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

Ray: I was very surprised that any part objected to my improvising on the piano. The first objection was that I may end up playing the piano more at gatherings and interacting with people less.

OK. I didn't ask you to ask that question. This is important. I said if there is a part that objects, do not ask it what its objection is. Ask it what its function is, so you know what that part is in charge of doing. Then if you don't understand how it would end up being concerned, ask it what it's concerned about.

Ray: And I asked it the other way around.

Right. It is very important that when you're in my group you ask it my way. When you go home you can build parts your own way. If you don't know what an objecting part's function is, it's very, very hard to Please it.

Bill: I asked the question «What do you think will happen if you get critical feedback?» And the answer that I got was «If I get that, then I'll feel lonely and inadequate.» So it's keeping me from feeling lonely, and inadequate.

Well, in one sense that's the same answer. It's just a rephrasing. «Well, you know, it's my job to keep you from feeling lonely and inadequate.» «Well, what would happen if I felt lonely and inadequate?» «Well, you would feel bad. My job is to keep you from feeling bad.» «Well, what would happen if I felt bad?» «Well, if you felt bad, then you would feel like people don't like you.» What it's doing is just redefining the same thing that it doesn't want: for you to feel bad. But the redefinition does give you some more information. One of the things that you can do is to build into the construction of the part either protection against people criticizing you, or a way of enjoying criticism. You could build in the understanding that when people are criticizing you, it offers you the unprecedented opportunity to do a lot of things. One is to demonstrate how loudly you can yell. Another is to utilize their behavior. When people are angry at you, it's an unprecedented opportunity to test your utilization skills. There are so many opportunities out there. So you don't have to feel lonely; you can make criticism the basis for a lasting relationship.

I'll tell you one of the odd things that I noticed growing up. Everybody that beat me up became my friend, and vice versa. Growing up as a teenager in a very rough place, I discovered that one of the best ways to make a permanent, lasting friendship was to beat the snot out of somebody. I became conscious of this sometime around the eighth grade. If there was somebody I wanted to hang out with, one of the fastest ways to become friends was to go beat the snot out of him. I don't know how that works, but it's an interesting phenomenon.

Man: Haven't you found some contexts where that behavior is not appropriate?

No, I haven't yet, actually. My whole professional relationship is built on it. I go around the country insulting people, and they pay me money. It's weird!

Harvey: I want to give you some more of my list of functions to see if I understand this. To keep me from failing is one. Giving me play time is another. Those are functions, aren't they?

Sure.

Harvey: To get love from others.

To elicit a particular response, yes. Hopefully that part knows what it means by the nominalization «love.» You might have it be a little more specific. That's important.

Harvey: OK. I've got another one: To be a caring person.

That is a behavior, not a function. I'm going to teach all of you this information yet. You may not learn to build parts, but you're going to learn what a function is by the time you leave here! «To be» is a description. Listen to the phrase «to be or not to be.» When you make a statement»… to be something or other» it's a description of a behavior. «… to be angry. I want a part to make me be angry.» That isn't a function; that's just a description of a behavior. The part wants you to care about what or whom, where and why, and for what purpose? What is it going to get by having you be caring? What would happen if you weren't?

Harvey: The idea behind it is that I don't want to become like a machine.

That's the ultimate in humanistic psychology. «I don't want to be an android; therefore I'm going to act like this all the time. I'll hug everyone; that way I will not be a robot.» The point is that this part wants you to do something that constitutes «caring.» I have no idea what that means. Does that mean that you tell people honestly what they really ought to hear? Or does that mean that you touch everyone? What does it mean? Don't answer, because I don't care what the content is. I want you to know, and I want you to know what the function of that specific behavior is. It may be that that part wants you not to be an android, in which case all of this has nothing to do with being caring or not. You may go back inside and say «Have you ever thought about how much being 'caring' can be androidal? Let's have caring and not–caring; we'll alternate days. At least I'll be a different android.»

The question is «What is the part's function?» If the part's function is to keep you from being an android, then the question is «What does that mean?» Does it mean not having repetition in your behavior? Does it mean not doing all the things that Maslow said were bad? It's essential to find out what the part's function is.

Ray: This time I asked the question about function and the response was «I'm here to take care of you so you won't become like your father.»

Only a psychologist would say that. Ray: My father improvises on the piano.

Right. But that still isn't a function. You have to go a little bit further than that. If you were to be like your father was, improvising on the piano, then you would be what? There was something about the way your father improvised that some part of you thinks is negative in some fashion. He either made a fool of himself, or he did something else that some part of you didn't like, right? Now, what was that? Ray: He avoided interacting with people.

OK, so there's a part that wants you to have personal interaction with people. Good. Now all you have to do is build some way to have personal relationships with people into the way that you improvise on the piano. You have to define what «personal» means, because obviously it isn't singing songs. Maybe it means that you have to be able to play background music and have meaningful psychological conversations.

Woman: Is «to be taken care of a function or a behavior?

That is neither. It's so unspecified, it's nothing. «To be taken care of—how, specifically, … in what way? … by whom? …

Woman: Way back then is what I'm after, when I was in my original family.

You're going to build this part that's going to do something, right? What is it going to do?

Woman: It's going to let me be comfortable dancing in front of groups of people.

Let you dance? You've used the wrong reframing model, because there's obviously a part that stops you from doing this.

Woman: Yeah, I know. I knew that to begin with and—

But you thought you'd slide it in anyway. The point is that obviously there's going to be a part that isn't going to like this, because its job is to keep you from dancing in front of people. That part will have a very strong objection. So there's a part of you that objects, and its function is to have you «be taken care of.» Go inside and tell it «I don't have any idea what 'to be taken care of means. What specifically does that mean in experience?'

Woman: In my original family I had to do X, Y and Z to be taken care of.

OK. You had to take out the garbage in order to get a Twinkie, but I'm asking «What does that mean in your experience now?» What you've got now is so unspecified that I can't help you. It's like looking at somebody and saying «Noun, verb, adjective, noun.» There's no content in your sentence, so I can't even respond to it. It's just a little too formal. What you want to know from this part is «What do you do for me as a person now? " You have to go back to it and say «Look, I need to know in experiential terms what it is that you do for me as a person. You are obviously a part of me. I do not live with my parents anymore. I want to know what it is that you do for me, and how you are concerned about my dancing. If I dance around, what's going to happen that's so bad?»