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

«How is it useful to get annoyed; what is the intention of that?»

«I don't know.»

«Well, then, what's the point in getting annoyed?' «Well, everyone else gets annoyed when I don't know what to do.» «So if there's no one else there, you get annoyed for them?» «I guess so. I don't know.» It still sounded unconvinced, but it sounded agreeable. «Would you rather do something else?»

«Yeah, that would give me something to do, so that I wouldn't have to be annoyed and anxious.»

So I just gave the part some ways of deciding what would be useful to do. That part didn't seem to know what its purpose was. The closest I could come to an understanding was that when she was with other people, they got annoyed if she didn't do something, so she was always doing something. When no one was around, then she got annoyed and anxious but didn't do anything. It was systematic, but there didn't seem to be any useful function that I could detect. It was like a piece of motivation that didn't lead anywhere.

Mary: I'm thinking about someone that about ten of us are working with—

Ten of you are working with someone? That's the first thing I would stop. That would make anybody crazy!

Mary: This woman has a lot of nausea, which doesn't have medical causes. I know a number of reasons why she is keeping her nausea—

Well, just think, if she gives up her nausea, she'll lose ten friends. That's the first thing that occurs to me!

Mary: If this woman didn't get nausea, she would have to have sex with her husband, and she gets a lot of other goodies by having the nausea. I tried reframing everything. She keeps coming back again every two months saying «Hey, I have it again» so I'm thinking—

Dealing with the nausea, as far as I'm concerned, is inappropriate. The only thing that makes it possible for her to have the nausea is that she doesn't have positive sexual relationships with her husband, and that she doesn't have all these other goodies. So I'm not even going to mess with the nausea. I'm going to go after all the other stuff that makes the nausea happen. If she had a good sexual relationship, and if she had whatever else is missing in her life now, then the nausea wouldn't happen. That's what reframing is all about: finding out what else needs to happen so that the client won't need the symptom anymore.

Mary: She was resistant to all the things we did. We had the husband in with her, and all the time she was resisting. She's not going to leave him—although she hates him—because he provides security.

Clients don't resist, Mary. It is very important that you understand that. Clients demonstrate that you don't understand.

Mary: The parts resist, I think—

No, parts don't resist. No part of a human being resists a therapist. All they ever do is demonstrate that you are on the wrong track. That's the only thing they do. I have never seen a client who resists. What clients do is say «Hey! Not there! Over here!»

You said «I reframed with her.» It's impossible for you to reframe with somebody and not deal with the basis for what you are calling resistance. The reframing model has built into it that you don't go after the change, you go after the parts that object. All the reframing models do that.

Man: I have a fourteen–year–old son who gets migraine headaches. Can I use reframing on that problem?

Migraines are quite easy. Those of you who have clinical experience in dealing with migraines, tell me what representational system migraine clients typically specialize in. I want you to think of specific clients who have actually come to you with a complaint about migraines. What representational system do they use primarily? …

Migraine sufferers are very visually–oriented. Check your own clinical experience. As with any other physiological symptom, I presuppose that a migraine is a way that a part uses to get a person's attention. The symptom is a way of trying to get him to do something different, to get him to take care of something that is needed.

Think of pain. We all have neurological circuitry in our bodies that allows us to know when there is an injury. If we didn't have that, we could cut ourselves and bleed to death before visually noticing what had happened. Pain is nothing more than a healthy neurological response that says «Hey, pay attention! Something needs to be done here; something needs to be attended to.» You can interpret symptoms like migraines as signals, and then use reframing to discover what the migraine is a response to, so that you can offer that part of the person another way of responding. In every case of migraine I've treated, the person has a very highly specialized visual state of consciousness. The only way his body can get information to him that there is something that needs to be attended to is by giving him splitting headaches. Migraines yield quite quickly and easily to reframing.

Woman: I remember something about a time element. I think you said something about testing it out for six weeks, and then if any part is dissatisfied, to renegotiate.

Well, that always happens anyway. That's just to pace.

Woman: Then why do you need to say anything about it, if it automatically happens?

Because if you don't, then when it doesn't work, the person's conscious mind doesn't know that it can renegotiate, and calls it «failure.» I look at the client and say «Look, I want your parts to try this for six weeks, and if it works out, then fine, you're on your way. If any one of your parts discovers that it doesn't work, it is to inform you by having you do the behavior you didn't want to do. That's an indication that it's time to sit down and negotiate further.» That means that there is no way in the world that the client can fail. I think clients are entitled to that. By the way, that is both a reframe and a future–pace.

One of the disservices that therapists do for their clients is to fail to use that particular reframe in some fashion. I always make the symptom the barometer of change. Then if the symptom recurs, the client doesn't think «Oh, well, another shot of therapy and nothing has happened.» Instead, he thinks «Ah, that means I have to reframe again.» The stigma of the symptom dissolves over time, because he begins to pay attention to the symptom as being a message. It probably always was anyway, but he never thought about it that way. He begins to have a feedback mechanism; even if the reframing doesn't work, he discovers that he only gets the signal at certain times.

For example, somebody comes in with migraine headaches and I reframe and all the parts are happy. The client goes along for two weeks and everything's groovy, and then he suddenly gets a headache in a particular context. That headache triggers off the instruction that the negotiations weren't adequate. So he drops inside and asks «Who's unhappy? What does this mean?» The part says, «You're not standing up for yourself like you promised to.» Then he is faced with the choice of having a migraine headache or standing up for himself.

Man: With that man, then, you installed a part that gave him something else to do instead of having a migraine.

Exactly. All the reframing models do the same thing: they all change an internal response. Another way of talking about it is that I installed a part whose function is to remind him to have a new response. It doesn't matter how you talk about it.

Man: I have a question about reframing and phobias, and the parts that function in phobias. Let's say I'm working with a phobia and do the visual–kinesthetic dissociation technique. How do I know that I'm not interfering with some part that would work in other contexts in the person's life?