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

What other kinds of contexts would be appropriate for building parts, rather than reframing ones that are already there? Give me some examples of when building a part could be more useful than messing around with the parts that already exist.

Man: Some kind of a history that the person has never had, never experienced in his life?

That's not an example. Examples are content–specific, so that when you name them, people can go «Oh, yeah.» What you gave me was a class, and that's a different game. Give me an example of the class you were talking about.

Man: Let's take someone who has never had a satisfying sexual experience.

OK. What are you going to build a part to do? Do you want a part to make them feel OK about that, so that every time that they're sexually dissatisfied, they say to themselves «I'm OK, I'm OK»?

Woman: Have them imagine one, build it in the imagination of the person.

That is how we are going to go about building parts. You're back to procedure again, instead of outcome. I'm not going to teach you how to build parts until you know what you are building. It's an old rule of mine. Give me some examples of what you would build parts for.

Woman: If someone is born with a coordination problem, you could give them a strategy for being coordinated by copying somebody else.

OK. I'll accept everything except the preface about being «born that way.» There are many people who could use a hand–eye coordination part who were not «born that way.» They just never developed a part that had anything to do with being coordinated. Even if there's a physical impairment, it still might be appropriate to build such a part.

Bill: Let's say I have an army brat who was raised overseas and who has not had the same experiences that most of his peers have had. I want to help the kid acquire certain kinds of social skills. I could build a part to teach him how to listen carefully to people around him and to build a new history from what he hears people talking about.

What's the outcome of the part's behavior?

Bill: The outcome of the part's behavior is to teach him to speak congruently about things that he has never experienced, so that he can build social bridges and not seem different.

That's still behavior. What's the part's function?

Bill: To help him increase his social interaction with other people.

OK. That's the outcome. I can think of situations where that would be very appropriate.

Man: You could build a part that would motivate you to explore new things, risky things.

A part whose job it is to actually instigate behavior in contexts that are risky. We call that a «chutzpah part.» I can think of many people who need one of those.

Man: It seems like you're building parts into us all the time. For instance, you build parts in us to observe sensory experience and translate it, and to understand reframing.

Of course. Sure.

Woman: I'd like a part to hear pitch. The outcome would be to be able to sing on pitch.

Hear, hear. Give me some more examples of where you would use this model as opposed to the other reframing model.

Man: Build a part to learn how to do any physical activity, like roller skating or ice skating or any other sport.

Sure. It sounds like strategies, doesn't it? All right, let's go back to therapy now; we're drifting off into the land of generativity. I think it's nice that your tendency is to become generative; however, this seminar is about therapy. The question is «What problems do people bring you as therapists that this model is going to be appropriate for?» If you can't think of anything, there's no reason to teach it to you.

Woman: You could use it working with a child of a missionary who's never had a stable home environment and doesn't feel like he belongs anywhere.

What would that part do?

Woman: It would allow him to feel at home wherever he is.

Sure, OK.

Woman: How about building a part to stand up and be assertive?

Sure. What do you think assertiveness training is all about? «Now we're all going to build the same part here together.»

Man: A part to know when to get out of unproductive relationships.

Hear, hear!

Woman: A part to tell people what need their present operation enhances. And they would know why—

Wait a minute. «Operation» is an anchor for me for something other than what I think you are talking about. That was a «cutting» remark, so please rephrase it.

Woman: A part to tell someone why the activity he is involved in is satisfying to him.

A psychotherapist part? «You are happy now because …»

Woman: Then they would know why they are eating, what need the eating is satisfying, and then they could substitute a preferential activity.

Let me question you on this a little bit, because this is something that therapy has been trying to do for years, and I don't agree that it's a useful outcome. What's the outcome of installing a part that tells people about their ongoing behavior while they are doing it? There's one outcome of that that I think is absolutely disastrous: there are always two of you there at all times—one of you doing something, and one of you talking about it. That is called dissociation.

Above and beyond that, there's an even worse outcome of that kind of awareness, which is that you don't have very much external sensory experience. The outcome of having a part that constantly monitors your behavior is that you will always be on the inside, monitoring your behavior. You won't know how the world is responding to you. You will be there talking to yourself about why you are having this conversation and why you feel bad. But you'll never see the external behavior; you'll be too caught up internally. That kind of part has important limitations which should be considered.

You can build a part to do that, and in fact, many therapists already have one. They come to my groups and I say «Now, I'm going to put this person up here, and I'm going to touch him on the shoulder and his skin color is going to change.» The people with these parts go inside and say «Well, I'm feeling threatened by this. Why am I threatened right now?» Then I ask «What color did he change to?» They come back out and say «I didn't see anything.» The problem is you can't see or hear much externally if your attention is inside monitoring your behavior— whether you do it visually, auditorily, or kinesthetically.

When you're caught in a loop, you might want to have what we call a meta–part that temporarily dissociates and takes an observer position and says «Hey, what's going on here right now?» That part's function would be to get you out of loops. But the only time it would engage itself is when you are in a mess; it would not analyze at all times. If you put that constraint on it, then you begin to get a more useful outcome. The importance of thinking very carefully about outcomes is that you can succeed very well at installing parts that will completely drive people bananas in unuseful ways. So when you consider installing something, I want you to ask yourself «Well, what's the logical outcome of building this part? Is this really what I want to do, or is there something else that I have in mind? How can I be more specific about my description, so that when I build it, I get something that approximates what I want?'

Let me generalize the idea of a meta–part. A meta–part is only operational at certain times, and the contextual cue that triggers its functioning is usually based on how other parts are functioning. For example, it could be a part that comes into play only when you feel stuck, dissatisfied, or doubtful. Its functioning could also be cued to an external stimulus like a time of day, but if you do that, it may interfere with whatever else you happen to be doing at that time. So it's usually better to have it triggered off by an internal state—a feeling of being in conflict, indecision, or something like that. You can specify that whenever two parts get into a conflict, then the meta–part goes into action.