Richard Bandler - Changing with Families - A Book About Further Education For Being Human

These sets of information can be compared to help you understand this process of coping which is not coping at all with respect to the desires of the family members. The desired state is outside of the limits of a system which is closed in this way. The task of the therapist is to lead the family members to the experience of getting what they want with three general strategies:

a) Intervention by challenging fixed generalizations from the past (calibrated communication cycles);

b) Giving perspective of process (achieving meta-position to system processes);

c) Transforming the system by re-calibration.

These three tactics will overlap with respect to individual techniques, but the result will be to teach the family the skills of all three strategies, as well as helping them obtain what they desire. So, transforming a system is really adding to the system the tools necessary to achieve any desired state, by showing the family members how it can be done. The family will learn tools to break calibrated communication, tools to focus on process, and tools to communicate in new and more satisfying ways. This is what makes the task of a family therapist primarily that of an educator.

Tools for Intervening to Challenge Fixed Generalizations from the Past (Calibrated Communication Cycles)

In order for a therapist to help create an experience which is an example of the desired state but which is outside of the possibilities of the present state of the family system, calibrated loops will have to be broken. Family members will have to see, hear, and feel in new ways so that they can respond in these new ways. The transformations which are necessary for this to take place must start with the therapist. He will have to intervene in the ongoing process and provide new examples of how to respond and how to understand those new responses. Interventions which break calibrated loops can occur at any of the five transition points from which they were originally constructed:

1. Personal communicates incongruently;

2. Person B decides to which message he will respond;

3. Person B generalizes about his feelings and his decision about the messages;

4. Person B builds fixed generalizations (Complex Equivalences);

5. Person B Mind Reads Person A (is calibrated).

The therapist can intervene at one or more of these points. A complete intervention will require that the therapist break in cyclically through this process until the calibration is broken and the family members learn how to get feedback instead of calibrated communication. The particular content of the broken calibration is important only with respect to achieving the goal of providing an experience which is an example of the desired state. The real value of the intervention is the degree to which it teaches the family members that feedback will get them more of what they want than will calibrated communication and that they will learn much more about the other family members when they use feedback to break calibrated loops on their own.

Fred tells his wife, Mary: "I want you to be more loving with me." His tone of voice is harsh and demanding, his eyebrows are raised, and his head bobs up and down as he finishes with a sigh, as though he is scolding a child for the hundredth time about not doing his chores. Mary tightens up and moves back slightly in her chair. (The therapist recognizes this pattern from earlier discussions.) Mary, if the therapist permits it, will repeat her part of the calibration loops. She will respond to Fred's tone of voice and his body gestures by Mind Reading specifically that he is trying to "put her in her place." At this point, the therapist chooses to intervene at the transition point of Fred's incongruity. Since both Fred and Mary are calibrated in this content area, the task will be to break that calibrated loop for both of them. This has two steps: First, to teach Fred that the way he looks and sounds does not match his intent and his words — that his outsides do not match his insides — and to try to teach Fred to communicate both sets of messages congruently, one at a time, instead of incongruently, both at once. This teaches Fred a new way to communicate, and, at the same time, presents Mary with communication which doesn't have two conflicting messages from which she must choose.

Therapist: I heard you say in words that you wanted Mary to be more loving. I also heard a tone of voice and saw you move and gesture in a way which didn't look like you were loving when you said it to her. (The therapist demonstrates Fred's communication, exaggerating the analogue tones and gestures.) Could you put in words what you were feeling when you did this?

Fred: (sighing, as he recognizes the analogue communication) Yeah, well, it is like I've been through this before, and, well, I ask and she just pulls away from me anyway.

Therapist: So you're feeling kind of helpless, but at the same time you do want more loving actions from Mary?

Fred: Yeah, I guess I do feel kind of helpless (sounding and looking helpless).

The therapist at this point can make it even more of a learning experience for the family by presenting Fred with two examples of the same communication. For example:

Therapist: Fred, I understand now that you do feel sort of helpless when you try to communicate your desire for connection with Mary, and I would like to help you. When you ask for contact with Mary, for her to be more loving, you said she seems to just pull away more. Is that right?

Fred: Yes.

Therapist: Well, Fred, I am going to be you and you be Mary. I am going to ask you for contact for loving twice, once like I experienced you doing it, and once in another way. Would you just sit and watch and listen, and see if you can understand Mary's pulling away?

Fred: Sure.

The therapist then presents Fred with two models or examples of communication, one incongruent, the other congruent with matching tones, gestures and words. Then, the therapist asks Fred to try it in this new way. When he does this, Mary's response is to take his hand.

The point is that people are not aware of their incongruity, and intervention at this transition point provides an opportunity for learnings which can permeate any areas, independent of the specific content. The person who learns of his incongruity, as well as those who watch and listen to this process, discovers that there is more going on than he ever realized. This leads us to the second transition point at which a therapist can intervene to break calibrated loops.

When Fred initially made his first incongruent communication, Mary responded by tightening up — she was calibrated (operating on a fixed generalization from the past) to respond only to his analogue communication. As she observed the process of the therapist's teaching Fred about the difference between his intended message and the outside result, she was also learning about how she was calibrated to ignore other messages from Fred. She did not acknowledge his words, only his tone of voice and his gestures. In essence, she decided that the analogue message was the real message and responded only to it. The therapist could have chosen to intervene at this transition point first; for example:

Therapist: Mary, as I heard Fred ask for you to be more loving, I saw you flinch, and I'm wondering what you saw, heard, and felt as he said this.

Mary: Oh, he was just criticizing me again. I never am sensual enough for him.