I encountered a client who was having trouble planning ahead and seemed to be caught in a loop. He was not taking care of financial responsibilities and didn’t seem connected to his real past. His wife and mother said his recollection of past events tended to be confabulation at best and total fabrication at worst. I discovered his timeline was round but not just a circle more like a roll of tape. To me this explained much in terms of his behavior. However, I had never heard of such a thing so I had to improvise a solution. First I tried to walk him through unrolling the timeline like a roll of tape but he said it wouldn’t budge. So I decided to talk him through cutting the first couple of layers and unrolling it from this incision. I explained that this would not harm it because it would be like a surgical incision. I told him that he could make the incision using a light saber (he’s a big Star Wars Fan). My improvised solution worked and within minutes we were able to stretch the timeline out and begin doing timeline work. The best part of it all was seeing him a week later. The guy was full of light and excited about the future and interested in setting and working toward goals. His mother called me and said he seemed like a completely different person.

I had heard of round timelines before but had no clue how such a thing should be approached. Trusting my instinct in the moment turned out to be just the ticket.