Frogs into Princes: Neuro Linguistic Programming

OK. Go inside and ask your creative part if it would be willing to do that. When it says "yes," tell it to go ahead. And the way I would like the part of you to notify you that it has accepted each one of the new choices is by giving you that feeling, that "yes" signal. You may or may not be conscious of what the new alternatives are. That's irrelevant for our purposes here.

Dick: It sounds like a big assignment.

Yes, it is, but thousands of people have done it all over the world. It's humanly possible and you are a human. You have to go inside and explain it to your creative part and to the other part, and if they both agree, tell them to go ahead. What you're going to do now is to use your own creative resources to begin to reorganize your behavior…. (long pause)

Did you get your three signals, Dick? (No.) How many have you gotten? (None.) None, you've gotten none. Would you go inside and ask that same part—again "yes" or "no"—if it has been presented with choices by your creative part. Ask if your creative part has been presenting it choices…. (He nods.) OK. Then it has been receiving?

Dick: Apparently.

So checking at the creative level, we find creativity is generating lots of possibilities. OK, would you go inside and ask if any of those choices that were presented were acceptable choices? Were any of them more effective than pattern X to accomplish what it wants?

Some of you like to offer advice to your clients. Any time you offer advice, that's going to be less effective than if you can throw them back, with appropriate explicit instructions, on their own resources to develop their own alternative ways. You are a unique human being and so are your clients. And there may or may not be overlap, as you found the first day during that afternoon exercise when we asked you to hallucinate. Some of you could guess the content of your partner's experiences in a way that was almost unbelievable. With other people, it doesn't work at all. If you have that incredible overlap, then you can offer useful advice. There's nothing wrong with it, as long as you are sensitive to the response you are getting as you offer it. But even then it will be more effective to throw a person back on their own resources. (Dick shakes his head.)

OK. You got a "no" signal. None of the new choices are acceptable. The creative part generated a lot of possible ways, none of which were as effective as the present pattern. Now, would you ask that part that runs pattern X if it would go to your creative part and become an advisor to your creative part so that it can come up with better choices about how to accomplish that intention? Ask it to explain what, specifically, about the choices the creative part has been presenting prevents them from being more effective ways of accomplishing the intention. Do you understand that instruction consciously, Dick? OK, would you go inside and explain it to that part and then ask it—"yes" or "no"—if it would be willing to do that? And if it says "yes," tell it to go ahead.

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.