There are countless books and scholarly articles that psychologists and mental health experts have at their disposal as they counsel and advise their clients. But Marilyn Debora has a favorite author that she refers to often in her role as a management consultant and resilience coach. His name is A.A. Milne.
Debora said the man who wrote the beloved Winnie-the-Pooh stories for his real-life son, Christopher Robin, can teach adults how to be in community with others while dealing in a healthy way with effects of post-traumatic stress disorder.
On Wednesday’s Town Talk segment, John C. Rose and co-host Phyllis Maynard spoke by phone with Debora from her home in Toronto about her work with the Warriors for Life support group, of which Maynard is a member.
Debora said she has long been interested and involved in the veteran community, first in her native Canada and now with the U.S.-based Warriors for Life.
“Throughout my youth, our family would go to the veteran hospital and serve the Christmas meals as well as singing the carols and bringing the cheer,” Debora said. “The veteran community was always very important to my family. They believed strongly in the service they provided and we should be honoring them.”
Although she pursued a career in business rather than the military, she has found a way to stay involved with veterans through her support group work.
It was during a Warriors for Life session that she first shared an excerpt from one of Milne’s stories with the group. It struck a chord with the members and prompted Debora to do a little more research about Milne, himself a military veteran. Debora and her sister were still grieving the recent death of their mother, and her sister passed along the excerpt that she had gotten from a friend.
“It resonated with me and I shared it with the group that night,” she recalled. “And that’s when the conversation about Winnie-the-Pooh came up.”
What she found goes far beyond a collection of stories for children, and she said she finds herself referencing Winnie-the-Pooh at least 60 percent of the time in her work with clients. Milne had been a political satirist for a popular publication before the war, Debora said. Her research found that many papers had been written by experts which support the idea that Milne’s characters may each represent a psychological disorder.
“He was trying to explain his post-traumatic stress to his 6-year-old kid…in a child-friendly way,” Debora explained.
Each character represents a different type of trauma, but each one has a smile on his face, she said. Back in Milne’s day, it was called “shell shock.” Today’s terminology is PTSD, but no matter the label, those who suffer from it have a hard time coping.
Milne was “trying to help him understand what was happening to him, so that his son wouldn’t be afraid of him,” Debora said.
When she brings up the stories of lovable Pooh and his friend in the Hundred Acre Wood, Debora said it evokes happy childhood memories from her clients. But when she examines the gloominess of Eeyore the donkey and the Tigger’s boundless energy, she can delve deeper into ways to name depression and impulsivity that helps clients find positive and constructive ways to manage it in their own lives.
Although PTSD sufferers may feel depressed like Eeyore or paranoid like Piglet sometimes, it doesn’t mean that they feel all the different emotions all the time, she said. And those characteristics don’t define us or make us unable to be liked or loved by those around us.
By exploring the natures of the different characters, Debora can help clients identify their particular problem areas and then find ways to begin to move forward. “They are a creative and collaborative bunch,” Debora said of Pooh’s friends. Milne’s characters are a reminder that when things do get tough, they are stronger together. “Nobody gets left behind in a Pooh cartoon,” she said.
And that is a big take-away for her and the groups she works with.
“Resilience is the ability to pick yourself up and move forward in spite of adversity,” Debora said. She helps people know that the biggest challenge is knowing where to start. And when it comes to resiliency, you don’t have to start at the beginning.
It is a misconception that people don’t like change, she asserts.
“People don’t resist change. They resist the way the change is presented and the perceived impact it will have on them,” she said. And once you know what the perceived impact will be, you have your starting point to move forward.
“I help people realize what it is that’s holding them back and then having them come up with an idea of what that first step is. Once you’re moving, you’re moving,” she said.
“As long as I’m moving in a forward direction, I’m moving forward.”
Listen to the entire interview at wizs.com.