Richard Bandler - Reframing. Neuro–Linguistic Programming™ and the Transformation of Meaning

No. We learn nothing. So it's a stupid question to ask.

Man: But if we get a «Yes» we have learned something.

Right. However, can we ask a question which will get the information we want; can we ask a question that will get any possible «Yes» answers, and something else?

Man: Do any of the other parts have any suggestions?

OK. «Are there any other parts involved in this?» «Are there any other parts that interrupt this part or utilize those interruptions?» «Are there any other parts that might interrupt either of the two of you?» That kind of question is going to get us the information we want.

Man: Also if we have been completely off base in identifying these two parts, that will get us back on the track of finding the parts that are involved in this problem.

Right. That kind of question also does something else that is very important: it can give you relevant information about how this person's parts are organized. In your example you have a «work» part and a «play» part. Some people's play part has within it a part that says «This is how we're going to stay healthy.» Some people's play part only plays poker and smokes cigars, while somebody else's goes out and jogs on the beach. It depends upon how you organize your parts.

Jogging is a great example of a reframe, by the way. Anybody who can jog six miles a day and call it «play» is already a master of reframing as far as I'm concerned. It's a good reframe to have. If you're going to do reframing, you might as well do it in places where it is useful. Some people even decide «It's cool to be a jogger.» You get to wear special shorts and shoes and other running gear. It's become fashionable. What a great reframe. I think that's marvelous. Let's all be healthy because it's groovy. If some people could reframe sugar to taste bad, think how much their lives would change. If you can redefine fun as being something that's healthy, I think that's really slick. When I was growing up, «fun» was beating each other up, and sitting around in drive–ins eating hamburgers and french fries and smoking cigarettes.

Kit: I'm suddenly having a lot of trouble taking notes. I just noticed that I wrote «jiggling» instead of «jogging.» Can I talk to you about that now, … or later?

You could! That's a pretty good presupposition you've got there. What you're talking about might fit this negotiation model. There certainly are at least two parts. As long as we are messing around with reframing, let's play a little. Go inside and ask if there's some part of you that is interrupting your usual process of note–taking. . , .

Kit: Yes.

OK. Ask it if it's willing to tell you what it's trying to do for you right now by messing up your note–taking, something which you normally do smoothly and evenly. That's a yes/no question, by the way. Is it willing to tell you? …

Kit: Umhm.

OK. If it is, tell it to go ahead and tell you… . Now, do you agree that that is something you want to have a part of you do?

Kit: At times. The behavior that I see it doing for me is good at times, but not in this particular situation.

OK. Ask what it is trying to do for you by doing it here. It might know something that we don't know… .

Kit: I just hear the words «Be here now.»

Oh, sensory experience.

Kit: The feeling that I have is that when I'm listening to you I'm experiencing you, and that's how I gather information. So I need to kind of dissociate from that dissociation, or, um—

OK. Well, go inside and ask if this part of you objects to your taking notes at this moment.

Kit: The only thing that I would need is to be able to be in two places at once.

Have you ever done that? … Ask if there is any part that knows how to be in two places at once… .

Kit: Umhm.

OK. Ask it if it would be willing to have you be in two places at once right now… . What was its response?

Kit: That this isn't a good setting to be in two places at once.

OK. There's obviously another part involved in this. There's a part that believes you should be taking notes: that this is somehow relevant and important to your education. Would you go inside and ask that part if it would be willing to tell you what it is doing for you by taking notes…

Kit: It's just an anchor.

It's an anchor for? …

Kit: A state of mind.

OK. Now, ask it if it can think of some other anchor you could use for the next two hours… . (She nods.) Good. Tell it to go ahead and use that.

Now, part of what I just did has to do with the negotiation model, and I mixed it up with some other things. Was one of the two kinds of content reframing incorporated into what I just did with her?

Woman: Oh, the context. «This is OK at one time or in one situation and not in another.»

Certainly. So there was a piece of context reframing. I also included the basic element of the standard six–step reframing model, asking «What's the purpose?» and finding an alternative way. The purpose of the note–taking part is to provide an anchor. «Well, good. Can we use something else as an anchor?» So I included a piece of the six–step reframing model, and also a piece of switching the context. These different models are all closely interrelated, and if you know the six–step reframing model, you already have all the tools that you need for negotiation. If you know all the reframing models, you can then mix them together whenever that's appropriate.

The important thing with the negotiation model is to find out which parts are interrupting each other, and then to find out what their functions are—not why they are interrupting one another, but what their functions are. Is it a part that amuses you? Is it a part that takes care of responsibility? Is it a part that gets you to church on time? What part is it and what does it do? When you have this information, then you make a deal. Whatever deal you make is OK, as long as the deal provides the outcome that both parts want.

One of our students frequently finds himself feeling very sleepy when he's driving late at night. He uses this model to negotiate between the sleepy part and the part that wants him to get home in one piece. Sometimes he trades an extra hour of alertness for a promise to sleep later the next morning, and other times the sleepy part demands a half–hour at the side of the road first.

Where else is this negotiation model going to be most appropriate? For what kinds of experiences is this multiple–part reframing model going to be more appropriate than the six–step model?

Man: Critical and placating parts.

Give me an example in experience. If you try to study and you can't concentrate, that's a very concrete example. That is what I want.

Man: You are trying to go to sleep and your mind is off on some other matter.

Insomnia is a marvelous example. You can tell it's a good one, because the rest of the people in the room sigh when you say it. Give me some more like that.

Woman: Trying to save money and finding yourself spending it. That's a good one. Man: Being disorganized.

That can be. If you can fit it more into the form like she did, it'll be better. Woman: Constipation.

Constipation is an elegant example. The more you can find the problems that fit this form, the more you'll know when this model is appropriate as opposed to some other model.

Woman: Someone who has trouble getting himself to go to bed? Someone who never quite gets around to going to bed?

… Or someone who never quite gets around to getting up? Yes, this model is appropriate for people who have trouble changing from one context to another. If they are in a restaurant, they can never quite leave. Anyone who has been a waiter knows about those people.