Where Did the Option Method Come From? by Mandy Evans

Where Did the Option Method Come From?

This article was originally published as a chapter in the book Emotional Options by Mandy Evans. A special word of thanks to Mandy for allowing us to re-publish her work.

Bruce Di Marsico created Option and taught it at a para-professional institute for group counseling called GROW in New York city in the early 1970s. That’s where I first encountered Option. It was as if I had been waiting my whole life to hear what he said. I took several classes with him at GROW.

Bruce first called what he taught Option Therapy. Later, he called it the Option Method. Option Process was another name used. Bruce trained a group of approximately twelve people in weekly meeting at his home. I say approximately because about eighteen of us started out. Some left, others joined. We used to joke about there being twelve of us, like apostles, during one long period of time when we remained a constant group. Our training also required participation in a weekly therapy group to work on our own issues, as well as individual sessions.

Barry Neil Kaufman, who has written several books about Option, and I were in that training group. Barry’s wife, Suzi, joined the group near it’s end shortly after I left to move to a small town in upstate New York. The Kaufmans now head the Option Institute and Fellowship in Massachusetts. The have trademarked the name Option Process.

In 1986 I founded Option Learning Experiences in Encinitas, California, a small town on the coast, just north of San Diego.

Through the years we have all grown and learned. Just as a secret passed around a circle of people alters as it goes around until it bears little resemblance to the original, I’m sure Option has too. Whose is it? It’s ours.

I studied Option with Bruce as a fully developed, comprehensive method. My desire is to credit and acknowledge him as the founder and creator of Option. I want to express my gratitude for all that I learned from him without misrepresenting him because of things I may have made as a result of my own considerable experience in a life which has been permanently and gladly altered by the knowledge and practice of Option.

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Where Did the Option Method Come From?