Institute of Semantic Restructuring

Email: rl (at) robertlink (dot) org.

Semantic Restructuring is the pursuit of enlightenment, enlivenment, empowerment through the creative re-arranging of the building blocks of meaning. For a better description, Start Here.

Anthropomorphized Utilization of Ideo-Sensory Responses

Anthropomorphized Utilization of Ideo-Sensory Responses (anthro-ideo) is Semantic Restructuring's deconstruction of Neuro-Linguistic Programming's "Six-step Reframe" technique. The technique provides the client with the illusion of understanding what is causing their unwanted behaviors. The Semantic Restructuring title for this technique is a reminder that the client's understanding is only an illusion. This deconstruction aims to help you, the consultant, use this method while at the same time providing a more detailed description of what makes the method work. Hopefully this also gives you, the consultant, a better grasp of how some of the pieces can stand alone, helping you develop even greater behavioral flexibility with the various sub-components which make up this method.

Outline

Initial Dis-association
Deepening Dis-association
Initial Trance: Calibration of Ideo-Sensory Phenomena
Presupposing Positive Intent
Trance Deepening: Acceptance of Suggested Criteria
Trance Deepening: Presupposing Cross-Contextual Value
Trance Deepening: Further Cross-Contextual Evaluation, Post Hypnotic Suggestion
Presupposing Change / Re-framing Relapse
Semantic Punctuation: Commitment, Closure and Awakening
Follow Up

The N-LP 6-Step Reframe technique is based on the common-sense idea of a part. It may also have some connection to Virginia Satir's therapeutic work, which included a technique called a "parts party."

Who hasn't heard someone say, "Part of me just had to do it"? "It" could be anything from having a drink or a smoke to yelling at the hired help. The 6-Step Reframe leverages unspoken assumptions behind such a statement in order to guide a client into a series of trances and begin a process of behavioral change. There is a natural tendency for people to separate themselves from their unwanted behavior. Using this technique, you will leverage that tendency to help your client achieve behavioral change.

There are many advantages to separating a person from their behavior. One immediate advantage is that the person is freed from any shame or guilt they have about the behavior. Instead of being a bad person because they do bad things, they can begin thinking of themselves as an inherently good person seeking to do better things. It is typically easier to seek, initiate, correct, and maintain new behavior with the sense of hope that comes from viewing oneself as inherently good and in search of improvement than it is from viewing oneself as inherently bad and irredeemable.This existential shift of self-definition is arguably as or more therapeutically valuable than any specific content or problem oriented change in the client's experience or behavior, it is the shift the opens the client to a future of continued self-work, self-awareness, self-improvement, and self-acceptance.

The method also makes the most of the other person's ability to use self-talk as a form of self-hypnosis. This avoids the confusion and suspicion often elicited by the word "hypnosis." Using self-talk this way is casual and non-threatening. The client is guided in and out of trance experiences and given suggestions for change, the whole time thinking they are just "getting in touch with a part of themselves" or "tuning in to the part responsible for the unwanted behavior." The casual, conversational nature of this technique also helps reinforce the client's perception that positive change springs more from within the client than from the consultant, thus working to diminish a client's tendency towards transference, projection, or dependency on the consultant.

In addition to unconsciously separating the client from their unwanted behavior, the term dis-association refers to the naturally occurring trance states sometimes associated with times of stress or peak performance. The N-LP 6 Step reframe relies heavily on the client's ability to manifest such naturally occurring trance states.

Step I

Initial Dis-association

If your client describes their problem as either "I can't stop doing" something, or "I can't make myself" do something, that is your clue that this might be a good approach. Here are some examples of the kind of statements that suggest anthro-ideo as the method to use to help your client:

"I can't stop smoking cigarettes."
"I can't stop thinking about the lover who broke up with me."
"I can't stop biting my fingernails."
"I can't make myself get to the gym in the morning."
"I can't get myself to get to class on time.
"I can't seem to make myself get the oil changed in my car regularly."

The formula for all of these complaints is either:

I can't stop myself from doing (___)

I want to (___) and something always stops me.

When a client expresses their complaint in one of these two forms they have already presupposed a separation of their core identity from the problem behavior. Using a casual term like "part" helps make that separation stronger and avoids the confusion or anxiety than clinical jargon can cause. It also sets up a way to guide the client through a series of naturally occurring trance states to help the client make strategic, unconscious changes in perception which can lead to replacing the unwanted behavior with some preferred alternative behavior.

That's the first step, establishing an initial separation of the person from their behavior, in order to use that separation conversationally and thereby guide the client through a series of naturally occurring trance states. Have the client repeat their problem aloud, either saying, "I can't seem to make myself (___)" or "I can't seem to stop myself from (___)ing."

Step II

Deepening Dis-association

Now that the client has expressed their problem in a form which separates them from that problem, disassociating themselves from it, you, the consultant, develop and strengthen that separation by having the client to themself:

"Will the part of me responsible for X (or for preventing X) be willing to communicate with my conscious mind?"

It doesn't matter if the client understands the question. Just congruently tell them to use their self-talk to ask the question. While they ask the question silently "in their head," you are looking for non-conscious and non-voluntary cues that let you know how they respond to asking the question. When the client is done asking the question, you ask:

"What did you notice after you asked the question; a sight, a sound, a feeling?"

The client will typically report that they saw something or heard something or felt something, but some clients will initially say, "Nothing." If that happens thank the client and gently tell them to "go back inside" and spend a little more time asking the question. Tell them if all they see is blackness and all they hear is silience and all they feel is stillness or calm that those are perfectly valid responses.

Whatever the client reports, tell them that what they saw, heard, or felt was a "communication from the part reponsible", and tell them to use their self-talk to literally say "Thank you" to the part. This step of saying thank you is vital. When the client thanks the part they further cement the dis-association which is so important to making this method work. When they thank the part you *must* be able to calibrate some external signal to match up with whatever they say they noticed. If not, re-cycle until calibrated. Try changing your tone and speech to be consistent with the way you would speak to someone who just woke up from a dream.

Step III

Initial Trance and Calibrating yes/no and ~c~v signs of trance

Whatever the client notices, whether a sight or a sound or a feeling have them use their self-talk to say the following to the part:

"So that I (the client) can better understand you (the part) will you please make this response stronger as a way of communicating the meaning 'yes', and make the response weaker as a way of communicating 'no?'"

Your task is to calibrate the client's non-conscious and non-voluntary (~c~v) responses, to see and or hear the other person's unconscious responses independently of what they say. Don't proceed until this signal system is established. Also, don't tell the client what those ~c~v signals are. That would make them conscious, which defeats the point of calibrating unconscious responses as part of facilitating unconscious change.

Once you have calibrated a ~c~v signal, instruct the client to use their self-talk to thank the part for its hard work.

"Thank you, Part, for setting up this signal system so we can work with you."

Step IV

Further Dis-association; Conscious and Unconscious Mind; Presupposing Positive Intent

Next, You are going to have the person you are working with use their self-talk again, this time to ask a very specific question. This question performs much of the actual therapy arising frm this method, by making it easy to accept and hard to dispute that there is a positive reason for the unwanted behavior.

When your client comes to you asking for help, they typically will be experiencing self-judgment or self-condemnation either for doing something they think they shouldn't, or for not doing things they think they should. That self-condemnation is a type of dissociation, a type of split-self experience which tends to get in the way of making positive change. The consultant utilizes that split-self experience by having the client use their self talk. Using their self talk to ask the part if it is willing to share the positive intent behind the behavior is a way of using their ability to disassociate and leading them to presuppose that the behavior in question stems from some positive intent.

Think about it for a moment. Any behavior which has been reinforced enough to become a pattern must have served some survival need. Bullies, for example, often become bullies because of parents or other adults who punished them for showing weakness. The same notion applies to every behavior. We may not be able to spot where and how and when the behavior was reinforced but without reinforcement it wouldn't have become a patterned, repeated behavior. (Phobias and certain post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms might seem exceptions to this rule, but each recurrence without intervention is in fact a reinforcement of the response. To say more is beyond the scope of this article.)

It is one thing to understand that all behavior patterns are contextually reinforced. But it's not emotionally or perceptually powerful to simply say so to a client. On the contrary, simply telling a client that their behaviors are adaptive or useful in some context typically will be met with a conscious mind challenge or disbelief.

For you, the consultant, however, it is valuable to recognize that there is no part, and so there is no communication from a part, and so the sensations, whether a sight or sound or feeling, aren't actually what we're labeling them. This is the sense in which you are helping the client create a new world view or new model of the world. It is very useful to label the client's experience this way at this stage of the process, and the consultant must be very congruent throughout this procedure, maintaining their own split-self experience of knowing there are no parts while also helping the client to view their unwanted behavior as coming from a part of themself with a positive intent. The existence of this split-self within the consultant is what allows you, the consultant, to work within a client's world view, with the determination to do no harm and make no unnecessary changes, to respect the psychic integrity of the client, while also saying and doing things which are calculated to cause the client to accept new beliefs, understandings, or thoughts within their world view. The consultant is saved from cynicism by recalling the consultant's world view is no less a construct of similar inputs and programming.

With this in mind, the consultant next instructs the client to to use their self-talk to ask the part the following question:

"Would you, part, be willing to share with my conscious mind what your positive intent is for me behind this behavior?"

Next, the consultant immediately tells the client to report on the signal system set up in the previous step. Their report must be something like, "The picture got bigger" or "The noise sounded farther away" or "The feeling moved from my chest to my head." Whatever their response, your job is to notice the ~c~v signals which go along with the signal system you set up in the previous step. The consultant doesn't just accept what the client says at this point, but instead is guided by the calibrated ~c~v signal system.

The client might tell you one thing while you, the consultant observe something else. If the client's verbal report differs from ~c~v signals that have been calibrated then you, the consultant, must re-calibrate. One way to go about that is to explain to "the part" the need to calibrate to serve it better, for example:

Consultant: "Excellent, thank you, that's really good. To make sure you and I are both really understanding what the part is telling us I am going to have you ask it a few more questions. Take another moment to go inside and then ask the part does 2+2 = 5? Are you in [name of the city client is in]? Is my name [consultant's name]?"

If you see the ~c~v signs for yes, and the person you are working with reports the same, then tell them to "go inside" and wait for the part to let them know what the positive intent is.

What qualifies here? What is a positive intent? This is one of the primary therapeutic change moments provided by this technique, and often what a client initially reports will not serve the consultant's purposes. "I smoke to shut everyone out and collect my thoughts." "I stuff myself when I'm anxious." "I look at porn to get back at my wife." "I shout at my employees to prove I'm the boss." None of those are positive intents. What you, the consultant, are looking for at this point is a nominalization. "...collect my thoughts," could be nominalized and reframed as "clarity." "...when I feel anxious" could be "safety." "...get back at my wife" could be "autonomy." "...prove I'm the boss" could be "self-respect."

How do you, the consultant, guide the client from something like, "I play the ponies because I love the thrill," towards something like, "excitement"? This is a subtle shift, but the basic tool is to creatively and with rapport ask, as many times as it takes, "What does that get you?" You, the consultant, asks the client to again go inside and say to the part:

"Thank you, part, for providing that information. I still don't fully understand, so please tell me what that gets me."

The reframe here is that instead of the client stating why they do what they do, the client shifts to talking about what they get for doing what they do. Instead of "I do whatever because of some reason," they say, "Doing this gets me that," where "that" is a nominalization like peace, respect, safety, excitement or some similar positive intangible.

If you see the ~c~v for no (as opposed to a mis-match of the client's report and your calibration) then congruently and with rapport explain that the conscious mind is no place for such information. The conscious mind isn't aware of current insulin levels in the blood stream, or blood pressure, or a million other things that unconscious parts take care of. Point out that since the part only exists within the person you are working with, then the part must have some positive intent for its behavior. You may need to expand on this idea with your client, noting facts such as "if you die the part dies." Don't worry if the client is slightly upset or confused at this point. Reassure them by pointing out that working with unconscious processes is understandably a little confusing and that's why we all need an outside person sometimes to help us stay on track. The main idea for you, the consultant, is that you are cementing the client's useful dis-association. Being upset at the part for not giving the information suits that goal perfectly well. In the end the client has no real choice other than to accept the behavior with resignation or assume the part is really on their side and just doesn't want the conscious mind to get involved and mess things up.

Step V

Trance Deepening and Acceptance of Suggested Criteria

Next, have the client use their self-talk again, this time to to tell "the part" to contact the client's "creative part." If they have trouble, or don't understand the instructions, you can explain by saying the creative part is the part they have had all their life which makes up their dreams and plans. The part responsible for the behavior being changed is going to let the creative part show other behaviors which could serve the positive intent instead of using the old unwanted behavior. The primary purpose of this step is further deepening of trance and evaluation of the unwanted behavior in the context of the client's ability to be creative and in the context of specific criteria.

Tell the client that the creative part will "present" thousands of possible options at "unconscious speeds." As in dreams, where years can go by in a single night, the creative part is not limited by conscious understandings of time flow. The part being worked with selects three options from all that are offered, based on the following three criteria:

Alternative behaviors must be as effective or more effective than the old unwanted behavior;
Alternative behaviors must be as available or more available than the old unwanted behavior;
Alternative behaviors must be as easy, or easier, for the part to use as was the old unwanted behavior.

All three of these criteria add to the re-coding of the "problem" as something in the past, by use of the word "old"; a very important and valuable presupposition. Additionally, this adds nuance and distinction to the client's assessment of the unwanted behavior. Effectiveness, availability, and ease are each positive features of the unwanted behavior, and the client is now consciously and uncounsciously more likely to consider both old and potential new behavior in this light. This step helps keep the client from either conscously or unconsciously fantasizing about unrealistic replacement behaviors, increasing the likelihood of developing alternative behaviors which fit these criteria.

Also, be mindful of the use of the term "new behavior." In this context that does not mean behavior which has never before been tried or used by the client. Often enough the "new" behavior is a return to things that have worked in the past and been abandoned for one reason or another. The alternative behavior is "new" mostly in the sense that it is replacing the unwanted behavior.

Have the client use their self-talk to tell the part someting like:

"Part, please go to my creative part and let it offer thousands of suggestions at unconscious speeds. Give me your yes signal once for each alternative you, Part, choose, making sure each alternative fits all three criteria: as effective or more effective, as easy or easier, as available or more available than the old behavior."

You, the consultant, must be calibrated well enough to see that the client does as you say. When the client is done with the self-talk you can sit back and let them develop a spontaneous trance, they can just sit still and quiet and wait to see/hear/feel the "yes signal" from the part three times. Watch the ~c~v signals and be sure the verbal report matches. You, the consultant should observe the yes signal come and go three times. If the signals don't come quickly enough you can use general inductive language to suggest that the part can "take all the time it needs to accomplish this task almost instantly because of the speed of the holographic unconscious," or some other such process instruction. When the client shows the ~c~v signal three times they are ready for the next step.

There is no need for the client to have conscious awareness of the new behaviors, only that the yes signal indicates that new behaviors have been selected.

The client will probably want to know what the new behaviors are, so they can look for them. People want a feeling of success, and they usually get it from having conscious knowledge. It is your job to get them that feeling with the ~c~v awareness that those options exist, without necessarily knowing what they are consciously. This state of conscious uncertainty helps keep the client alert for any and all opportunities to behave in new ways that support the identified positive intent and the three criteria for new behaviors. If they think they know what the new options are then probably they used their conscious too much. If the conscious mind was up to solving the problem they wouldn't have come to you in the first place. This technique is about natural and unconscious change, so don't let a nosy conscious mind mess it up for you or your client.

Step VI

Trance Deepening; Presupposing Cross-Contextual Value

Next, have the client check with all of their other parts which might be affected by the new behaviors. Say to the client something like, "What do you see, hear, or feel when you go inside and ask, 'Are there any parts of me that object to any of the new behaviors?'" For each sight, sound, and feeling reported set up a calibrated yes/no system, and use that system to ask the objecting part to communicate its positive intent to the part responsible for the behavior being changed. Guide the part responsible for the old behavior to now recycle back to step V, this time selecting options that not only fit that part's criteria and positive intent, but which also fail to interfere with each and all of the objecting parts' positive intents. Use the original yes/no signal system to communicate as each new behavior is selected and approved.

From a strictly strategic viewpoint it is not a bad idea to get at least three objections, because what you are really doing here is repeating the unconscious search for new behaviors. Some clients will need prompting to find any objections, some will come up with a flood of sights and sounds and feelings which could be objecting parts. It is your job as the consultant to manage this step to get good trance states evidenced by strong ~c~v responses. Don't let it become a hunt guided by the client's conscious mind; work from ~c~v signals. This step can easily take longer than all of the others put together, and it can provide some of the best trance states as the client and consultant set up each new ~c~v signal system.

Step VII

Trance Deepening, Further Cross-Contextual Evaluation, Post Hypnotic Suggestion

Now that the new options meet the criteria of step V, and pass what Bandler and Grinder label an "ecological check," it is time to find out if those options will pass what Bandler and Grinder label a "future pacing" test. The client uses their self-talk to do the following:

Tell the part to figure out what the trigger or cue was for the old behavior.
Tell the part to "travel in time" to the next time that cue might happen in order to find out if the new options still seem good enough. The part is to look, listen and feel (and smell and taste) for any changes that should be made to have the new options really work splendidly well.
Tell the part to automatically go back to the creative part and get new options based on the changes suggested by this step.
Tell the part to signal that it has options that pass Step V, VI and VII criteria by showing the calibrated yes signal for each.

This step is complete when you have seen the ~c~v yes signal three times indicating three new behaviors have been unconsciusly selected which serve the part's positive intention, as or more easily, as or more effectively, and which is as or more readily available as the old behavior, and which also fails to interfere with the positive intention of any other part, and which also looks and sounds and feels like it will pass all of these tests the next time circumstances would have cued the old behavior. That is a lot, so here it is again in a bullted list:

The new behavior must:

serve the part's positive intention:

as or more easily;

as or more effectively;

be as or more readily available;

not interfere with the positive intention of any other part;

look and sound and feel like it will pass all of these tests the next time circumstances would have cued the old behavior.

Step VIII

Presupposing Change, Re-framing Relapse

In some ways this step is what separates clients from consultants. As a consultant it is valuable to remember there is no such thing as a part, and that all of these steps are crafted, designed, primarily to leverage the client's experience of being a divided self in order to inhibit one set of behaviors while encouraging another. Since the client already describes their experience as beyond their conscious control, the consultant works within that model, joining the client's world view, in order to help find within that world view opportunties to evolve different behavior patterns. These might not even be entirely new patterns, often times a client will resume old, more appropriate behaviors in place of the unwanted behavior.

This step in particular presents an opportunity to consider the difference between the way a naive client thinks about their experience as contrasted with the level of analysis and nuanced perception expected of consultants. Failure, relapse, recidivism are defined as communication from the working part and an opportunity to generate still more appropriate behaviors. It's not just that failure is redefined as success, but that a natural and likely event, relapse, becomes an encouragement to keep working for improvement rather than a signal of failure and defeat. Arguably this is the beating heart of the technique and the rest of the steps are how we reach this point and solidify it. But it's the shift from relapse as defeat into replapse as a goad to keep trying, try again, do more to unconsciously change in the desired direction, it's that shift that is the whole point of the technique. All this talk about parts and intentions and signals is a way to allow the client to accept this central, primary, shift in how relapse is defined and how to respond to it. Teaching the client that they have parts of themselves which are on their side and working for them is also a deep, existential change for most people because the model of "self-sabotage" and the Fruedian model of id, ego, and super-ego serves as the foundation or jumping-off point for so much writing and thinking about human behavior. This technique essentially replaces the id-ego-super-ego model with a conscious/unconscious, parts/positive-intent model. As Neuro-Linguistic Programmers (since, after all, we are dealing here with one of the most fundamental N-LP techniques) we don't believe either model, we instead try to assess the contextualized function and usefulness of each and freely move from one to the other as indicated by the communication and needs of the client.

So, at this point, explain to the client that you are going to suggest the following arrangement to the working part :

To try out the new behaviors instead of the unwanted behavior for a period of six weeks;
To use the old behavior as a way of informing the client that the new alternatives need to be improved;
To unconsciously, during the time of sleeping and dreaming, repeat steps V through VII any time a new alternative needs to be improved.

Have the client use their self-talk to ask, "Do you, the part, understand the conditions that are being suggested? If so please give me the yes signal now." You must see the calibrated ~c~v yes signal, otherwise recycle to the Step V: Trance Deepening and Acceptance of Suggested Criteria.

Once the working part signals its understanding of the conditions, the client asks the working part to agree to these conditions, and to indicate agreement by showing the yes signal. You must see the calibrated ~c~v signal for yes before going to the next step.

Step IX

Semantic Punctuation: Commitment, Closure and Awakening

The client next uses their self-talk to ask the working part to signal its commitment to try out the alternate behaviors as agreed in step VIII. Your phrasing here is of utmost importance: The term commitment, as an intangible, must be used. Using an intangible form like this is how the client knows that the work is complete. This is how the client unconsciously encodes all that has happened. The term commitment is like a period at the end of a sentence. It helps the client know, "This is a single chunk of experience. It is real. It is solid." Using an intangible this way a good example of how inductive language patterns can directly alter another person's model of the world, and your congruence at this step is an absolute necessity. Luckily, it is very easy to do. Just have the client use their self-talk to say the working part, "Please signal your commitment to the conditions you just agreed to by giving me the yes signal now." If you, the consultant, don't see the calibrated ~c~v signal recycle to the previous step, making sure "the working part" understands the conditions. Or recycle to any step from V on if you feel the need. When you finally reach this step and get a robust ~c~v signal that the working part has committed you are done.

Follow Up

Keep in mind that any time you get an unexpected response you can recycle to the previous step. You can even recycle as far back as step III and re-calibrate the main ~c~v yes/no signal if need be. Any time you recycle you can say it is because you noticed incongruence between the client's verbal report and the ~c~v signals the part has been using to communicate with you directly. But, as always, do not describe those signals to the client. Tell them those signals are from the working part and are not meant for the client's conscious mind.

Now that you have done all the steps it's time to instruct the client to use their self-talk to thank the working part for its hard work. You can then end the session.

Email: rl (at) robertlink (dot) org.

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