Frogs into Princes: Neuro Linguistic Programming

This particular process differs significantly from normal therapeutic and hypnotic techniques. We simply serve as consultants for the person's conscious mind. He does all the work himself. He is his own therapist; he is his own hypnotist at the moment. We're not doing any of those things. We communicate directly only with his consciousness and instruct it how to proceed. It's his responsibility to establish and maintain effective communication with the unconscious portions of him that he needs to access in order to change. Of course, once he learns to do that—using this as an example—he can do it without us. That's another advantage. This process has autonomy for your client built into it.

Dick, did you get three signals?

Dick: I'm not sure.

OK, would you go inside and ask that part if it now has at least three choices—whether or not you are conscious of what they are is irrelevant—which it finds more powerful than the old pattern X in accomplishing what it's trying to do. Again, use the same signal. It's important to continually refer back to the same signal, and it's important to get three new choices. If you have at least three choices, you begin to exercise variability in your behavior.

Dick: That was "yes."

OK, so now he got a positive; it said "Yes, I have at least three ways more effective than the old pattern X," even though he consciously doesn't know what those are.

Step five is to make sure those new choices actually occur in his behavior. Using the same signal system, Dick, we would like you to ask this part "Since you have three ways more effective than the old pattern X, would you take responsibility for actually making those things occur in my behavior in the appropriate context?" And you know that the "yes" is the intensification, and the "no" is the diminishment. Is that true?

Dick: I'm not sure that it is.

OK. Ask for that part to give you a "yes" signal before you begin, so that you know which is "yes" and which is "no." If you get them backwards, it's going to mess things up a little bit.

Dick: Yeah, I … I... I lost track.

Yes. I know. That's why I'm asking you to do this. Just go inside and ask the part to give you a "yes" signal, so that you know which one is "yes."

Dick: The "yes" signal is relaxing.

OK, fine. Let's back up a bit. Go back inside and ask the part if it agrees that these choices will work more effectively than X.

Dick: That was "yes."

Fine. Now ask that part if it would be willing to accept the responsibility for generating the three new choices—instead of pattern X—for a period of, say, six weeks to try them out.

Dick: "Yes."

Step six, in my opinion, is what makes this model for change really elegant. The ecological check is our explicit recognition that Dick here, and each one of us, is a really complex and balanced organism. For us to simply make a change in pattern X and not take into account all the repercussions in other parts of his experience and behavior would be foolhardy. This is a way of building in a protection against that.

We would like you to thank this part for all the work it has done. It's got what it needs; it's already satisfied with that. Now we want to find out if any other parts have input to this process. Ask "Is there any other part of me that has any objection to the new choices that are going to occur?" Then be sensitive to any response in any system: feelings, pictures, or sounds….

OK, you've got a response. And?

Dick: They have no objections,

How do you know that? This is important. I asked you to attend to all systems. You came back and said "No. There's no objection." How do you know there's no objection?

Dick: I felt no tension anywhere.

You felt no tension. Were there any changes you could detect either in your kinesthetics or visually or auditorily?

Dick: Well, the relaxation.

A relaxation. OK, that was an overall body relaxation. Just to be sure, just to check for congruency, thank whatever part made your body relax. And then ask "If this means no objection, relax me even further. If there is any objection, make some tension occur." Again, all we are doing is varying the signal for "yes" or "no." It's arbitrary whether you go "Yes for positive increase, No for diminish," or the reverse. It doesn't matter.

Dick: I'm getting some objection.

OK. What exactly was your experience? Were there changes in muscle tension?

Dick: Yes, around my eyes.

OK. Whenever you get a response to a general inquiry, it's important to check and be absolutely sure what that response means. Thank that part for the response of tension in the muscles around your eyes. Ask for an increase for "yes" and a decrease for "no" to the question: "Do you object to the new alternatives?"...

Dick: There was a decrease.

It's slightly unusual to have the tension here. Typically at the ecological check almost everybody's heart speeds up. Most people associate a speeded-up heart rate with fear or anxiety. When I ask them to stop hallucinating and simply ask for an increase for "yes" and a decrease for "no," the heart rate usually slows down. My understanding of this is that it's simply a signal that some part of them is quite excited about what's going on.

Dick: I was also aware of a pulsating in my hands, but the eye tension seemed more dramatically different than the hand sensations, so that's why I mentioned the eye tension.

OK, let's check this, too. This time go in and thank the part that gave you the hand signals. Then ask the same question "Do you have any objections?" and ask for an increase for "yes" and a decrease for "no."

Dick: Decrease in sensation.

Decrease, so that part also doesn't have an objection. If there had been an objection at this point, you would simply recycle back to step three. You have a new "yes-no" signal—the pulsating in the hands. Now you make a distinction between this part's objection and its intention. You continue cycling through this process until you have integrated all objections.

We usually hold the first set of three choices constant and ask any part that objects to find alternative ways of doing what it needs to do without interfering with the first set of choices. But you could also ask both parts to form a committee and go to the creative part and select new alternatives that are acceptable to both.

The ecological check is very important. Many of you have done elegant work, and the client is congruent in your office. When he leaves, another part of him emerges which has concerns that are contextually bound. When he gets home, suddenly he doesn't have access to what he had in your office or in the group. There are other parts of him that know that if he goes home and simply changes in the way that he was going to change, he would lose the friendship of this person, or blow that relationship, or something like that. This is a way of checking to make sure that there are no parts whose positive contribution to him will be interfered with by the new pattern of behavior. Of course the only real check is in experience, but this is a way of doing the best you can to make sure that the new choices will work.