Using Your Brain —for a CHANGE

A couple of years ago I saw three clients for a videotape session (see Appendix II). The first client I saw was a woman who was suffering from "anticipatory loss." I love the names they come up with to describe how people are messed up! What it boiled down to was that if she had arranged to meet someone who was close to her and that person was a half–hour late, she had what she called a panic attack. She lost her marbles and began to step on them. When I asked her what she would like to have from the session, this is what she said:

I have a problem with a fear that is almost disabling to me at certain times. When I have it, I sort of go into panic attacks. What I would like to do is distance myself, so that when I'm in the situation I wouldn't experience the fear to the degree that I have it, where I could control myself and make better decisions.

Since she talked about wanting to "distance" herself, she gave me a clear indication that distance was an important submodality for her. She also talked a lot about people who were "close to her" and "close relationships." Later when talking about what she did when someone was late she said, "I need to allow them some distance — I mean allow them some time." With this woman a swish using distance will be much more powerful than one using size. In fact, I went ahead and tried the standard swish using size to find out if it would work. It had very little impact. Then I used distance, and it worked perfectly.

The most important part of doing the swish in a really artistic way is to carefully gather the information you need to set it up appropriately. When someone talks about something being "bigger than life" or being "blown out of proportion," that's a pretty good indication that size is an important variable to use.

When somebody describes a limitation he wants to change, you need to be able to pay attention to how this particular problem works. I always keep in mind that anything that anybody has done is an achievement, no matter how futile or painful it may be. People aren't broken; they work perfectly! The important question is, "How do they work now?" so that you can help them work perfectly in a way that is more pleasant and useful.

One of the things I do to gather information is to say to the client, "Well, let's say I had to fill in for you for a day. One of the things I would have to do is have your limitation. How would I do it? You have to teach me how to have this problem." As I begin to presuppose that it's an achievement — something learned that can be taught to someone else — it entirely changes the way the person is able to deal with and think about the difficulty.

When I asked the woman who panicked when people were late to teach me how to do it, she said:

You start telling yourself sentences like, "They're late; they may never come."

Do you say this in a bored tone of voice — "Ho hum"?

No. The voice starts out slowly, "Give them another half hour." Then it speeds up as the time gets closer.

Do you have any pictures in there?

Yes. I see a picture of the person maybe in a wreck, as if I'm standing there looking on, like through a zoom lens. At other times I'm looking around through my own eyes out at the world and there's no one there.

So in her case she has a voice that speeds up and rises in pitch as time goes on. At a certain point the voice says, "They'll never come" and she makes close–up, zoom–lens pictures of the person in a wreck, or of being all alone.

When I asked her to try making the picture of the wreck, I found that zooming in or out had a very strong effect. When I tested brightness, she said, "The dimness creates distance." That tells me that brightness is also a factor.

Now I want you to pair up with someone and ask him to think of a limitation — something that he considers a problem and wants to change. This time I don't want you to fix it; I only want you to find out how this achievement works. Use the frame of "Let's say I had to fill in for you for a day. Teach me what to do." Do the same thing you did earlier when you found out how a person got motivated to do something.