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

Now I have him specify her behavior to match what he will be able to recognize and respond to. Rita is already committed to adjusting her behavior. She's committed to taking instructions from him about how to get his attention. Who knows better how to get his attention than he himself?

I want to point out that sequence is very important. I need to get her commitment first. If I don't do that, she will probably have a lot of objections to any change he suggests: «He's controlling me. He just wants to be in charge.» First I need to get her commitment that her wants are important —so important that she is willing to change her own behavior in order to satisfy them. This frames the changes in terms of her desires, so she'll be willing to go along with the changes. To him, I can frame it differently. I'll tell him that his responses are important to her —so important that she's willing to adjust her behavior so that it's easy for him to respond in the way she wants.

Woman: Can you say more about sequence? I think that's extremely important, and I want to know more about that.

We are syntacticians. If you were going to describe us as any kind of academician, that would be it. Syntax means «What goes where, and in what order.» The thing that makes the visual–kinesthetic dissociation such a good way of working with phobias is the order. One man we taught it to decided to use it «creatively," because he didn't want to be an android. So first he had people go all the way through the trauma, and then he had them dissociate. If you do it in that order, the person has to go through lots of pain, and that makes it very hard. If you do the dissociation first, and then go through the experience, your clients don't have to go through the discomfort. That makes it much easier and more elegant. The thing that makes NLP work go so quickly is that we make very practical decisions about what order we do things in, rather than saying «Oh, I could do X!» and rushing in and doing it.

Every book we've ever published says «Gather information!… Evolve system… . Solidify change.» That is the overall model. The emphasis is on «Gather information» because it's the part almost everybody leaves out. Most communicators go into their trance of doing whatever they do, and when somebody comes in, they just fire off the technique. Often the same technique would work if they did something else first.

Woman: That's why I asked the question. Let's say that you have the information. How do you decide what to do and in what sequence? What goes on in your head before you start doing something?

Well, I ask myself a question. I go inside and say «Hey, self. What outcome do I want, and how can I get that outcome?» I work backward from the outcome.

For example: I worked with a family in which the mother was a professional people–helper. She knew what was good for her daughter, because she was an expert. Her daughter was saying to the mother «Get off my case!» The mother was saying «Look, I'm the only person in this family who is qualified to know about these things. Even though my daughter won't listen and is freaking out, I know what's best for her.» Now, one way to make a change would be to attack her belief that she knows best. However, that would be the hard way to go about it. If you do it that way, you've got to fight with her.

My outcome was to get them communicating again. So I said to the mother «Do you really believe this? I mean this seriously, not sarcastically at all. Do you really believe that you have good information that will be helpful to your daughter?» And the mother said «Absolutely!»

«I want to believe this, because if you are serious about this, and you're not just saying it, I know there is something really useful that we can do here. Are you really serious?»

«Absolutely. I mean it literally. I'm a very honest person.»

«OK. Now if I can find a way that you can communicate this information to her without her freaking out, then she'll have the information. Would you be willing to use a different way of communicating, even though it might not be your natural way of doing it? Is the information you have to give her important enough that you would be willing to do something like that?»

«Absolutely.»

At that point I had her, because she couldn't back down. The realities that I had built were congruent with the mother's belief system.

Then I turned to the daughter and asked «How does your mother have to talk to you in order to get you to really listen and consider what she says? You may not want to do what your mother wants, but at least you'll be able to hear what she says.» The daughter had this Cheshire cat grin on her face, and she said «Well, she'd have to treat me like a person.»

«How has she been treating you—like a pencil?» That's one way of getting her to specify what «being treated like a person» means. If you give an answer that you know is totally wrong, she will have to correct it.

«Well, she wouldn't be yelling, she wouldn't be — "

«No, no. I don't want to know what she wouldn't be doing. What would she be doing? What would she look like; what would she sound like?»

Then the daughter demonstrated a particular tone of voice that she wanted her mother to use, and I said «OK, let's try it. And if it doesn't work, do you know what that means? That means you're a liar, and your mother's right that you won't listen!»

So I turned to the mother and said «Pick one of the things that you think is important for your daughter to know, and try to do it in the way she demonstrated.» After a couple of sentences I interrupted and asked the daughter «Is she doing it the way you want?»

«Well, her voice is still a little whiny.» So we helped the mother adjust her voice and she started in again. The daughter sat there and listened, and then said «I'll do that.» The mother was shocked! «You will?» Previously most of the time the daughter hadn't even heard what the mother was saying because she reacted to her tone of voice.

The important point is that within the context I had created, there was no way for either of them to respond otherwise. The daughter was not going to let the mother be right by not listening. And the mother was certainly not going to say «These things are so important, but not important enough that I'll change my tone of voice» — not when she's just sworn on a stack of Bibles that getting the information across is the most important thing in the world. Going after their willingness to communicate before I went after restructuring the communication was a very important syntactic choice. Doing it in the other order would have set up conflict. You do the same thing with the six–step model: you ask the part if it's willing to communicate, and you determine its intention before you go after changes in behavior.

The key question is this: «What is going to make it possible for me to get the change I want?» «What's a prerequisite for the change that I want?» If you go directly after the change itself, two things will happen that are not useful. One, it's going to be like digging ditches. It's going to be hard work, because you're going to have to fight with the person's parts. Two, if you go after it too directly, you may interfere with her strategies.

Teri is a good example of this possible interference. Let's say that I was a well–intentioned therapist who had a belief system that said «Everybody has got to have a way of being able to generate experience.» So when I said «Now, it's time for everyone to lie congruently," rather than allowing Teri to go outside the room, I would have said «You must stay and learn this!» If I did that, I would mess with her strategies and make her crazy. She was sitting there saying «If I do this, I'll be crazy!» and her complaint was completely accurate. Given the strategies that she had, that was absolutely true. So I had to find out what prerequisites would make it possible for her to do what I asked.