I am not sure what you are feeling right now, Susie—whether you really feel this is a serious bargain? (1983, p. 48)
Virginia: How did you feel, by the way, Margie, when Lisa came to you when you were crying?
Margie: Good.
Virginia: Could you tell her?
Margie (looking at Lisa): I felt good. I felt secure. (1983, p. 100)
After helping one or more family members make changes, she would ask them to re-engage in a live interaction, so that she could evaluate and test what she had done. Whenever Virginia noticed verbal or nonverbal behavior that could interfere with clear communication, she would stop to clarify it, showing people how to gather information and resolve objections. In this way, she taught how to “fine-tune” communication so that it elicited appropriate positive responses in other family members.
After checking with family members to confirm that they all feel unloved at times, Virginia asks the whole family:
What would happen if, when you were feeling it, you were to put words to it like Lisa just did? What do you suppose would happen with you, Casey, if you put words to that? “Right now I'm feeling nobody loves me.”
Casey: I have. I've put words to it before.
Virginia: Those words?
Casey: Well, “Nobody gives a shit about me.”
Virginia: Oh, that's a whole different thing. (Getting up and pointing a finger at Casey) Because you know what that means— “You should give a shit about me,” and that doesn't say, “I'm feeling, at this point, unloved.” (Sitting down, she still maintains eye contact with Casey.) (1983, pp. 90—92)
Virginia used action to translate hopes and yearnings into behaviors that satisfied them, making sure that the communication was clear and unambiguous, both verbally and nonverbally. As other family members responded, she would clarify their communication as well. After Margie expresses a wish to be closer to her husband, Virginia says:
So, if you acted on your wish—do it and see what happens. (Margie leans over and touches Casey's knee.) Now what you're doing—you could make that a lot easier if you moved over here.
Margie: OK. Instead of reaching out. (Margie is now sitting across from Casey, close to him, touching his knee, smiling at him.)
Virginia: Now, I noticed something. Notice what happened when you did this. What happened?
Margie: He kind of shifted back a little.
Virginia: Is that what you saw?
Margie: Maybe he didn't quite know how to feel;
Virginia: I saw a couple of movements and I don't know. Then you can ask Casey what he thinks he did. I saw him first move forward and then a little back. (Looking at Casey) Is that what you were doing?
Casey: Uh huh.
Virginia: OK. How did you feel about Margie taking the risk of moving under her own wishes toward you?
Casey: Strange.
Virginia: OK. That's a new thing.
Casey: Uh huh.
Virginia: Now that you've gotten over the feeling of strangeness, how does it feel to have her here?
Casey: Like it used to.
Virginia: And that means...?
Casey: Well, it's nice.
Virginia: I'd like you to tell her that.
Casey: It was nice. Like a warm, fuzzy... (1983, pp. 110-1 12)
Family sculpture was one of Virginia's well-known ways of transforming words into action. It helped her depict the family's system of interaction so that family members could see themselves more clearly. She would position family members in a still tableau or sculpture that displayed their typical ways of interacting—their supporting, clinging, blaming, placating, including, excluding, their distance and closeness, power and contact relationships, etc. (1983, pp. 54—62 and 96—98). Sometimes she added props, such as ropes, to dramatize the ways in which members restricted each other with rigid rules and roles, fears, “shoulds,” and “oughts.”
At other times the initial sculpture became a moving sculpture or “stress ballet,” demonstrating a sequence of interactions between family members (1983, pp. 136-150). These simplified dramatizations provided family members with insight into the repetitive processes that characterized their interaction, regardless of content. When Virginia taught them new ways to interact, these changes would typically occur in a wide range of settings.
Virginia also moved around a lot herself in order to make physical contact with different family members in turn. She often interrupted unproductive interactions by getting between the participants and blocking their views of each other. (When I first saw Virginia in the early 1960s, three-inch heels and several inches of bouffant hairdo augmented her six-foot frame—truly a giant among therapists.)
By forcing family members to respond to her, instead of each other, it was easier for her to elicit more positive responses. After getting a better response, she would get out of the way and allow family members to interact again. When the couple in Satir Step by Step reaches an impasse in which they are each reacting badly to how the other looks, and Virginia wants to interrupt and work with the wife alone, she gets between the husband and wife, facing the wife:
Virginia: OK. Now wait a minute. (Casey shakes his head, laughing with a disbelieving expression.) I am going to do this, right now (Virginia moves her chair in front of Margie, blocking Casey from Margie's view. At the same time Virginia moves her right hand in back of her in such a way that she touches Casey's knee.) because I want us to connect. You have a wish and your wish is... I'm doing this on purpose, you know that (referring whimsically to the fact that she is hiding Casey). Uh, your wish is that you'd like to be in touching contact with him. (1983, p. 106)
After working with the wife to clarify what she wants, and dealing with her objections, Virginia moves aside and allows them to communicate with each other again, while she monitors their interaction.
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