Online & In-Person Counselling, Therapy & Supervision

This body of work comes from Bandler & Grindler (1976) in their book The Structure of Magic Vol I and II. The work is particularly helpful for hypnotherapists as well as counsellors and psychotherapists. Some of the concepts, techniques and ideas from their clinical work are presented here but you are encouraged to read these important texts.

Clients who present for therapy are often having significant trouble in relationships and relating/communicating to other people in their family settings, such as their partners, children and parents. Wider still, issues of communication can become limited in workplace settings and so therapy works towards looking at expanding our visual, auditory and kinesthetic representational symptoms/modalities to help understand other people and communicate our meanings to them accurately. Bandler & Grindler (1976) present excellent case studies to illustrate this process which can be only accessed in their books. The role of the therapist is to provide more choices and adaptive behaviours, ways of perceiving the self, others and their positive future. These techniques help clients overcome their pain, fear, resentments and general impoverished perceptions of the world and life they live.

In all the work presented here there are a number of concepts and processes that require definition:

• Meta-Model: Language is used to represent our experience and to communicate our meanings to others. This representation of who we are is called the Meta-Model.
• Generalisations impoverish the Meta-Model and the clients experience of life. There are two types of generalisations; one is where the therapist can check for referential indices for nouns and event words, for example, the client may say They hated me. Here the therapist addresses the who precisely. This helps the client address their precise perceptions and mis-perceptions. Secondly generalisations may consist of checking for fully specified verbs and process words such as They hated me. The therapist would ask what they hated specifically. There is also an opportunity to ask the client how they hated them.
• Deletion: clients can delete certain important information in how they present their reality of their life to the therapist and other people. They omit superlatives (most, least, faster, fast), comparatives, adverbs (ly words; clearly, quickly, aggressively) and modal operators (surface content with rules, ‘shoulds’ implying something bad will happen to them). Basically the client doesn’t communicate as clearly as they could in order to develop good meaning and rapport with people. Therapists need to probe these statements and help the client gain a clearer understanding of what the want and how they want something, for example.
• Distortion: Nominalisations are types of distortions but focus more on the process within the statement. The nominalisation focuses on the noun,  such as My divorce is painful. The therapist needs to help the client explore what the process of divorce was like in order to adjust the client’s complete picture or view of the divorce. This means that there may be elements of the divorce that was not so painful and so releases some or most of the painful feeling around it. When the client presents the divorce to the therapist it is also important to clarify if the divorce process is past or is current. Some clients can create more emotional pain for themselves by prolonging the process by the nature of the language they use to describe it regardless of how long ago a traumatic event occurred.
• Presuppositions are assumptions. I’m afraid my son is turning out to be as lazy as my husband. Beneath this statement is the presupposition that the husband is lazy. This is the part that requires clarification and assessment of its truth.
• Well-formedness suggests the manner of well-formedness of the clients meaning. There are four types: (1) Cause and Effect My wife makes me angry where a link is made between person, action or emotion (2) But I want to leave home but my father is sick are statements where there is an implied causative. Therapists can respond by either (i) accepting the statement, (ii) asking the client to specify how that may be so or (iii) challenging the entirety of the statement. (3) Mind Reading Is a statement where the client says they know what someone else is thinking or feeling: Henry is angry at me. (4) The Lost Performative statement is something that is only true to the individual but not validated by others or society as true, i.e. it is wrong to hurt people’s feelings.
• Enactment is a therapeutic technique to replay an experience that can provide the client an opportunity to reflect on a past event and the therapist and opportunity to understand the deeper context and circumstances of events. In doing so the therapist can offer insights into deeper understandings and perspectives that the client may be unaware of.
• Guided fantasy is when the client takes a journey into the unknown where they use imagination to think what they could do. Clients who are withdrawn and conflicted can try to imagine experiences and outcomes they would like to achieve. They may imagine situations where they address conflict and confrontation in a calm way instead of an angry way.
• Therapeutic double binds is where a situation can be suggested for a client to pursue that is normally outside their own normal experience or comfort. It may contradict their usual perceptions of their self, others and their world. This can then be followed by an enactment or guided fantasy. Each day between this session and the next you will try something new (and fail at it). What is presented in brackets is something the therapist can add to the double bind if the client says they can’t do anything new everyday. What the bind does is get the client to try something new. Even if they fail at it they would still have tried something new.
• Polarities are conflicting and incongruent perspectives or beliefs within, for example, I love my wife/she drives me crazy, I love my job/It doesn’t pay enough, I want to retrain into a new profession/I can’t afford it, I feel so lost, hopeless and useless/I know I can do this, I want to do this job/It will disappoint my parents dreams for me

Representational Systems or Modalities

We all perceive the world and communicate our needs and perceptions of the world through the representational systems or modalities:

• Visual
• Auditory
• Kinesthetic

We perceive the world through a dominant representational system and sub-systems. However, the primary system is how we perceive the world. We can identify which system we are more dominant through the language we use:

I see what you mean – visual

I hear what you’re saying – auditory

I resonate with that – kinesthetic

You will find below a detailed description of language clues as to to identify how people perceive and represent their Meta Model.

Switching the Representational Systems

When people present for therapy they often feel they have no choices and feel stuck. One way to expand that perception and recognition of choice is to explore their relationships with people in their lives and identify how they understand those people, and how they understand (input) and communicate (output) with them using the representational systems above.

If someone has a visual modality then they will be looking at another person and judging them by how they look. If they tell the other person they don’t like what they see and the other person is kinesthetic then there will be mis-understanding because the kinesthetic person is judging the other on how that person makes them feel regardless of what they say. When we communicate with people and we are on the same wavelength it is often because we are communicating and understanding each other with the same modality.

In relationships of differing modalities the focus has to be on the auditory and listening, selecting words carefully and taking some time and consideration in listening to the words other people use. This way a more common ground can be established for relationship communication, expression of needs, understanding and deeper rapport and relational depth. In family or couple therapy, for example, the therapist does the translating between the individuals but when you are on your own you need to learn how to do it yourself. Bandler & Grindler’s work is very good at presenting this and working with it through illustrative case studies.

When generalisations, deletions and distortions into are thrown in the mix as well relationship communication breaks down further.

When therapists work with their clients they work in the modality of the client in order to increase communication success, rapport and relational depth and so identify that as quickly as possible in the consultation process. As therapists we are also ascertaining the clients body language – rigidity, tension, voice, hands, breathing, posture and trying to find out if what they say is congruent with their body. If there is not then there is an incongruence between what they client is saying and how they think/feel within. There is an inconsistency between the verbal and non-verbal cues. The therapist can bring this incongruence if it is appropriate to do so at this stage of therapy or it can be held off until rapport and relational depth can be established more. Sometimes we have to prepare the client for addressing issues that may initially feel uncomfortable or contradict their own perceptions and clearly state that this is part of the process of developing awareness and understanding.

Bandler & Grinder suggest a process of therapy in three parts:

1. Identify the clients incongruities
2. Sort the clients incongruities
3. Integrate the clients incongruities

As above the therapist needs to identify the verbal and non-verbal incongruities. Then the therapist can identofy the communication strategies into Satir’s 4 types:

• Placater, people-pleaser (physically bows, serves, bends, peace-maker)
• Blamer, fault finder (intimidates, interrogates and may physically intimidate)
• Computer, corrector, reasoner, fixer, may come across as lacking feeling (communicates a relaxed posture, maybe imply vulnerability, inferiority and inadequacy)
• Distractor, avoider, escaper, changes subject, diverts (posture may be angular, not facing the other person, dissociates, backs away)

We can sort the incongruities into:

1. polarities: opposite poles, e.g. the client may say they have a good relationship with their partner but their hands are clenched. These polarities can be brought to the clients conscious awareness by the therapist.
2. spatial sorting: using the empty chair technique chairs can be placed around the room and the client can sit in their normal seat with the therapist and then move to another chair to explore one of the polarities and another chair to explore the other polarity to try and get integration
3. Fantasy sorting: client can visualise the polarities for deeper understanding and integration
4. Psychodramatic sorting: where the therapist and client create the 2 separate figures of the polarity and explore and integrate
5. Representational system sorting: client represents their feelings and body sensations (kinesthetic) in one chair, then their images and visuals in another (visual) and voices, tonality, words in another (auditory)
6. Satir Category Sorting: Client identifies their polarities in terms of the placator, blamer, computer, distractor for understanding and integration. Therapists can also use the types of The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield (intimidator, interrogator, poor me and aloof)

Finally we can integrate the incongruities/polarities into an exploration of the following themes:

• Language deletion, generalisation, distortion
• Live one’s life as one polarity and then the other to find best fit or integration of the best of both looking at beliefs, speech, reactions, thoughts, feelings, tone, voice and how that looks in relationships and real life situations. Client can play their role in therapy as well as then reflect on it.
• Client can explore the Satir categories in their family or workplace and integrate strategies and approaches in those situations and explore further in the next therapy session
• Therapist helps the client choose the modality for integrating the polarities/incongruities. The client can assess whether it is more effective to use a VAK modality for addressing certain situations and people in their life in order to create more balanced and harmonious situations.
• Therapist challenges the deletions, distortions and generalisations in the client’s exploration.
• The therapist can ask polarity questions:

1. What specifically do you need for yourself?
2. What does that polarity stop you from getting what you need for yourself?
3. Is there any way that that particular polarity can be  of help to you?
4. What would happen if one of those polarities left altogether?
5. What would happen if that particular polarity got what it wanted?
6. Is there a chance both polarities could get what they want?

• Checking for Solid Contact: Therapist can help the polarities work together by

1. Determining where the polarities come into conflict: situation, people, context
2. Determine how each polarity can make best use of each others skills in their behaviour, interaction, decision-making, goal-setting
3. Setting up signals when the polarities are going to be enacted or triggered so that other people know they are being triggered and can adjust approach. Sometimes if one person in the family is getting angry because the other person has flipped into blamer category or controller or is just not listening then communication strategies can be changed and be initiated.

• Therapist can also use hypnotherapy to integrate the polarity work in different representational systems: You are developing more harmonious relationships with people by stepping out of the blamer category into a new role of listener and communicator, understanding the dynamics of what is happening and adjusting your voice, tone, posture, and seeing exactly what is happening in your own body and in the other persons body, knowing exactly how to say the right thing, present the right posture and present the right way of seeing everything. See this picture now of a new situation of harmony and understanding and then pull this image into the core of your being. Tell me how that feels and what it looks like and what it sounds like inside you. Now surround that image, sound, vibration and feeling with light and positive intention making it a part of your personality to come to the surface of conscious life when the situation requires it. Make that image as large as possible so it expands outside of yourself and contains your loved ones, colleagues and friends. This is a representation of right relationships and right situations you want to create. Let the energy and light and sound surround every cell of your body and brain permanently imprinted there. Breathe and rest in the moment.

Fuzzy Functions

Grinder & Bandler refer to fuzzy functions as overlapping modalities/representational systems. One example would be where someone sees something and has a feeling/kinesthetic response or someone hears something and has a feeling/kinesthetic response. They would be referred to as:

• see-feel
• hear-feel

Tied up with this fuzzy function are the Satir types. If someone is in a blaming role because what they hear is triggering their reaction then they can change their modality to seeing and paraphrase back to the person what they see, ‘I can see your upset’. This can shift the blaming stance into something more adult and objective.

If someone is moving into a distracting type of role to avoid confrontation, and they are predominantly a seeing type triggered by aggressive/defensive behaviours, they can change to hearing and say to someone, ‘what I am hearing from you is…’ and this can change their distracting behaviours towards addressing the issues.

Hence, changing modalities can change our behavioural responses to something more objective and diplomatic.

Posture can also affect the way we see or hear a situation – chin up and parallel to the ground and not dropped, back straight and not slouched, shoulders back and not dropped, face/forehead relaxed and not tense, jaw relaxed and not clenched, hands relaxed and not clenched, breathing deeper and slower can all change our Satir stance and improve what we see and hear. Turning towards the other person and not away. Looking up and towards the other person, with eye contact. Observing carefully all shift the stances and modalities into more person-focused communication and expression.

Children are very egocentric up to quite an age and many things that happen to them are internalised completely, that is, they believe the events, people and their behaviours, people’s reactions to them, experiences, reactions and happenings in the world are actually inside them. This is because they have kinesthetic reactions to these external things. They feel the resonance of the situation in their bodies in the form of shaking, fear, fight, flight, freeze and fawn response. Their eyesight is either enhanced or clouded/fogged up. Their hearing is sharpened or dulled and the body reactions can disturb digestion, immunity  and cell development, their small bodies are flooded with adrenaline which actually harms certain regions of the brain like the hippocampus responsible for memory and also enlarges the amygdala, cognition is inhibited and positive feelings and negative emotional states are hyperactivated.

Family therapy approaches are just as useful for individual therapy as well as therapy with a number of family members. Therapists can provide a great deal of psych-education support for their individual clients in the process of working through family relational issues. Families can present with a number of issues like incongruence between members, inabilities to cope, paralysis, perceptions of little or no choice to move forward or improve things. There is one important core condition of  family therapy that there is no one person in the family that is the only cause of the conflict. This is a very important core principle of family therapy. Bandler & Grinder suggest a three step process:

1. The therapy must identify what the family wants for itself as a unit and what its present resources are.
2. The evolving family is moving from its current state to a new desired state.
3. The integration of these new choices and patterns of interaction can be created by the family with the therapist in sessions.

These three steps also resonate with the incongruity steps – identifying incongruities, sorting them and then integrating them.

Identifying family issues

Questions to help identify presenting issues. These apply to someone in individual therapy as well as family therapy:

• What are your hopes for yourself and your family in therapy?
• How would you like your family to change?
• What do you want for yourself and your family?
• If you could change yourself and your family in any way you want, what changes would you make?
• How would you and your family be different if you all changed in the very vest ways from this experience?

Families often don’t communicate carefully – they generalise, distort and delete, mind-read, make cause-effect assumptions about each other, align one another against others and take sides.

Family therapy requires identification of:

• representational systems/modalities of each member
• Satir categories when triggered
• Recurrent patterns of communication incongruity of each member
• Fuzzy functions of each member – hear-feel, see-feel
• Type and extent of semantic ill-formedness for each member

Sorting the Family Incongruities using the pairing principle

Polarities are common in families when one member presents the opposite of another member. They are automatic reactions and members will flip between Satir categories while their modalities often stay fixed. Bandler & Grinder provide excellent case studies and they are worth reading.

One parent may be a visual/blamer (I see you’re taking their side again) and another member kinesthetic/distractor (You’re making me feel judged. You need to relax and go and calm down)

Someone who is visual may not hear what the other person is saying and someone who feels attacked may try to avoid confrontation. There is a need for both sides to change their approach so they are both listening and addressing the issues. The therapist can help members adjust their communication modalities by flipping the modalities and naming the Satir categories. Generalisations, deletions and distortions can be filled in and developed to improve information exchange, clarify assumptions. Blamers can develop their listening and communication skills. Placators can develop their confrontation and communication skills. Distractors can develop their own fears. Computers can develop their fixing/rescuing roles to listening roles. This helps stop the Yoyo pattern of flip-flopping between Satir categories and listening skills. Members can learn to read faces and posture, listen to people’s words and identify reactions in their body and their intuitive feelings.

Integrating and Evolving the Family

New rules are developed in families through this process. It is about creating new representations of each other and not making assumptions, generalisations, distortions about one another. It is about withdrawing projections onto one another. It is about being honest about our perceptions of one another that are not based on truth or experience.

Changing old rules to new rules about family life, patterns, new activities, time to sit down and listen and communicate, share, negotiate and join in. It is about self-sacrifice sometimes and agreeing to do things others want to do. It is about listening and changing. It is about the needs of the group, not just the needs of the individual. Family life prepares us for working and education, contributing and serving in society.

Everyone in the family is part of the new rules that make sure everyone feels validated. The therapist strategy is to:

• identify, sort and integrate incongruities
• restore deleted material
• meta-model questions to help communicate and listen
• remove distortions and access memories
• break generalisations and compare different members of the family and challenge mind-reading
• challenge patterns of see-feel and hear-feel which result in rigid rules

The therapist helps members to:

• make rich representations of who they are, their needs and when they’re not being validated/confirmed
• to provide experiences for the clients for their social life to be richer
• give clients resources to solve their patterns and experiences to put them into practice
• needs to be fun and rewarding to learn new ways of coping
• if one member is kinesthetic/feeling and another is visual then the therapist can present ideas, communication and translation to other modalities to improve understanding
• changing impoverished members models and show them that changes are more acceptable than the rules of creating happy, close, bonds/relationship
• use meta-model questions to get full representation of each others model and increase auditory functioning (listening)
• use meta-comments on incongruency in communication when there is an inharmony between what someone says and what they look like
• challenge mind-reading
• switch modalities
• relabel the behaviour being addressed from something that you are critical of to something you are concerned about
• relabel requests to suggestions for approval
• make negative experiences understood by others
• accessing memories to recover them and review their truth and meaning
• meta questions include how you feel about feeling accepted or angry
• sculpturing – placing family members in physical positions in relationship to one another so they communicate more closely and physically to improve understanding rather than shouting across a room or up the stairs
• therapist is a model of effective communication
• promote morphogenesis
• provide home tasks and exercises to improve skills and choices between sessions
• decide on a signal for members to use when communication patterns need to change

Bibliography

Grinder, J. & Bandler, R. (1976) The Structure of Magic Vol I and II. Science and Behaviour Books, USA.

© Martin Handy 2022