In the early nineties. A darkened room – I enter quietly, stop and look up at a large canvas. The first thing I see is the back of a petite lady moving very slowly, step by step, in reverse. This petite lady is swaying a little to the left and right in perfect harmony with the old woman, who is swaying a little as she walks forward and is right opposite her. Slowly, the two come closer. Everything happens in the rhythm set by the old woman. She has a searching look; she seems lost and a little restless. It looks as if she is searching for something. We hear a few short wailing sounds from her and also several unintelligible syllables.
The petite lady occasionally repeats some of the statements in a similar tone of voice. Gradually, the contact intensifies. The two now have good eye contact. From time to time, the old woman claps her hands and the petite lady immediately repeats this clapping – something like a non-verbal « clapping ping-pong » develops between the two of them. Then the petite lady strokes the old woman a few times over the top of her head with a hairbrush and addresses her briefly in question form. Finally, she asks questions about the old woman’s mother. Does she think about her? – Does she miss her? The old woman becomes increasingly attentive, straightens up a little and answers with a long, understandable sentence: « My mother was the most beautiful woman in all of New York. »
– I was totally amazed. Firstly, at the many coherent words in clearly understandable language, but above all at the joy and pride with which the old woman had said this long sentence. She had apparently « arrived » at her quest and now seemed happy and content. Unbelievable!
– What had happened? Now I could finally see the friendly face of the petite lady; that was Naomi, who had validated old Mrs. Kessler in a very unique way and mirrored her most of the time. I had just watched the last 5-6 minutes of one of Ed Feil’s many wounding videos. Those few minutes changed my life. But I didn’t know that at the time.
– Until then, I had never experienced a person who managed to be so completely in tune with an old, disoriented person. It seemed to me like a key to greater well-being and quality of life for elderly people. Without knowing that this was the learnable method of validation according to Feil, I immediately thought: I want to learn that too! – At the end of the event, I went to see the young woman who had brought this film with her. It was Vicki de-Klerk, the daughter of Naomi Feil. Vicki took time for me and gave me some very valuable tips.
– At the time, I was looking for help. I needed advice on how I could improve contact with an elderly client who was sitting in an armchair in a psychiatric facility, rocking her upper body back and forth for hours while quietly saying « ma-ma-ma-ma ». Her eyes were open, but her gaze was not focused. She was staring into space. I hadn’t yet managed to determine whether she had even noticed that I visited her regularly. All the chairs were lined up along the wall. Every week I sat very close to her for about an hour and touched her gently on the shoulders and back. In between, I sang to her, but she didn’t respond. When I greeted her and said goodbye, I tried to shake her hand, but it was more of a formality and didn’t go well. She didn’t look at me.
But after putting Vicki’s tips into practice, I soon managed to establish good contact with my client, which of course made me very happy. Shortly before she died, she was lying in bed when I came into the room. She looked at me very pointedly and said happily: « Good of you to come – I’ve just been in Paris ». I was surprised! Then I went for a walk with her along the Seine in very short sentences with « the inner eye »; we discovered the glitter in the water; further back were the great towers of Notre Dame. Somehow we felt a little warmth from the sun on our backs – it was a wonderful experience. – She died soon afterwards. When I was in Paris myself a few years later, I thought of her.
However, it took me several years to complete all the training courses in validation. Later, I really enjoyed teaching validation.