The User's Manual for the Brain Volume I
Page 37
Determine the definite cue that triggers the unwanted response. How do you know when to do the unwanted behavior? Do you experience a feeling, sound or a picture? If you had to teach someone how to do this, what would you tell them to do? If the cue comes from outside you, get an image of exactly what you see. Associate into the experience. If working on biting nails, it may involve seeing your hand moving up to your mouth. As with most NLP techniques, The Swish Pattern works better with visual images. However, auditory and kinesthetic cues will work. Discover the submodalities of the cue.
Follow this line of questioning:
a) “When do you do the unwanted behavior?” (This puts the person into the appropriate context, so that it will create a context for answering the next question.)
b) “What do you see/hear/feel that makes you want to do the unwanted behavior?” If they don’t know, and you can’t find out, you can pick a cue that you know has to exist for the behavior to run, such as seeing your hand come up to your face as in the case of biting nails.
c) “Make a large, bright, associated image of what you see just before the unwanted behavior begins.” Calibrate to the client’s nonverbal external behavior.
d) “Now set this picture aside briefly.”
3. Form an image of having your outcome.
Ask the following questions:
a) “How would you see yourself with the desired change?”
b) “What would you look like if you did not do the unwanted behavior?”
c) “How would you look if you did the desired behavior?”
d) “Make a dissociated picture.” Remember, in NLP you associate into present state and dissociate in the desired state. In an associated picture you already have the feeling of accomplishing your desired outcome. Thus, an associated picture will not motivate you. The picture must offer a compelling and desirable image. The more desirable the desired state appears, the more likely The Swish Pattern will work.
4. Have you created an ecological desired state? Run your desired state through the well-formed outcome model.
a) Have you stated it positively?
b) Describe it in sensory-based language.
c) Have you designed a self-initiated and self-controlled desired state?
d) Will your desired state fit in all contexts of your life?
e) Have you maintained appropriate secondary gain?
f) What resources will you need?
g) Have you designed an ecological desired state appropriate for your total system? Does any part of you disagree with you having this state?
Ask the following questions:
a) “Have you stated your outcome positively?”
b) “What will you see, hear and feel when you have your outcome?”
c) “Does your desired state depend on you and on you alone?”
d) “Where, when, how and with whom do I want this outcome? Do you want this outcome all the time, in all places and without any limitations?”
e) “What would you lose if you accomplished your outcome?”
f) “What do you have now, and what do you need to get your outcome?”
g) “How will having this outcome affect the lives of those around you?”
Figure 14:2 The Swish Pattern I—Using Size/Brightness
5. Swish the images using size and brightness. Take the cue picture and make it bright and large. Make sure you associate into the cue picture. Say to the client, “Close your eyes and see in front of you a big bright, associated image of your present state (where you are now). In the lower left corner of the cue picture, place a small, dark and dissociated picture of the desired image [see Figure 14:2]. Now, take the large bright picture and quickly make it small and dark. At the same time, make the small dark desired image large and bright. Do this very quickly. Remember, the brain learns fast.” As the client does this procedure, make a s-w-i-i-i-s-s-s-h-h-h-ing sound to assist the change. Clear the screen. Repeat this procedure at least five times.
6. Future pace by testing for results. Ask the client to think of the cue that triggered the undesired behavior. If it produces the new image, you have completed the process. If it doesn’t, go to the next step.
Figure 14:3 The Swish Pattern II—Using Location/Size/Distance
7. Swishing the images using distance. If size and brightness do not work, distance could provide the driver. You may wish to test for certainty. Follow the same procedure as above. Only, instead of using the small dark picture in the corner, you swish from distance. Lead the client in taking the cue picture of the unwanted behavior and zooming it out on the horizon until it becomes a black dot. Place a small, dark and dissociated picture of the desired outcome on the horizon. Then lead the client to zoom in with the desired behavior from the horizon. Lead the client in doing this real fast. Repeat five or six times and test. (See Figure 14:3)
15.7 Beliefs
What we hold as true or not true powerfully determines our behavior. Indeed, our beliefs present a major driving force of our lives. If you believe you can accomplish something, you probably will. If you believe you cannot accomplish a particular task, the odds pile up against you that you won’t.
A belief involves a generalization about a relationship between experiences.
A belief involves a generalization about experiences, about relationships between experiences, and about the meaning of experiences. Suppose you failed at a particular task. From that moment on you may believe you will always fail at a similar task. Thus, you have generalized by connecting your first failure at a task to always failing at similar tasks.
Our brain knows what we believe, what we doubt and what we don’t believe by the structure of our internal representation—and this sometimes involves submodality differences.
Increasingly, the medical community has begun to appreciate the role of beliefs in recovery. One hundred cancer patients in a particular study had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Ten to twelve years later, the researchers found them still living. They had received different treatments. Some had standard medical treatments, surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. Some had received non-medical treatments like acupuncture. Others received treatment through special diets and nutrition. Others turned to psychology and religion. Some received no treatment. The reporter that interviewed these people discovered that they all had one thing in common: They all believed that their treatment would work for them. In each case the patient worked from the generalization that the particular therapy would cure cancer. And because they believed it would, it did. They generalized from the agent of cure to the actual physiological cure, using submodalities, and through neuro-transmitters and the immune system. Our brain knows what we believe, what we doubt and what we don’t believe by the structure of our internal representation—and this sometimes involves submodality differences. We will look closer at this phenomenon in the belief change exercise.
You have probably heard of the placebo effect. In the placebo effect the experimenter gives the subject a non-active drug, typically a sugar pill. Yet the experimenter gives the subject such in a way so that they believe that they have received the real thing. An interesting phenomenon happens. Roughly one third of the time a placebo will work as effectively as the real drug. Some studies indicate that placebos work as well as morphine in 54% of the cases. Indeed, in drug trials, experimenters know to always take the placebo effect into consideration because of this well documented phenomenon.
15.8 Robert Dilts has written:
A man even did a study in the other direction, where he took people who responded to placebos and people who didn’t and he gave them real drugs. He gave them drugs for pain such as morphine, and it turned out that the placebo responders responded effectively to morphine over 95% of the time. The other people responded to the morphine 46% of the time. That was roughly a 50% difference, which shows you that even real drugs may require belief to be effective in some cases.
Placebos have even been shown to have an effect in canc
er treatment. In fact, in one study they gave people “placebo chemotherapy” and a third of the patients lost all their hair.
The most effective electroshock machine in the state of California was supposedly one that hadn’t worked for three years. They gave people a general anaesthetic before they put them on the machine, so mental patients thought they got electroshocks even though they didn’t. And that worked better than giving them the actual shock treatment.23
Yes, beliefs play a very important role in both our behavior and our health. We installed most, but obviously not all, of our core beliefs during childhood. Parents, peers, teachers, and the media help form our beliefs even before we have reached an age where we have enough maturity regarding awareness or choice about which beliefs we want and which we don’t want.
Can we change beliefs that we choose now not to have and that in some way limit us? Yes, NLP provides the technologies necessary to unlearn or change old unwanted beliefs and create new ones. In this practitioner course we will study one technology of submodality “mapping across” in changing unwanted beliefs.
15.8.0.107 VII. Belief Formation Change Pattern
How does your brain know the difference between what it believes and accepts as true and what it believes as false? How does your brain know the difference among belief, unbelief, disbelief, and doubt?
Traditionally in NLP we thought that the answer involved submodality distinctions. Accordingly, Bandler and others developed a couple of versions of using submodalities shifts and “mapping over” processes for the purpose of changing beliefs. More recently, Hall (1997, 1998) and Bodenhamer, The Structure of Excellence (1999) have called this into question.
Beliefs certainly do have their own individual codings. Yet these structural codings do not occur merely at the representational level. This explains how you can think about a belief and even represent it fully, completely, compelling, etc., and still not believe it. This actually presents an incredible and amazing thing. We can think without believing.
Therefore believing must involve something more than just representations. It must involve another piece of awareness—some particular kind of thinking about the first thoughts.
What we have discovered about beliefs boils down to this: to believe, a person must begin with a thought—a representation about something or another. It may involve a way of representing the existence of something, the relationship between one thing and another (a cause-effect structure), the significance and value of something (a meaning construction), the identity of something (identity beliefs), what one presupposes and assumes about the world (ontological and presuppositional beliefs), etc. After a person constructs one of these mapping processes—he or she must affirm it as true. Without the meta-level affirmation of truth about the representation—one does not have a “belief.” One only has a “thought,” one merely has a set of representations.
With this understanding regarding the structural nature of beliefs—to transform or change a belief we have to disconfirm the truth or validity or usefulness of the representation. We can do this by reframing the ideas and representations using the Meta-model. We can also do it by finding counter examples to the idea. This frees up “space” in our mental world to then construct another idea or concept that we can affirm as a belief.
NLP offers several techniques for changing beliefs. The early models base themselves entirely on the technique of submodality “mapping across.” We have found that more often than not, people do not get the results that they wanted. When a person does find that a particular submodality mapping across worked—it usually does so because it enabled the person to deframe the old reality structure and thereby provided opportunity for another belief to get installed.
15.8.0.108 Information Gathering And Preparation:
Identify the old unwanted belief: “A” asks “B” to think of a belief that the person wishes he or she did not have. “B” thinks of a belief that limits them in some way, or has undesirable consequences. “A” elicits the submodalities of “B’s” unwanted belief. “A” asks “B”: “How do you represent this belief in your internal experience?” For this exercise use the visual submodalities of color/black-&-white, movie/ still, 3D/flat, frame/panoramic, associated/dissociated, bright/dark, in focus/out of focus, far off/close and location. After eliciting these visual submodalities, “A” asks “B” if the auditory or kinesthetic submodalities present seem important. If they do, elicit them. “B” lists these submodalities on the top left side of a blank sheet of paper.
Next, write down the language of the belief. How does the person express the idea or concept that limits and that creates various difficulties? What concept does this belief address? What kind of a belief does it represent: existence, ontology, cause-effect, meaning, etc.?
Think of something you doubt and feel unsure of: “Now think of something that you doubt. You feel unsure about its truth or its untruth. You just don’t know. It may be, it may not be. You do not have certainty about it but doubt it.” Elicit the submodalities of this experience of doubt and unsureness. “How do you represent this doubt in your internal experience?” List the submodalities on the top right of the sheet of paper. List them beside the submodalities of the unwanted belief (# 1) in the same order.
Identify also the language of the doubt or feelings of being unsure. How do you express this to yourself?
Run a Contrastive Analysis: Now run a contrastive analysis on these two experiences: belief and doubt. Mark with an asterisk (*) those submodalities that differ. Identify how the languaging of the two also differs.
Test the Structures: Test each of the submodality differences that you have marked with an asterisk (*) between belief and doubt. Do this to find out which ones provide the most effect in changing you from believing in the thought to doubting it. After testing one submodality, “A” directs “B” in changing it back to the way it originally appeared before testing each one.
Identify the New Desired Belief: “What new belief would you like to have in place of the old limiting belief that you have come to dislike?” Run a well-formed outcome on “B’s” new belief to make sure that they have it well-formed. For example, check that “B” has stated this belief in positive terms without negations. Especially identify the language of the new enhancing belief.
Example: “I can learn to change in response to feedback,” rather than “I won’t be unable to change what I do.” Elicit the submodalities for this new belief. “How do you represent this belief so that it feels desirable, compelling, and real in your internal experience?” List the submodalities on the bottom left side of the sheet of paper. Also, make sure that “B” thinks of the new belief in terms of an ability or process, rather than having already achieved a desired goal.
Identify the Structure of a Strong belief: Ask “B” to think of something that they believe without a shadow of doubt, like “The sun will come up tomorrow.” “Mom loves me.” “God loves me.” Elicit the submodalities of this unquestioned belief. “How do you represent this strong belief in your internal experience?” Lists the submodalities on the bottom right side of the sheet beside the submodalities of the desired belief (# 5) in the same order. Calibrate to “B” for future testing.
Make sure that “B” specifies and languages this new belief in a way that feels strong, solid, real, and compelling.
Run another Contrastive Analysis: Contrast the new desired belief (# 5) and the solid unquestioned belief (# 6). List the visual, auditory, and kinesthetic submodalities as well as the language of each. Mark with an asterisk (*) those submodalities and language formats that differ.
Test the Structures: Test each of the submodality differences that you have marked with an asterisk (*) between the new desired belief (# 5) and the solid and unquestionable belief (# 6) to find out which ones provide the most effect in changing the new desired belief into the unquestioned belief. After testing one submodality, ask the person to change it back to the way it originally appeared
before testing each one.
15.8.0.109 Belief Change Process:
9. Turn the Undesired belief into Doubt: Using one or more of the most powerful submodality drivers that you discovered in # 4, direct “B” to change the undesired belief to the submodalities of doubt. Have him or her language the old thought, “Maybe it is so, but maybe it is not. I don’t know. I feel very unsure about it.”
10 Turn the New desired belief into a Solid and Unquestioned belief: Using one or more of the most powerful submodality drivers that you discovered in # 8, direct the person to change the new desired belief (# 5) to the submodalities of the solid and unquestioned belief (# 6). As you do this, invite the person to use their language of validation, solidness, and unquestionableness to set the frame for the idea or concept that they want to use as their operating belief.
11. Test the Structures: You have two ways to test. First, ask “B” to think of the new desired belief. As the person does, calibrate to “B” to check that he or she has the physiology of the solid and unquestioned belief.
Second, elicit the submodalities of “B’s” new desired belief. The new belief should now have the same submodalities and language patterns as “B’s” solid and unquestioned belief (# 6). If not exactly the same, “A” directs “B” in adjusting the new desired belief into the same submodalities and languaging as the true belief.
12. Future Pacing: “Now, go out into the future associated into an imaginary time when before this change you would have felt tempted to behave in response to the old undesired belief and notice how you now respond with the new belief.” Calibrate to “B’s” responses.