Now I believe the material is ready for the general public, especially for parents to use with their own children. It’s been tried, tested and proven to be a safe model of healthy change. Contained in the family kit of The Gem Inside is the essence of my life’s work.

The kit helps parents to educate and equip their own children to live their lives in a positive and happy way. It is easy to deliver; engaging, easy to read and to listen to. In short – it is a perfect vehicle for creating thinking and family discussion.

The boy who is the main character in the story enacts for children the issues of life as he travels through the metaphorical Land of Confusion. His journey is everyone’s journey, for he encounters the everyday stresses and struggles of life and the emotions that those stresses can produce: fear, anger, self-defeating inner thoughts, blame, depression, aggression, substance abuse – essentially, the crazy makers of life. These issues are safely portrayed and played out in the fable. The boy overcomes them and in doing so models the strategies necessary to lead a successful life.

Gem of the First Water was developed to get children to enter into thoughtful consideration about the mind picture the story produces. This inner contemplation is like looking in a mirror, forming a personal opinion or position to ready children for the next step – changing their behaviour to gain control over the issue.

Each chapter builds on the lessons of the previous ones, establishing a process for forming identity and contributing to the confidence that having a good sense of self gives to a child. The boy learns and models successful behaviors as he overcomes the fable’s dilemmas, his actions in the story give insight and instruction to children without the stress of the real-life event.

The boy’s journey shows children how to deal with difficulties themselves. Getting these lessons early prepares them to handle life’s big conflicts later. The Gem Inside program builds coping skills and the confidence to use those skills. It prepares the individual to resolve life dramas effectively in the future. Unprepared people can spend their lives going from one chaotic disaster to another. But those who are prepared for life’s challenges can avoid unnecessary pain. Everyone knows that challenges are easier if one has been there done that. With Gem of the First Water, one has the experience of being there and doing that within the safe environment of the story.

The ultimate privilege of parenting is to be able to equip your children for a successful life. As parents we will have done very well if we accomplish this. The Gem Inside Kit is a tool to help us do just that. It enables parents to teach their own family values, give their children the skills to make good choices and establish the behavioural boundaries essential for a healthy self image. These are the foundations for good mental health.

I believe parents are eager to resume the role of teaching values and morals to their children. For too long this has been left to others, often with unsatisfactory and sometimes devastating results. Every parent would like their children to have a great career, status and possessions; but more importantly, I believe every parent wants their children to be healthy and happy, and that can only happen when their child has a healthy sense of self.

The Gem Inside is also perfect for parents who have unresolved issues themselves. Its teaching and change strategies are just as effective with adults. Spectacular results have been achieved when children see how the story Gem of the First Water brings about positive changes in their parents.

Two years ago the Rotary Club of Ellerslie Sunrise Inc. shared my desire to make these materials available for parents to use at home. Together we developed the Gem Inside Kit.

The kit consists of:

One DVD Introduction to the Kit
One Book: Gem of the First Water
One Book: Gem of the First Water Guide
One CD set (5) author telling the story_ talking book
Two DVD Author discusses how to get the best from each chapter

Parents, this is an opportunity to give your children what they really need, and it’s not money or fame. You have a rich chance to help the ones you love develop meaning and happiness in their lives. This kit is worth more than gold.

Ron Phillips
Author of Gem of the First Water

The first and second books have their aetiology from early in my career at Creative Alternatives, the residential treatment facility my wife Mary and I founded and grew during the seventies and eighties. Up until this point I have spoke almost exclusively about Therapeutic Storytelling Intervention, or TSI. Therapeutic Storytelling intervention is what I call the psychological intervention I developed to deliver the themes expressed in Gem of the First Water to the boys and girls at Creative Alternatives Inc. Now in the autumn of my career I want to change ‘flights’………up until now I have emphasised the three books of the Splendora Trilogy ONLY in the context of the Therapeutic Storytelling Intervention process. I have not promoted the trilogy to the general population because I was immersed in working with people at the metaphorical ‘bottom of the cliff.’ In doing so, I was making a living, raising my family and developing my thinking through experience and learning. Now I’m dancing on the edge of retirement…. and This first real blog entry offers me the opportunity to express how much I am looking forward to seeing this material flowing into the general population and many more people taking the journey. I know, or naively think I know, that if a few take a chance and invest in the process then the promotion of the material to a wider international market will be self-perpetuating.
I came to New Zealand in 1991 knowing not a soul. My work spread via word of mouth and today a large number of New Zealanders know about and have benefitted from TSI. It would be wonderful if numbers took the journey because the work offers a blueprint, a model for balanced effective living, truly a comprehensive self-help book. Wow! I said it. Verbose yes! Totally! That I acknowledge, but I believe this fable could cause a ripple effect for good, and, yes, I do sincerely believe it is conceivable because of my empirical observation. I’ve seen the change it can create in countless sessions spanning many years. And because I have seen it work, I can with confidence boldly express these grand notions. The theoretical foundations of the Splendora Trilogy are the values and principles of Judeo-Christian teaching. I spent years studying and thinking to understand the messages given us by earlier travellers. Hopefully the messages in the Splendora Trilogy are true to the original themes. And because of my belief in the truism of the Judeo-Christian ethic I can stand by the healthy nature of messages and themes of the Trilogy which are reflections of earlier inspiration. My work career has been working with the disadvantaged, emotionally disturbed, angry people who act out their anger in self-deprecating behaviours or with others who act out their anger and all too often act on others close to them. For the last 35 years I’ve worked in mental health experiencing the gamut of dysfunction.

The Splendora Trilogy is my chronicle of what I’ve seen and what I’ve learned that works to treat the problems I have encountered almost daily for many years. I have kept a keen eye on these problems and through experience formed solutions from the principles of the works that form the foundation of the Splendora Trilogy. The Trilogy is an epic journey with each episode depicting issues or problems of life in a non-threatening manner so that the readers/listeners can see clearly. This allows the participant to form a ‘position on’ or ‘figure out what will I do’ when I’m faced with an event like the Boy has just gone through. Deciding on a personal stance is the key to the development of healthy self with solid personal behavioural boundaries. Once the problem is highlighted, the literary characters enact behaviour(s) to resolve the dilemma. An eidetic model of behaviour is established, allowing the reader vicariously (within themselves and in the reader’s own time) in the fertile territory of undefended mind (eidetic imagery) to work through the drama depicted in literary form. This enables he/she to form a unique character quality, a dependable personality trait, a boundary and belief, and a firm stance on the fable’s highlighted issue. This is accomplished in the unconscious cognitive process, allowing the reader to establish a consistent belief regarding a temptation or problem and determine how then to live and how best to react when life’s reality demands dealing with the fable’s themes in real life and in real time. We teach children to read because it opens up the eidetic world of the mind. A reader or listeners of a story can identity with the characters and visualize the environment, almost taste the tastes and smell the smells… Readers/listeners in their eidetic imagination can be that person, take that adventure, and experience vicariously the pains, fears, triumphs of the literary characters. That can and does happen on this Trilogy. People identify with the characters, internalize the issues and methods modelled by the characters to resolve the struggle…..and often readers/listeners redirect their own behaviour, building walls of self-control and forming a ‘stance’ that a person endogenously knows can be relied upon, thus achieving identity. Allow me the opportunity to be a bit redundant, I’d like to restate and expand on what I think happens as the readers experience going on the Splendora trek. In each book the characters interact with the issues that we as people of the 21st century encounter in the normal course of living. The events or teaching themes that the characters experience mirror the fears, conflicts, and dilemmas that all of us must face and either resolve or fail to resolve. The first book is Gem of the First Water which has an emphasis on the establishment of a sense of identity. It gives clear answers and examples of how to establish a healthy sense of self. The big questions of life, ‘Who am I’? And who will I become”, are answered through the Boy’s journey through Gem’s metaphorical Land of Confusion. His experiences as he deals with questions of life are a role model for readers and listeners. The Trilogy provides a clear path to finding answers. As the Boy (archetype for everyone) in Gem has each new experience, the eidetic episode invades the reader’s or listener’s psychology and they either consciously or unconsciously ponder the vicarious experience and come to some position or opinion, leading many to resolve for themselves the stories’ universal dilemma(s). The fable is evolving; each chapter segment is important to the development of following chapters, as the three books are interrelated and of sequential importance, systematically guiding the reader on a personal journey. Collectively the lessons of life help form a context for everyone’s quest for actualization to know one’s self. The problems and the solutions are enacted in a fast moving story where every episode is held in the reader’s/listener’s psychology, providing a framework within the mind for thinking and discussion. Our ability to retain mental pictures is amazing. The reader reads or the listener listens at a much faster pace; he/she can think circles around the printed or spoken word, formulating associations. Personal applications come into play and vicariously people see their own similarities and endogenously start the personal change process, not because they’ve been told to or threatened, but because they have made a personal identification, like honestly looking into a mirror. If the learning is applied, without hesitation I can say lives will change. The Splendora Trilogy is important for everyone not only adolescents who are on their identity search but also for those older adults who earlier failed to establish their own sense of themselves. For those who know they are not who they think and feel they should be, and are emotionally upset, either acting out the results of a conflicted self or acting it inside with self-depreciation behaviours. Yes, I believe it provides those struggling with identity issues yet another opportunity to establish their true self. Change is available to all; in fact it’s so simple, many miss it. On the second journey The Travels of Plymouth, the characters are on a character quest. In “Gem” the Boy found himself by applying his rich experience. Travels is all about identity with character which is the next step in maturity. On this trek the Boy, now known as Plymouth, collects Gemstones of Character and by doing so integrates them into his life. The Boy is now equipped to negotiate the storms of life. The third book, “And then it happened” is a reflection of my personal belief system based on my own travels through life. “Happened” is the classic cosmic conflict of good and evil. This book is not accompanied by guides or resources. It is what it is….That said, I strongly encourage all to read it because I believe it contains the answer to hope for now and later. I’m told by many readers that The Splendora Trilogy is a fun adventure, a good read, and in addition to the values it imparts, it is also exciting and cooks right along. I developed The Splendora Trilogy for those in desperate need. However over time and using the material with many people, I have come to the opinion that the three book Trilogy is a fable for our time because it speaks to the myriad of issues that all of us — red or yellow, black or white — “we, the citizens of Now” have to encounter and resolve. If you have read this far, congratulations! I know this is long but I want to convey my passionate belief that this Trilogy will benefit every person who reads or listens to it with an open heart and mind. I challenge you to take this fable’s trek. Start by reading the Trilogy and its accompanying Guides thoughtfully and in sequence. Take the journey yourself and revisit the issues germane to your life. The Trilogy will do for you everything I claim! It is a healing journey, worth more than gold.

Dozens of troubled and severely disturbed youth have been set on the road to recovery from their mental illnesses with a unique form of group therapy pioneered by Ron Phillips of the Campbell Lodge mental health unit at Middlemore Hospital.

The technique, Therapeutic Storytelling Intervention (TSI), uses the fictional tale of a boy’s journey from childhood to adulthood to “touch and open young people in surprising and amazing ways”.

Working with groups of eight or nine, Ron draws on the theme of his Tolkien-style book Gem of the First Water to reach his patients and help them to understand and overcome their own issues and problems.

On the way they become involved in a “questioning process” that enables them to identify with the main character as he copes with the struggles of adolescence which “provoke reflection and provide a blueprint for change”.

Explains Ron: “Although telling stories attracts them initially, it is the relationship between the Storytelling, the questioning process and the interaction between the storyteller and the group that forms TSI.”

Campbell Lodge is part of the Counties Manukau mental health service, where Ron has been a family and group therapist for seven years. He has a Masters Degree in counselling and guidance and developed TSI after finding troubled teens difficult to reach using more traditional forms of therapy.

The programme is custom built for youth who suffer from mental illness and according to Campbell Lodge clinical head Hugh Clarkson, it has a much higher success rate than other group therapy approaches.

Compared with only about three sessions in other courses, Campbell Lodge patients become so absorbed in the story and the process that during each 16 to 18 week course, they attend an average 14 sessions.

The technique is also being used by the police and the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) Foundation in its To Make a Change programme. The Safer Streets Trust has taken it to 200 high schools throughout the country and there is wide interest in TSI in the USA and Australia.

Another example of the lodge’s outreach programme can be seen at Kedgley Intermediate School in Papatoetoe, where Deputy Principal Carol Taylor and two other staff members run TSI groups for children at risk.

The aim is to prevent the development of mental health or other problems further down the track. Carol says that in terms of children’s ability to take responsibility for themselves and their behaviour, the success has been phenomenal.

Over the course of the programme, seven or eight students get together for supervised, hour-long sessions twice a week and go through a self-realisation journey. “At the end of their journey, we provide each student with a copy of Gem of the First Water,” says Carol.

“Most of them take it home to share with their family and use as a reference for their journey into adulthood. We are constantly amazed at the courage with which our young people who have completed the TSI journey face traumatic and scary life events.”

Ron Phillips says TSI at Kedgley Intermediate is an excellent example of community outreach in terms of preventive medicine. “Once these issues are resolved at this level, the need for further treatment is greatly diminished,” he says.

For more information on Ron’s form of group therapy, visit the website at www.tsi.co.nz.