The User's Manual for the Brain Volume I
Page 26
“Trance is a state where you are highly motivated to learn from your unconscious in an inner directed way. It is not a passive state, nor are you under another’s influence. There is co-operation between client and therapist, the client’s response letting the therapist know what to do next.” (p. 119)
“Abstract words, by their very nature, have a strong hypnotic effect since to ‘make sense’ of them you have to go inside to your world of meanings (ideas, understandings, beliefs, etc.) and access or create conceptual references. And by going inward to your world of abstraction (which you can easily do with your eyes wide-open) you develop an inward focus.” (Hall, 1994)
“Creatively using such linguistic vagueness enables you to speak in hypnotic language patterns. To stimulate a mind (yours or others) with nominalizations, unspecified nouns and verbs, etc., invites the recipient to use those fluffy statements to do a TDS and to create, out of their own meanings, the experiences, states, emotions, etc., which your words allude to. In this process, linguistic vagueness sounds exceedingly meaningful. That’s because the listener is ‘making sense’ of your words by going inside and incorporating them with their own learnings and understandings. This is how hypnotic language patterns work.” (Hall, 1994c, p. 8)
Besides nominalizations, any word that makes an abstract evaluation of something works hypnotically in the mind. NLP makes a distinction between sensory-based words and evaluative words—a distinction that points us to the land of hypnotic language. After all, language references “realities” we cannot see, hear, taste, sense or smell. Evaluative realities of one’s meanings, beliefs, and values do not exist in the world outside the human nervous system, but inside. They exist as abstractions—neurosemantic abstractions.
So anytime we communicate evaluative meanings (to self or others) we engage a hypnotic process. We deal with internal abstractions. To “make sense” of this, others have to take an inward focus. This explains why we Americans don’t typically hallucinate concrete nouns—people, places, and things. We hallucinate pseudo-nouns—nominalizations and evaluations. We move into the world “seeing” disrespect, rudeness, laziness, and insult, we “hear” guilt-trips and irresponsibility, we “feel” put down. Do you know the ideas, judgments and understandings you go around hallucinating? In Chapter Ten we now move into the language patterns that induce trance.
10.11 Thought Questions To Assist Your Learning:
What have you learned about hypnosis from this chapter?
What mechanisms primarily drive hypnosis?
Name six everyday trances that you experience.
What characteristics of the hypnotic state make it such a useful tool in working with consciousness?
Identify the process that you use to access a relaxed, inwardly focused state.
10.11.0.47 Notes – Chapter 9
12Read Richard Bandler and John Grinder’s book Reframing: Neuro-Linguistic Programming and the Transformation of Meaning (Moab: Real People Press, 1982) for a more detailed study of reframing. Chapter IV deals with the “Advanced Six-Step Reframing Outline.”
11
Hypnosis Part II
The Milton Model
Specific Language Patterns For Artful Vagueness
11.1 What you can expect to learn in this chapter:
The meaning and content of the Milton model
How and why we say it reverses the Meta-model
Specific language patterns for inducing trance
The skill of using artfully vague language
11.2 The Milton Model
After developing the Meta-model, Bandler and Grinder met Milton Erickson, a world-renowned medical hypnotherapist and founder of the American Society for Clinical Hypnosis. Grinder reported that Erickson provided him with the single greatest model he has ever used (O’Connor and Seymour, 1990, p. 119). Erickson opened an entire new area of thought in therapy and communication. From their study of Erickson, they soon after published Patterns of Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H. Erickson Volume I (1975). Later, with Judith DeLozier, they published Volume 2 (1977). Bandler and Grinder learned from Erickson the value of trance and altered states in therapy.
Many of the NLP presuppositions come from Erickson’s work. He respected the client’s unconscious mind, believed that positive intention drives all behaviors, that individuals make best choices available to them, that people have the resources within to make their desired changes, etc. Much of the rapport building techniques of NLP come from Erickson’s genius at building and maintaining rapport (pacing and leading).
As the Meta-model steps down to specifics to recover distorted, generalized, and deleted materials, this takes us out of trance. The Milton Model conversely chunks up to make new generalizations, deletions, and distortions. Rather than go for specific information, it steps up to general information—to the big picture. The Milton model mirrors in reverse the Meta-model (Figure 10:1).
Figure 10:1 Chunking up/Chunking down
The Milton model mirrors in reverse the Meta-model
Expect to find lots of distortions, generalizations, and deletions in this model. Here we intentionally use language to give the client room to fill in the pieces. We provide an open frame with little context so that the client’s unconscious mind will activate an internal search. General language inherently induces one to go into a trance on this search. So the language patterns within the Milton model facilitates this process.
Because the Milton model mirrors in reverse the Meta-model, we put a person in trance by using the Meta-model violations.
Because the Milton model mirrors in reverse the Meta-model, we put a person in trance by using the Meta-model violations. Here we do not ask questions—questions invite the mind to come up (into uptime). The following illustrates creatively using Meta-model violations to induce a trance state:
Figure 10:2 Chunking up—Another Format
“I know (mind read) that you have begun to gain new learnings (nominalization) about a great many subjects (unspecified noun) of significance to you. And, it is a good thing to learn (lost performative), to really learn… For, as you gain new learnings (presupposition), you have already begun to change (cause-effect) and I don’t know how you feel that, now… but you can. And, the fact that you have begun to change in ever so slight ways means that healing (complex equivalence) has begun. And you might experience these changes (presuppositions) by how you feel or just by how you talk to yourself. Since you have begun to make changes (nominalization), that means all (universal quantifier) other areas needing healing can begin to change (entire sentence—a complex equivalence.). And you can change (modal operator of possibility and unspecified verb), as you should (modal operator of necessity). It is more or less the right thing to do (lost performative), that is to change (comparative deletion).”
In addition to these Meta-model categories, the Milton model offers other categories as listed below:
11.2.0.48 1. Tag Questions
You can displace resistance from a statement by placing a question after the statement, can’t you? The question added at the end draws the conscious mind’s attention thereby allowing the other information in the sentence to go directly into the unconscious mind. “It is OK for me to do that, isn’t it?” Tag questions “tamp down” the suggestion contained at the front part of the sentence into the unconscious mind.
Examples:13
Isn’t it?
Have you?
You know?
Won’t you?
Can’t you?
Aren’t you/we?
That’s right?
Don’t you know?
Didn’t I?
Couldn’t you?
Will you?
And you can, can you not?
11.2.0.49 2. Pacing Current Experience
A powerful means of building rapport and inducing trance involves pacing the client’s current experience by simply making statements that “agree with and have similarity with” their ongoing experience. Paci
ng current experience associates the person into an internal focus.
“You can feel yourself sitting in your chair or lying down… And, as you read this material, you continue to breathe in and out at first quickly and then as you take a deep breath you can become more relaxed, won’t you, now? The sounds in the room and those that you may hear outside, and the words on the page means that you can go deeper and still deeper into trance.”
Of course, noticing the sounds in the room has nothing to do with relaxation unless you link the two. So as we talked to your unconscious mind, it could say,
“Yes, now that you mention it, I do hear sounds and I can take a deep breath and of course, this makes the next statement about going into a trance much more believable.”
Examples:
You hear my voice.
We are in this group.
You will enjoy it more.
As you notice each blink of your eyes.
As you sit here now you can hear external sounds. …
And you can hear internal sounds…
You can experience being bathed by the light…
As you continue breathing in and out…
You can experience yourself going deeper and deeper into trance.
11.2.0.50 3. Double Binds
“And you can go into a trance now or ten minutes from now and I don’t know which you’ll do …” If your unconscious mind accepted the presupposition of that sentence, you will either have already entered a trance or you will shortly. Double binds have an unspoken presupposition contained within the sentence. Parents seem to have a natural talent at communicating double binds. “John, when will you do your homework? Before this TV program comes on or as soon as it ends?” “Now that you have entered a trance, which arm do you wish to lift?” “Do you wish for your right arm to raise or your left?” Asking which hand the image will come out (in the Visual Squash) illustrates an example of a double bind.
Figure 10:3 A Double Bind
Examples:
Do you want to begin now, or later?
As you dream, or upon awakening….
Either before, or after, leaving this room ….
When you go to bed you will either dream, or not.
Will you begin to change now or after this session?
Would you like to quit smoking today or tomorrow?
Would you like to buy the car now, or test drive it first?
You either will or you won’t (followed by an unspecified verb).
Take all the time you need to finish up in the next five minutes.
You can change as quickly or as slowly as you want to now.
If you don’t write at least one more double bind in the space below now, you will either think of one automatically very soon, or else wonder when the next one will come to mind, so you can write it down then.
11.2.0.51 4. Conversational Postulate
A conversational postulate takes the form of a “modal operator” question which is actually a command to do something. The answer requires a yes or no response. However, that question seems to bypass the conscious mind and create within the unconsciousness a desire to do something about the statement. A classic example: “Can you close the door?” Instead of responding with a “yes” or “no,” most of us respond by simply closing the door. Such questions avoid authoritarianism.
Examples:
Can you imagine this?
Will you just let go now?
Can you picture doing this?
Can you see what I am saying?
Can you reach that level now?
Would it be all right to feel this good?
Do you know that you know it already?
Could you open your mind for a moment?
How easily do you think you can do this?
Can you remember to be kind to yourself?
Does this sound like it will work for you?
Do you feel prepared to sign the contract now?
Do you think you can make the changes you want?
Would you like… to just sit here… and relax now?
Wouldn’t you like to just drift into that peaceful state?
Would you mind writing down a couple more conversational postulates here?
5. Extended Quotes
Susan said that she heard Dave say that Tad James said, “I heard Richard say that NLP offers some of the most powerful, if not the most powerful, tools for personal change available today. And, these tools locate themselves within your unconscious mind. In fact, you have access to them at the unconscious level. Once your conscious mind and unconscious mind gain rapport with each other then you will have total access to those resources.” Many speakers make extensive use of quotes. The use of quotations takes the attention away from the speaker and serves to displace the conscious mind so the information can go into the unconscious mind. The listener accesses a trance by focusing on the quotation as it facilitates an inward focus. Extended quotes play off our need to make sense out of statements.
Examples:
Last year, in San Diego, John Grinder was telling us about
this African drummer who asked Judy if she had heard the
village chief say how easy it is to generate extended quotes.
Last year, I met a woman who said she knew a man
who had mentioned
that his father told him…
Bob said that in a training four years ago,
he had told the story about when
Richard Bandler was quoting
Virginia Satir, who used to say
that…
I was speaking with a friend the other day, who told me of a
conversation she had had with a therapist who told her
about a session he’d had with a client who said…
When I went to Charlotte, North Carolina the other day
with Sam and Doris, one of them told a story about
when his mother would sit down and explain to
the children how father had said…
The other day, a participant in the training told me that her husband
said Bob had told him to ask you to write a couple of extended
quotes down right here.
11.2.0.52 6. Selectional Restriction Violation
A selectional restriction violation describes an ill-formed sentence which ascribes feelings to an animal or some inanimate object. “Have you ever thought about your pen, typewriter, or word processor? Just think how many notes it has taken over the years. How many, I wonder? It knows more than even you know.” “What about giving your chair some thought? Don’t you know it gets tired? After all, it has carried your weight for a long time, hasn’t it?”
Examples:
My rock said…
The walls have ears.
That nail hurt my tire.
Flowers like to be picked.
My car knows how to get here.
Put the noise down in your toe.
What did your actions say to you?
Could you open your mind for a moment
and just listen to what the butterfly has to tell you?
Because the words have power of their own.
The cat doesn’t care about the furniture’s outrage from the scratching.
As he picked up the spoon, the Jell-O trembled with fear.
And if your pen told us all the things it has learned.
My car loves to go fast when the road beckons.
Do trees cry when they drop their leaves?
Sometimes the cookies just call to you.
Do you know what the pen thought?
These walls can tell such stories.
Your pen knows how to write selectional restriction violations very easily, if you will just lead it to the lines below now.
In Bandler’s Weight Loss Transcript he utilizes the following Selectional Restriction Violations:
“The furnace inside you …” This refers to the metabolism of the body.
“I want to tal
k to that part of you… or your unconscious.”
“And this is what he installs in people…”
“And your brain goes brrrrrrr…”
“The box of Godiva chocolates calls out to you.”
11.2.0.53 7. Phonological Ambiguities
Many words have different meanings but sound the same. “Your nose/ knows the truth of this.” “You can be hear/here anytime you wish.” Such language distracts the conscious mind. The client will go into trance while trying to sort out the ambiguities.
EXAMPLES:
you’re/your
there/their
here/hear
son/sun
bare/bear bottoms
there’s no “their” in there
He reddened as he read in it.
You are the one who has won.
After all you have learned from the tapes.
And here today as you hear your unconscious mind….
You can trust you’re unconscious mind now.
11.2.0.54 8. Syntactic Ambiguity
Syntactic ambiguity exists when we cannot immediately determine from the immediate context the function (syntactic) of a word. For instance, “Hurting people can feel difficult.” Does that sentence mean that when you meet hurting people they can make this difficult for us emotionally, or does it mean that engaging in the behavior of hurting people feels like a difficult problem? We can construct syntactic ambiguities by using a verb plus “-ing.” Then you construct a sentence so that it lacks clarity about whether the “-ing” word functions as an adjective or as a verb.