Summary: Andy comments on a very short chapter of The Rainbow Machine about an incident in a residential psychiatric setting, involving a resident nicknamed Word Salad Dave whose speech did not make sense to others. He discusses how the environment, staff roles and medication shaped the situation, and how hard it is to change anything within such a system.
Author: Andrew T. Austin
Andrew T. Austin is a therapist, trainer and author. He qualified as a registered general nurse in 1992, with clinical experience that included accident and emergency (A&E) and neurosurgery, and went on to train in Ericksonian hypnotherapy, NLP (to trainer level) and Provocative Therapy with Frank Farrelly. He developed Integral Eye Movement Therapy Technique (IEMT), formalised as a training in 2008, and Metaphors of Movement. Both are included in The SAGE Encyclopedia of Theory in Counseling and Psychotherapy (2015). He is the author of The Rainbow Machine: Tales from a Neurolinguist's Journal, prefaced and edited by Steve Andreas and published by Real People Press.