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A Celebration of
the Life of Helen Huth Watkins, M.A.
Claire Frederick
Woltemade Hartman
Priscilla Morton
Maggie Phillips
John Watkins
James Wemple
Because there is no question whether we will remember the unforgettable Helen
Watkins, we have chosen not to use a traditional “In Memoriam,” but instead, to
celebrate an exceptional life that continues to grow within the innumerable people who
were touched by Helen’s life, mind, and heart. It is a life whose effects on intellectual,
educational, social, and personal lives within the hypnosis community and far beyond
have been so vast that they will always remain uncharted.
The facts of Helen’s life are quite interesting and unique. A romantic at heart
who adored opera and studied it in Innsbruck each summer, Helyanthe Maria Wagner,
daughter of Anna Maria and Josef Wagner, first opened her sparkling blue eyes to this
world on July 19, 1921 in Augsburg, Bavaria. As her father had died before she was
born, Helen and her mother lived with her grandfather until she was eleven. Helen
always spoke fondly of the grandfather who was the only father she had ever known.
She knew that he loved her as unconditionally as any human could. No doubt she drew
upon what she experienced in this special relationship in the years to come. When
Helen was eleven, she and her mother immigrated to the United States and established
residence with her maternal aunt and uncle, Mary and George Sinzker in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania. Helen could only speak German when she arrived, and when she began
school, many of the other children ridiculed her attempts to speak English. However,
her iron determination (and her excellent ear) allowed her to master the English language
so well, that she eventually spoke it without any accent whatsoever. She was chosen
valedictorian of her senior high school class.
Helen was briefly married to Robert Verner and widowed at age 20. She later
married Richard Huth and had two children, Marvin and Karen. She received her B.A.
from Pennsylvania State University (Phi Beta Kappa) and her M.A. from the University
of Denver. She had completed all requirements for her doctorate degree at the University
of Denver except the dissertation. She was single mother then, and she made the decision
that her need to support her children and focus on their care was stronger than her need
to pursue the doctorate further.
Shortly after arriving on the campus of University of Montana to take the
position of psychologist at the Student Counseling Center, Helen met John (Jack)
Watkins, the director of clinical training at the university. They married in 1971 and
American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis
45:2, October 2002 Copyright 2002 by the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis
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together influenced many young people in their roles as professor and therapist.
Combining their scholarly and creative energies, they developed many new techniques
in psychotherapy, hoping to gift the world with more effective and efficient therapeutic
strategies. Most would agree that their most outstanding achievement in this endeavor
was the transformation and development of Federn’s ego state theory into Ego State
Therapy.Helen’s astonishing skills as a psychotherapist were widely recognized. She
was a “therapist’s therapist,” and over the years many traveled from all over the world
for intensive weekends of Ego State Therapy and training with her. After retiring from
her position at University of Montana, Helen continued a part-time private practice
devoted primarily to psychotherapists. Those who experienced such a weekend with
Helen could easily say that she took them with great tenderness and skill to places they
never imagined they would go.
Woltemade (Wally) Hartman of South Africa is a therapist who had
transformative experiences with Helen that altered the course of his life. Wally is now
the Director of the newly established Milton H Erickson Institute of South Africa and
the organizer of the first World Congress in Ego State Therapy to be held in Bad Orb,
Germany in March 2003. In 1997 he was elected for a five year term to the first
democratically elected, non-racial Board for Psychology in South Africa.
Wally was born into an anti-apartheid white family in South Africa that was
persecuted for its views. He was forced to do his military service at the then South
African Prison Services (1988-1991). He worked (psychotherapy) with the well-known
Sharpeville Five prisoners for one and a half years. They received the death sentence
and were on death row for about a year. It was during this period of time that he was
asked to attend their execution. He refused. Thereafter, negotiations started, and they
received a reprieve from President de Klerk. Wally was told, only recently, that all his
sessions with the Sharpville Five had been recorded at the time. He still has contact
with the Sharpville group. He tells of his experience as Helen’s patient:
The opportunity to have been a therapist-patient of Helen H. Watkins
was certainly one of the most significant experiences of my life. Since
my first meeting with her as a novice therapist in Constance, Germany
during 1990, I have been inspired by Helen’s therapeutic self. Her
resonance, compassion and intuitive ability in helping people to
recognize the multiplicity of their inner resources and to actualize
their potential, abides with me still. The time I spent with her
professionally and therapeutically in Missoula, Montana is one of the
great highlights and proudest moments of my life.
I recall her hypnotic voice so vividly: “... and as you move
farther and farther down your internal staircase, think back for a moment
on your history, not just in which country you were born, but also the
circumstances that contributed to your self-doubt. Consider what you
believed about yourself based on what others told you to believe
directly or indirectly—how you were treated. That is what defined
how the different parts of you experienced you and the world; both
the moments when you felt valued and wanted as well as the moments
when you felt wounded and certain you would never been fulfilled.
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A Celebration of the Life of Helen Huth Watkins
Though you’ve had times when you didn’t want to go on, you have
survived your path! You are still here, still standing, still meaning
something to others—and what an amazing journey of discovery your
life has been!”
Helen’s words made me realize that no matter who we are, or
where we live, we all have our own journeys. Mine began when I was
born “white” in apartheid South Africa—a country that had been
characterized by racism, sexism, and xenophobia. Helen identified an
ego state that remembered my parents vehemently opposing the
apartheid regime with devastating consequences to our family:
amongst others, incarceration and total despair. However, Helen’s
intuitive manner soon helped me to discover that this had been a part
of me that refused to succumb to and accept the racist roles assigned
to me by an insensitive, hostile and hurtful environment. It had been a
part of myself that did not want to be controlled and forced to believe
what had been expected of me at the time. It had been a part of me, as
Helen phrased it, that knew what it was like to be genuine, to have
compassion for others irrespective of colour or creed, and above all to
have hope, optimism and energy.
Helen Watkins helped me realize that the real power of defining
self, lies within the self. Perhaps most important was the fact that I
realized my own life was the most interesting one I knew, and that I
could accept myself for who and what I am. That means, putting your
life together in a way that you feel what you want to feel, do the things
you want, and more importantly, believe what you want and live your
best life every day. Helen helped me to peel back the layers of my life
and to excavate the real me. Our therapeutic journey made me realize
that no matter how troubled or successful, there is always potential
for growth, to get better, to move forward, to live with more purpose,
vibrancy and meaning. It became clear to me that I would not let my
adversity imprison my mind and that I must conceptualize my past as
an opportunity to dig deep for what is really true for me—then to act
on that truth, growing each day in greatness and service.
One of my personal goals of service today is to help rebuild
our great country and nation. I now realize that my purpose is here. I
want to use my time and resources to do what I can to help abate
poverty and the devastating AIDS crisis ravaging our country. What
I know for sure today is that my life is a multipart series of all my
experience—and each experience is created by my own thoughts,
intentions, and actions; to teach me what I most need to know. The
greatest discovery is learning to love myself first and then to extend
that love to others in a country that needs me and my skills as a
therapist—now more than ever.
Helen told me “Discover your true life journey, Wally.” I am
now a man, a father and therapist in process, creating and striving for
new dreams, new goals, new ideas. It never ends, and that is what is so
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exciting: the journey itself! While I am making it, the voice of Helen
Watkins will go with me.
John Watkins believes that Helen was such a remarkably successful therapist
because she chose to enter into deep intersubjective connections with her patients:
I had written a book (Watkins, 1978) around the concept of
“resonance,” which I learned from her. Resonance, a more intensive
extension of empathy had not been recognized and utilized in
psychodynamic approaches to therapy, being subordinated to
transference as the preferred technique. Perhaps this is because in
seeking to uncover the transferences the therapist is supposed to
remain emotionally neutral.
In resonance, the therapist actively throws his/herself into
full co-experience, cognitively, affectively, perceptually, motorically,
and physiologically. With half of herself so intimately identified with
her patient and the other half soundly planted in reality, Helen could
both reach her patient with a true, experiential insight, and transmit
such comprehension to the treated one. This understanding was
achieved through “counter-resonance,” an internalization of the
therapist’s self by the patient…
But this procedure requires a bit of “self-doing” on the part
of the therapist—over and above the cognitive application of
techniques. Helen used her “therapeutic self” constantly…
Throughout her life she presented gifts to others: the gift of respect,
the gift of laughter, the gift of tears, the gift of understanding, and the
gift of healing.
Intellectual Gifts
Helen’s international acclaim as a highly creative, innovative psychotherapist
and a gifted teacher has tended to overshadow her intellectual legacy. She was well-
trained in research methodology, and she demonstrated her capacity for academic
research. John Watkins tells us that her Master’s thesis at the University of
Pennsylvania which was based on the analysis of 1,000 case protocols. Her true
intellectual interests lay, however, in the deep interpersonal study of human behavior.
At one point she decided to “quit reading psychology books and listen to people”
instead and entered a realm of data-gathering similar to that of Freud and other
theoreticians who utilized intensive clinical observation and case studies.
Helen’s intellectual gifts to the hypnosis community were most visible in several
major endeavors. One was her world-wide collaboration in the development of innovative
techniques in psychotherapy including the ego-state model of therapy. Within the
literature Helen’s unique intellectual contributions were insufficiently recognized
because her own individual publications were few. In general, she theorized and
published jointly with her husband and co-author and was unvaryingly reluctant to
assume, he reports, the position of “senior author” even when she had contributed half
or more to joint studies. As a sole author, and in collaboration with her husband John,
Helen contributed more than 40 scientific articles, book chapters, and one complete
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A Celebration of the Life of Helen Huth Watkins
book. She received many honors and awards. In October, 2000, with her collaborator
and co-author, John Watkins, she was awarded the Pierre Janet Award for Clinical
Excellence, at the 15th International Congress of Hypnosis at the University of Munich.
Helen’s individual publications are significant in their focus. She created the
Silent Abreaction and the Somatic Bridge, as well as several techniques for relieving
various burdens of guilt that patients frequently carry. Helen was keenly aware of the
need for ego-strengthening as the fundamental element of all therapy. Her suggestions
for raising self-esteem featured the activation of an archetypal, conflict free aspect of
the ego that shared some of the qualities of Inner Strength. She placed emphasis on the
therapeutic alliance, resonance, and the therapeutic “being” of the therapist in deep
intersubjective relationships. Priscilla Morton tells us about some of the “secret
ingredients” that made Helen’s interactions with everyone she encountered an ego-
strengthening event:
As a teacher, a colleague, a friend, and a therapist, Helen conveyed
her belief in the resources of every individual. She had a most profound
way of “being with” people that created a safe place in which they
could experience their strengths and resources, face what they needed
to face, learn what they needed to learn, and experience positive
transformation. Helen ended one of her marathon ego state therapy
weekends with a therapist by saying, “The secret is to accept who you
are and utilize your past experience as an asset.” She offered her own
“energy” for support, when needed, and would openly shed tears as
she made the journey with so many to help them find the “true self,
that fabric that will not break” (H. H. Watkins, personal communication,
1997). Her fluency in the language of the heart was evident when
she spoke in her ego-strengthening tapes of unconditional love as the
“life energy from whence you came.” In a personal letter to a colleague
dated 1995, she said, “Love is the answer to healing, health and
happiness.” Knowing Helen as a teacher, therapist, colleague and
friend has enabled me to have a deeper appreciation of “love as a skill
and a force that can heal and invigorate, reconnect and guide, calm
and encourage” (Gilligan, S. G., 1997, p. xiv).
During another weekend of therapy with a therapist who had
traveled thousands of miles, Helen said, “Sometimes we need to leave
people behind so that they can become a good memory.” I hope that
we have all become as good a memory for Helen as she has become for
us. We will remember Helen the person, that loving, vital, vibrant sense
of the being-ness of her self. We will easily access that “felt sense” of
being connected with an all-caring person who was at home with herself
and the world. Helen showed us that “…it is the person of the therapist,
not the technique, that is the most significant variable in determining
the success or effectiveness of an approach” (Watkins & Watkins,
1997, p. 159). For most of us who knew Helen well, she has become, in
the language of Ego State Therapy, an internal helper; a figure of
nurturance and wisdom that we have internalized as a positive resource
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and part of our internal families.
Another of Helen’s intellectual contributions was her teaching per se. Jane
Steckler (1989), a workshop participant, published a vivid account of her experience.
She noted that Watkins provided many ideas and strategies that were “incisive
resources” for therapists. Many of Watkins’ techniques can be found in audio and
video tapes of her workshops as well as in scripts that frequently accompanied them.
This outpouring of clinically-oriented planning and movement, always theoretically
based, was transmitted in the oral tradition of teacher-student dialogue, and much of it
has been invaluable to therapists working in the field of trauma and dissociative
disorders.
It should not be forgotten that Helen Watkins was a founding member of the
International Society for the Study of Dissociation and served as a supervisor and
consultant to many who are now leaders in the fields of trauma and dissociation. This
was one of Watkins’ quiet contributions to the rational understanding of dissociative
manifestations and appropriate clinical interventions. Many of us shared referrals with
Helen and had consultations with her, often via telephone. Maggie Phillips has noted
how Helen facilitated our own creativity, originality, and growth:
As I thought about all that would be missing for me in this loss, I
realized that over time the balance had shifted recently in our
relationship from one of student and teacher, mentor and eager
apprentice, to one of peers. I remember moments of trying to diminish
this change on occasion, attempting to pay homage to Helen for all
that she had to contribute to my work. Each time she would laugh
patiently and comment, “You don’t get it, do you? You do things I
wouldn’t dream of. So I learn from you too.”
Perhaps Helen’s way of fostering this kind of collaboration is
the gift that lingers most of all in her rich legacy to me. I watched her
create a sense of partnership during numerous clinical demonstrations
in her workshops, and I had heard this quality in every conversation
about her clinical work. And, somehow, she had helped to create a
shared sense of two equals who enjoy contributing to each other’s
learning in her relationship with me and with many other professionals
who shared with her a central interest in ego-state work.
Six months after Helen’s death, I find myself deeply grateful
for her unselfish investment to my professional development. I can
offer no better tribute than the hope that I can create a sense of
collaboration in my own relationships with clients and colleagues.
Helen remains the perfect model.
With her husband and collaborator, John Watkins, Helen encouraged several
generations of professionals to use the concepts of Ego State Therapy as springboards
for their own expansion and growth into new areas of theory and clinical practice. Claire
Frederick recalls the power of her friendship with Helen as a vital force in her own
development:
The awe of Helen in which I stood as one of her workshop participants
A Celebration of the Life of Helen Huth Watkins
evaporated instantly the first time I met her outside that setting. We
became friends, buddies, a mutual admiration society. We gossiped;
talked about clothes; hair; our intriguing clinical conundrums and
successes; life, death, and divorce; what we respectively were up to;
how we felt; what it was like to do yoga? How would she view a
clinical situation from an ego state point of view? Or just a Helen point
of view? (I taught her how to do the shoulder stand in the hall of our
hotel near Amsterdam—she supplied me with a central idea for my
paper on working with the dying patient).
When I (a very late-bloomer in the field of writing) presented
my first paper on Ego State Therapy in Europe, my friend Helen was
there to support me although she had already read it and heard it
presented in the States, I thought how great it was to have a friend
who would endure the boredom of listening to a scientific paper for
the second time. Of course we went out for a fabulous dinner
afterwards, I think at some elite shindig on a private island—having
great food with Helen all over the world was another part of being her
friend. There are times when I wonder which of Helen’s energies
most activated my own creative processes. Was it her teaching and
vast abilities as therapist and theoretician? Her intellectual approval?
Her collegiality? Or was it her broadband friendship? When we got
together, we could both become extremely mischievous 10-year–old
little girls who loved to play (sometimes outrageous) pranks. Did our
complex and fun-filled friendship and all the incredible humor we shared
perform some subterranean validation and stimulation of my mind’s
playfulness, one that could be extended into areas of psychotherapy
and hypnosis? What I know is that every contact with Helen was ego-
strengthening, and the longer I knew her the more I grew both as a
human being and a professional. I was never her patient, and she
viewed me as a colleague who had exceeded her in my theoretical
work (we argued strenuously and a great deal about that one, of course).
Today I know only this: that every moment I spent with Helen, face to
face, on the telephone, or via brief notes, was an occasion for me to be
my most authentic self.
A week or so after Helen died I was seated in the lobby of a
theater, watching the milling, chatting, waving, laughing crowd. Then,
in my imagination Helen popped up from the rear of the area. She was
wearing a lovely flowered dress. She turned, saw me, smiled, and waved
as she advanced. Her message was: “I’m here. Now let’s have some
fun! Let’s see what this is all about.” In a world grown increasingly
cold, where to be truly genuine is not often encouraged, it was a
miracle to experience Helen’s integrated, quite holy, therapeutic
personhood in our friendship. Perhaps the even greater marvel is that
its force, so great when she was alive, has neither vanished nor
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dissipated with her death.
Role of Humor
As with many great teachers and healers humor was a vehicle of deep and
transmutative interpersonal interaction for Helen. James Wemple, one of Helen’s
colleagues in Missoula shares deep insight into the power of Helen’s humor.
I first met Helen Watkins in the summer of 1969. As a new graduate
student at that time, I had no way of knowing the extent to which my
life would be affected by this incredible human being. Her therapeutic
ability would become obvious but her wonderful, healthy sense of
humor would have equivalent effect. Helen was a multifaceted person,
who always seemed confident and comfortable regardless of the
situation. Part of that comfort was clearly her sense of humor. She had
a delightful, ongoing sense of humor that was part of her “therapeutic
self.” It was delightful to hear Helen’s shriek of laughter when she
found herself in the midst of a joke. It was wonderful and relaxing to
experience her enjoyment of the “twist” that occurs in good humor.
Helen could laugh easily and well, both at herself and “with” others in
a very benign sense. Her humor embodied the true enjoyment of living,
as life takes its twists and turns. Helen had this incredible sense of the
sound of life through humor. Humor for her was a way of seeing the
other side of life, laughing at the absurdities and quirks of life while
relishing the enjoyment that humor brings. She seemed very clear in
her embracing of humor as therapeutic, long before the current
emphasis on humor emerged. There were countless moments in which
Helen lived the “healing power” of humor. She seemed always ready
for the one-liner or the twist and was never at a loss for words when it
occurred. Never desiring to malign or make someone the brunt of
hostile humor, she always seemed to involve herself with humor in the
most healing and healthy of ways. Her humor seemed to carry a clear
message of acceptance and joy, and she continued to behaviorally
teach us to laugh at our foibles while believing in ourselves as well.
The result was delightful interaction that was constantly on going
and changing, depending on the situation. As much as Helen was the
therapeutic self and the master of ego state therapy, she was also
inevitably the person who lived humor as a vital, ongoing, healthy
part of her life. She is given less credit for this, I believe, given the
incredible therapeutic skill that she possessed. Her reputation as a
therapist frequently seemed to overshadow other aspects of her life,
including her sense of humor. I saw her utilize humor with many, many
people over the years, in a natural and effortless manner in which she
simply seemed to be able to laugh in an easy and relaxed fashion. I can
not express adequately the ability that Helen had. It seemed to flow
from an inner-healthy child. The humor was as much a part of her
therapy as direct techniques were, and I feel that Helen lived and
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A Celebration of the Life of Helen Huth Watkins
embodied the nature of humor as a means of both dealing with and
appreciating life in a healthy, positive way. To me, her humor will be
missed as much as her therapeutic touch. She brought humor to therapy
in a natural and effortless fashion. In fact, laughter seemed to emerge
for her as a message of joy and brought her interaction with others to
another level. It brought with it a sense of belonging, connection, and
acceptance that facilitated healing and appreciation of the gentle side
of life to all whom knew her. I believe she would want us to continue to
live well, and to love. I believe she would also want us to laugh well
and often.
As I conclude these thoughts, I believe she would have said
to me, “I know I’m wonderful Wemple (giggle). Wrap it up would you,
it’s time to go play.”
References
Gilligan, S. G. (1997). The courage to love. New York: W. W. Norton
Steckler, J. T. (1989) Ego state therapy: A workshop with John and Helen Watkins.
Trauma and Recovery, October, 25-36.
Watkins, J. G. (1978). The Therapeutic Self. New York: Human Sciences Press.
Watkins, J. G & Watkins, H. H. (1997). Ego states: Theory and therapy. New York: W.W.
Norton.
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