David Grove on Pulling Back and Defining Memory

(The following section is taken from some of David’s notes and edited to be included here.)

The idea of pulling back is like the archer. In order for the arrow to hit its target with accuracy, the bow needs to be stretched and the arrow needs to be pulled back to just the right distance. The question is, how far do we pull back, in order to hit just the right spot?

Pulling back will find either the Pristine the place where they felt right, and were scaled correctly to their real world, or the time and space where the client was just before feeling bad. If the Pristine is not found, the client may need to move to six positions to locate ‘from whence they came’.

To arrest time and stop a person from moving forwards or falling into the effect of the problem, they need to find a different space from their problem space. This will place them in a more empowered position.

To move the client out of their problem space they need to find the space that is just before the time when the trauma occurred.

Moving time back will help move the client out of their problem space and will allow them to gather information from another perspective without complicating the issue.

When moving time back there are also elements of space that need to be considered. Time and space are interchangeable. When a person is traumatised in space they feel it in themselves. When they are traumatised in time as well, they may indicate this by reliving their experience at a certain time of the day.

The question that pulls time back is:

• “What happened just before …?”

The question that pulls space back is:

• “Where did … come from?”

The memories associated will be fixated so it requires perseverance from the facilitator as it will be very difficult to move time back because it will want to go forward.

When asking the questions to move time back, they may become overwhelmed and say “I don’t know”. This is when the space questions would help the move backwards. They provide more information, and work like another observation point.

For example: If the client is asked “Where did the man come from?” and the client answers “Well, the parking lot”, then there is new information which resulted in the client being pulled back in time within their experience.