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

You don't. I'm a very practical kind of person. If somebody has a really severe phobia, I figure it's better to go ahead and take a chance on messing her up somewhere else in her life and fix that up later on. I realize that that is not as elegant as I would like to be, but most of the time that's what I'm going to do.

Let me give you an example of what you have to be careful about. We once cured a woman of a phobia of heights. To test it we sent her up to the balcony of the hotel. She came back down with a big smile, and people asked «Well, how did you feel when you went up there?» She said «I felt like I wanted to get up on the railing and dance.»

Now, the most significant thing about that comment is that she didn't actually dance on the railing! However, that tells you something about how she got overgeneralized in the first place. It's important to understand that a phobia strategy is an example of a strategy which is working to protect the person from something, but it's overgeneral–ized. When you change the response to the phobic stimulus, make sure that the new response is one that's useful, so the person doesn't go out and dance on the railing or do something else dangerous.

I cured a lady of a phobia of birds—in Chicago, which is the land of pigeons! When I was done, I tested her. I said «Well how would you feel about holding an eagle on your arm right now?» She said «Well, I don't think I'd like that," and I said «Good.» The visual–kinesthetic dissociation wipes out the overgeneralization. You want to make sure it doesn't wipe out all caution.

Reframing is incorporated into the phobia technique at the beginning when we say something like «I know that the part of you that has been scaring you has been protecting you in important ways.» There is always something important gained by having a phobia: what psychiatrists call «secondary gain» or what we call an outcome. That's why you say «You are going to learn something of importance» when you do the visual–kinesthetic dissociation. Hopefully clients will get it on their own. If not, you'll find out about it, especially if you quiz them a little

bit.

At the end, I always suggest that some of the energy that has been liberated during the phobia process be used to safeguard them as they explore the new behaviors that are now available to them. Somebody who has been phobic of heights has no experience of what is appropriate and safe behavior in that context. Someone who hasn't involved herself sexually because she was raped or sexually abused as a child has no idea what appropriate sexual behavior is. When you use these change techniques, suddenly all the barriers are lifted, and you have to be sure your clients are protected.

There's a really nice example from Erickson's work with a young woman who wanted to get married. Because of her religious and family background, she had no understanding of sexual behavior. She was very much attracted to her fiance, but she knew that because of her strict and limited background, there would be sexual problems if she got married. Erickson essentially reframed her, and removed all her barriers to full sexual responsiveness and assertiveness. Then he told her that she could only see the young man in the presence of her brother or family until the marriage. Right after she got married she called Erickson and thanked him. She was smart enough to recognize, as she said then, that she was ready to run out of the office and grab the guy and tear his clothes off and get right to it. Given her longer–term relationship with the man and her own appreciation for herself, it was more appropriate that she proceed in a more cautious and respectful manner toward the actual sexual activity.

NLP is a powerful set of tools. Even the simple anchoring techniques are very powerful. Given that power, it's important to frame what you do in such a way that you proceed with caution and respect for yourself and the other individuals involved. If you do this, you won't have wild fluctuations in behavior which are not ecologically sound. This often happens in assertiveness training when «Andy Ant» turns into «Jerry Jerk.» Any wild fluctuations like that are indications of failure to contextualize or frame the new behavior.

Man: So essentially when you do the visual–kinesthetic dissociation you are reframing the useful protective intention and keeping that intact.

No matter what you do, you are always reframing, in the sense that you're always changing a response. It's just that when you use the standard reframing model on a phobia, it's very hard to get it to work: when a person contacts the part that gives her the phobia, usually she gets the phobic response as a signal. And when a person has overwhelming unpleasant feelings, she just doesn't function well.

Reframing is a nice model and it works for many problems. However, there are other things that have to be taken into account: overwhelming feelings is one, and another is multiple parts, or sequential incongruities. When you work with a multiple personality, you may cure Susie of a phobia, but Martha over there can still have it. We're going to teach you about that tomorrow afternoon.

In therapy there are certain elements which will always be present. Other things can be involved, but they are not necessary. Secondary gain will always be evident in every therapeutic change somewhere along the line. Manipulation of parts will also be evident in every therapeutic change. You are either going to change a part's behavior, or create one, or negotiate between them. And there will also always be some kind of alteration in the process of generalization. A generalization will either be made or broken, or a pair of them will be combined, or one of them will be split into two. Those three processes—secondary gain, manipulation of parts, and an alteration in generalization—will always be at work in every change.

The heart of reframing is the recognition that behavior can become detached from the outcome it is supposed to achieve. Psychologists recognized this years ago, and invented the term «functional autonomy» to describe behaviors that continued long after they had any useful function for the person. Psychologists didn't know what to do about this, but they did recognize it. They didn't realize that they could directly identify outcomes, and then select or design other behaviors, which they could tie to those outcomes.

The other aspect of reframing that makes it work so easily is that it is explicitly ecological. We make sure that the new behaviors don't interfere with any other aspects of the person's functioning. Any objecting parts become allies in selecting the new behaviors, so that the new behaviors fit in harmoniously with all the person's other needs and behaviors.

This takes care of the person's internal ecology, but it doesn't directly take care of the ecology of the interpersonal system that the person lives in. Sometimes when you change a person, she is fine individually, but the rest of her family suddenly develops problems. When you do reframing, parts will often object because they recognize that certain new behaviors will impact on people around them in ways that are undesirable. However, that presupposes that the person has parts which are able to notice how other people respond to her, and that isn't always true.

The only way to be really sure you are dealing appropriately with the ecology of the larger system is to be able to observe it. This is one of the values of doing couple therapy or family therapy instead of individual therapy. What we want to do next is demonstrate the application of reframing to situations in which you can observe the system that the person is in, and explicitly deal with the ecology of the whole system. Changes that are great for an individual are sometimes disastrous for the family or business organization in which she exists.