Before I became a Psychotherapist I worked in senior management positions in UK manufacturing. During that time I read a seminal little book on change called ‘Who Moved My Cheese?’ by Dr Spencer Johnson. Many of you will be familiar with the book and, if not, I highly recommend it to you. For a start it takes less than an hour to read and, more importantly, it captures the emotional and practical aspects of change in a simple parable style story.
‘Who Moved My Cheese’ is set in a Maze in which four characters live; two mice, Sniff and Scurry and two Littlepeople, Hem and Haw.The Littlepeople are as small as mice but in all other respects are ‘people’. The four characters search the Maze until they find a plentiful source of cheese. Once they find a store with a seemingly endless supply of all of their favourite cheeses, the Littlepeople start to settle down. They build homes and communities around their store of cheese and they start to take their cheese supply for granted. The mice remain wary and watchful for changes to the supply of cheese.
One morning, the characters wake up and the cheese is gone. The mice, who have noticed that the supply was diminishing, are not surprised. They put their trainers on and run out into the Maze to find New Cheese. In no time at all they find another plentiful store and start to enjoy the new cheeses on offer, with no thoughts or regrets about their original store.
The Littlepeople, however, have more complex brains and they do not respond to the cheese being moved in the same way as the mice. They experience shock, denial, anger, entitlement, frustration and, above all else, fear, at the discovery of the missing cheese.
Eventually, Haw faces his fears and ventures into the Maze to find New Cheese. His journey is more challenging than Sniff and Scurry’s was, as he didn’t leave the old store until he was depleted physically and emotionally, but he preserves and finally discovers the New Cheese. Hem sadly cannot adapt to the change and remains in the empty store. We never hear what becomes of him.
In this story the Cheese is a metaphor for what we want in life, define ourselves by and become attached to – love, relationship, work, money, status, health.
The Coronavirus pandemic has well and truly moved our cheese.
When a change like this happens, we will all have responses like characters in the story. Some people will move very quickly, like Sniff and Scurry, with little emotion and no backward glance. Some will move more slowly and deliberately like Haw and some will remain ‘hemmed in’ like Hem. Each of us may have moments of feeling and behaving like all four characters.
Right now, for all of us, our cheese has moved. Our easy freedoms have gone, our usual working methods have gone, our old social life has gone. For some people their whole income has gone or, most tragically, a loved one has been taken.
‘When you see that you can find and enjoy new cheese, you change course’
Our cheese has certainly moved. And so we, at some point, will need to move.
For the therapy profession this has meant moving online. Nothing ever will or ever should replace person to person human contact but online therapy and online therapy trainings are pretty good second bests.
We can be forgiven for feeling like Hem and wanting everything to be like it was, or doggedly waiting for our old cheese to return, but that might mean that ourselves, our clients and students don’t get much cheese for a long time.
We can also run too quickly perhaps, like Sniff and Scurry ,and not give ourselves time to process our losses and our gains in this shocking change.
We perhaps need to take inspiration from Haw, who feels his fear and moves anyway. We need to move with the cheese!
For the therapy profession this has meant moving online. Nothing ever will or ever should replace person to person human contact but online therapy and online therapy trainings are pretty good second bests.
At CICS we have transferred all of training online via Zoom. We still teach our sessions live but we share a screen space rather than our beautiful training room in Letchworth Garden City. We hold the faith that one day quite soon we will we back to our old cheese, but we are finding a taste for this new cheese in the meantime.
Here is some feedback from our students so far:
‘I think that it was very informative and very well presented, despite the limitations of engaging in online training. I found it very refreshing and I learnt a lot’
‘It worked for me’
‘A great way to learn in challenging circumstances’
‘The module has provided enough information and the new style of teaching worked surprisingly well’
As Haw writes on the wall of the Maze:
‘When you see that you can find and enjoy new cheese, you change course’
Interested in training as a sex and relationship therapist? Check out our courses here.
If you need access to online sex and relationship therapy, go to our service website here.
