At a training I attended some 18 mo. ago, the speaker shared an analogy I used numerous times afterwards, in which the individual is compared to the driver of a bus. The explanation of the analogy was brief and, as it turns out, I apparently misremembered parts of it and perhaps misunderstood other parts – but the “twisted” version I used after that, with clients, worked, too. I just found out that this is a widely-published analogy in materials related to ACT, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, a type of CBT. What follows are two links to materials explaining the ACT version, including a video and a written description. There is also a reference to a publication in which the written description is quoted, in the context of a larger discussion of the use of ACT/CBT. Following that are my own thoughts about the “bus driver” analogy that I used with clients.
The video:
The written description:
http://forum.psychlinks.ca/acceptance-and-commitment-therapy/24748-the-passengers-on-the-bus-metaphor.html
The reference:
Luoma, J. & Hayes, S. C. (in press). Cognitive defusion. In W. T. O’Donohue, J. E. Fisher, & S. C. Hayes
(Eds.), Empirically supported techniques of cognitive behavior therapy: A step by step
guide for clinicians. New York: Wiley.
Anita’s version:
You are the driver of a city bus. You know how to drive and you know the route. You decide when to stop and you turn on the sign, at the end of your shift, that says, “Garage,” to tell people that you aren’t taking on any more customers. BUT – you can’t control who gets on your bus. Sometimes it will be people you like a lot – people who are quite pleasant, or just quiet. Sometimes it will be people who grumble or criticize or try to tell you how to do your job. (Just as, in real life, there are people in your life that you didn’t invite into it – perhaps coworkers, or next-door neighbors, or in-laws, or customers.) Your job, regardless of what they say or do, is to keep on driving the bus. You don’t let them tell you where to go, you don’t let them sit down in the driver’s seat. It’s your bus. You just keep on driving, do your job, and don’t let grumpy or critical or bossy people get you off the track.
In this version, unlike the ACT/CBT version, the people on the bus represent real people, not thoughts or feelings. I often used this analogy with people who had difficulty with assertiveness, who felt unempowered, who allowed others to “get under their skin.” The driving of the bus represents their moving toward their goals regardless of others’ agendas, nagging, naysaying, etc. It was important for some clients to realize that they didn’t necessarily need to remove those people from their lives – they just needed to get better at tuning them out at times. I recall a couple of clients who told me later, “I keep telling myself – ‘just keep driving this bus.'”
The interpretations, while very different, are certainly related and for some clients, particularly those who are more concrete thinkers, the first version might actually be a good introduction to the analogy – to be followed later by the idea that those other people on the bus might represent various voices in your own mind – as a less concrete interpretation it might be easier to get the second after coming to understand the first interpretation.
In any case, this is a rich analogy with several useful levels of meaning – and a great video to go with it!
the analogy bank 