The Suit Magazine

But she would go on to establish her unique method—known today as Kinleining—as a major practice in the US.

Offices offering that service now span the country from Alaska to Washington. These practitioners are all united by a core belief in treating the person rather than just the condition, and in the healing powers of willpower. It may sound simple, but the philosophy that underpins the approach is far-reaching. The Suit wanted to know what drew Lucille Kinlein to her unique method in the first place, and to find out more about the basic principles of her philosophy.

Kinlein didn’t set out to study nursing. She was a college sophomore studying Latin and Greek in Maryland when World War II broke out, and then she felt compelled to do something different in order to contribute to the war effort. “I wanted to help in any way I could,” she says, and so she joined the Cadet Nurse Corps after graduating from college in 1943.
Later, Kinlein studied nursing at the Catholic University of America in Washington. It was there, in 1971, that a life-changing moment altered her path forever. “The moment came when I knew I had to open my own office. I didn’t have enough time to listen to the patients and hear what they wanted to talk about, because I had to carry out medical treatment for all of them. And so time was limited... but they wanted to talk about things other than medical conditions.”

Unhappy with a schedule that didn’t permit her to give patients the care they needed, she realized she had to make an independent fresh start. “I knew I had to open my own office in order to offer the care that people could not get [due to the] control that medical care had over the treatment of patients.”

Early reactions to Kinlein’s brand of holistic care were swift and encouraging; it seemed that this was precisely what people had been looking for. “The clients named it Kinleining, and they said, ‘I cannot get this kind of care anywhere else. It’s what I want, it’s what I need, and you’re the only one who offers me the opportunity to talk about it.’” Kinlein was happy to see that her newly launched discipline was clearly answering a human need for personal care with a focus on overall well-being.

Colleagues in the nursing profession started coming to Kinlein to learn about her developing practice, and in 1979 Kinlein left the nursing profession for good and declared the foundation of a new profession. “The ones that wanted to study with me asked if I would teach them,” she said, “because I did have an academic background teaching in a university setting. So I started the Institute of Kinlein.” www.kinlein.org There, her techniques are thoroughly explained to anyone who wants to practice her brand of healthcare. But what are these techniques, and how do they benefit patients?

When a client comes into an office for guidance, Kinlein says, it is entirely up to them what they wish to talk about: “The clients come in and say, ‘Where do you want me to start, and what do you want me to tell you?’ And of course, the answer is: ‘However you want to start, whatever you want to say and however you want to say it.’” Free expression enables clients to address whatever problems they wish to concentrate on, so they begin to talk. While the client speaks, “the Kinleiner writes every word while maintaining eye contact with the client, to show that they’re listening. The Kinleiner sits quietly and makes no sound or movement because the client is working out what they want to say, and you don’t want to interrupt that,” says Kinlein. “There’s a significance to recording words in this profession; it’s extremely important. The word becomes sacrosanct, almost.”
Subsequently, parts of the transcript are repeated back to the client by the Kinleiner. It is a gentle mirroring process that reflects the client’s use of language, and it is the essence of Kinlein’s approach. “So whatever the client talks about, the Kinleiner works with the words that identify the thought processes, and quotes them back,” she explains. Clients are then encouraged to examine their own expressions from an outsider’s perspective, which helps them gain objectivity in regarding their own feelings and anxieties.

Hearing back the content of their own monologues, observes Kinlein, can often surprise people. “Clients will say, ‘I didn’t say that!’ Then they’ll become interested in what we’ve written and say, ‘Could I look at it please?’” The Kinleiner’s role is to allow the client total freedom of expression, and then use a methodical focus on language to guide them to areas of concern of which they were previously unaware. In this way, the client gains a fresh insight into their inner life and begins to apply a philosophical approach to the problems they face.
Kinlein has made her journey from the study of languages, philosophy and nursing to a position as the director of a professional association with 16 offices across the US, and it hasn’t been easy. When she started, she said to herself, “I don’t know if this is going to work, and I don’t know if it’s going to fail. I just know I have to do it.” Sustaining her motivation through decades of hard work is her strong belief in the strength of human willpower. “Everything comes from God, and yet we have control over what is given to us through our willpower,” she says.

Kinleining, as it is practiced by its dedicated professionals all over the US, empowers individuals by giving them the philosophical tools with which to approach everyday life. Although it cannot directly eliminate adversity, it enables its beneficiaries to gain a new perspective on the nature of their problems. As Kinlein herself reminds us, the existence of adversity is no bar whatsoever to human achievement. “When someone has a core goal in wanting to help other people, accepting any setbacks but still pursuing the objective, it’s amazing how things work out.”
 

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