No Fault Counseling

I use No Fault Counseling as taught by Dr. Dave Dobson, of Other Than Conscious Communication fame.

The idea is simple. In the situation you bring me, we do not go looking for who is at fault. We work to resolve it as quickly as possible.

I have been Dr. Dobson's number one student for many years.

Dave Dobson died on February 22, 2008. He lived on San Juan Island, had his office on Ferry Street, and ran his seminars out of Friday Harbor. He called them Fun Shops. He hated the term Work Shops.

Richard Bandler, one of the founders of NLP, was quoted as saying that every time he teaches, he hears the voice of Dave Dobson in his ear.

Dobson left behind no writings. He was forever in the process of writing a book, The Mythical Kingdom of the Mind, that never came to light. Most of his work was non-verbal. At any moment in a training he was working with the people in the room, helping them outgrow some of their less useful patterns. While he was demonstrating one of his techniques, he might be working non-verbally with several people at once, and most people never knew what he was doing.

Watching Dobson teach was watching mastery in action. He called himself the world’s worst teacher, unless, as he said, he had a gifted student.

I began studying NLP soon after it was developed. I read every book I could find and attended seminars around the country and around the world. Along the way I heard of Milton Erickson, the legendary hypnotherapist, and of “another Erickson,” Dr. Dave Dobson.

It took me nearly 30 years to journey to see Dave and discover what Other Than Conscious Communication was. It did not get off to an auspicious start. My friends and I were baffled by his teaching. Then a single sentence from a fellow student revealed that something was going on right in front of us that we had not realized. It was as if someone raised the blinds on a dark room.

We became “repeat offenders,” and I spent the next eight years traveling to study with Dave and learn his system. When I transcribed his Pain Alleviation seminar as a birthday gift to him, he was outraged. He hoarded his teachings. That transcript became the only example of his teachings that ever made it into print.

The number one thing Dobson wanted was for people to use his teachings. “Steal my stuff,” he yelled at one Fun Shop. Before his genius is lost forever, I wanted to share it with the world.

Who was Dave Dobson?  ·  Read some of his stories