Conversational Reframing

Acknowledgements
Conversational Reframing

Introduction
... You and I belong to a species with
a remarkable ability: we can shape
events in each other’s brains with
exquisite precision. Simply by
making noises with our mouths, we
can reliably cause precise new
combinations of ideas to arise in each
other’s minds.

Steven Pinker [1994]

 Mind-Body Competence

Cognitive-Behavior Management
Neuro-Linguistic Programming
 Neuro-linguistics holistically
summarizes the body-mind
connection between language
[words, symbols, etc.] and
neurology. It specifies how our
neurology [i.e., nervous system
and brain] process language and
thereby respond to language.
Words, while totally powerless to
effect and change external
reality, have almost complete
power to create, alter, change,
destroy and invent internal
reality.
 ...“neuroscientists have learned that thoughts
are electrical impulses that trigger electrical and
chemical switches in the brain. Thoughts are not
just psychological in nature, they are
physiological - electrochemical triggers that
direct and affect the chemical activity.

When given an electrical command - a thought -

the brain immediately does several things: It
responds to the thought by releasing appropriate
control chemicals into the body, and it alerts the
central nervous system to any required response
or action.” Shad Helmstetter
Perception differs qualitatively
from the physical properties of
the stimulus.

The Soul Illusion

 "I want you to realize that there
exists no color in the natural world,
and no sound - nothing of this kind;
no textures, no patterns, no beauty,
no scent." Sounds, colors, patterns,
etc., appear to have an independent
reality, yet are, in fact, constructed
by the mind. All our experience of
the natural world is our mind’s
interpretation of the input it
receives. Sir John Eccles
Eccles continued
NLP talks about various modes
of awareness
 VAK Coding
Visual [pictures, sights, images]
A [sounds, noise, music, tones]
Kinesthetic [sensations, physical
feelings of the body]
Olfactory [smells]
Gustatory [tastes]
We experience the phenomenon
of sight, sounds and sensations.
Above and beyond the sensory
level representation we have
sensory-based words.
 Non-sensory based language
refers to all language that
becomes more abstract as we
delete more of the specific
sensory words and generalize to
a higher level.
 When we go ‘meta’ to a higher
logical level of symbolization
and use more abstract words, we
use a different kind of
representational system, a non-
sensory based modality.
 In any social environment, we
have to use language which then
influences and effects the ‘life’ of
the system: enhancing and/or
limiting, creating and/or
destroying.
 Our language both reflects and
describes our model of the world.
 Words influence because they
evoke us to create
representations within our minds
at multiple levels.
The magic is in the code.
 Swish

Cross Mapping Submodalities

Swish continued
Modeling
 Modeling consists of using tools
that have their origins in
Artificial Intelligence [AI],
linguistics and cognitive science
research with the goal of making
a model of excellent behavior, for
transfer to other persons.
Structures:

Reference,
Deep
&
Surface
Language & Change
Language so fills our world that
we move through it as a fish
swims through water.
Some Universals of the Human
Linguistic Process
I. Well-formedness
II. Constiuent Structure
III. Logical Semantic Relations
A. Completeness
B. Ambiguity
C. Synonymy
A transformation is an explicit
statement of one kind of pattern
that native speakers recognize
among the sentences of their
language.
Transformations [continued]
Presuppositions
When a person’s model has
pieces missing, it is
impoverished.
Impoverished models imply
limited options.
Biological Constraints

Physical constraints that are

atypical of the species.
 Neurological Constraints

Species specific biological

constraints common to all typical
species representatives.
Social Constraints
Social Constraints [continued]
Social Constraints [continued]
Social Constraints [continued]
Individual constraints
Individual constraints [continued]
Generalization is the process by
which elements or pieces of a
person’s model become detached
from their original experience
and come to represent this entire
category of which the experience
is an example. Our ability to
generalize is essential to coping
with the world.
Deletion is a process by which
we selectively pay attention to
certain dimensions of our
experiences and exclude others.
An example would be the ability
that people have to filter out or
exclude all other sound in a room
full of people talking in order to
listen to one particular person’s
voice.
Distortion is a process that
allows us to make shifts in our
experience of sensory data.
Fantasy, for example, allows us
to prepare for experiences that
we may have before they occur.
All the great novels, all the
revolutionary discoveries of the
sciences involve the ability to
distort and misrepresent reality.
Every Belief is a limit to be
examined.

John C. Lily
 Reframing

The most fundamental goal of

applying verbal patterns is to help
people shift their perspective:
1) from a problem to an outcome,
2) from a failure to feedback, and
3) from an impossibility to an ‘as
if’.
The Language of Specificity

For precision and clarity or to

deframe.
The Language of Evaluation

To construct new realities &

frames
Meaning [‘semantics’] exists
only, and exclusively, in the
‘mind’.
This doesn’t mean this ---> It means this!

Not X --------> but Y

The language of evaluation-
of-evaluation

Allows you to outframe all

meanings and frames
Outframe continued
 ‘Language’ describes how we
code, in various symbol formats,
information.
Information is the difference that
makes a difference.

Gregory Bateson
Creation of Meaning
Giving or attributing meaning to
something [to anything] involves
and associative process.
To identify meaning we have to
find the associations.
Fire means what the frame of
reference tells us it means.
External Behavior --> Internal State
[EB] = [IS]
S/he who controls the frame,
controls the meaning.
The directions of influence.
Directions continued
The Meaning of “Magic”
But, but, that’s manipulation!
Don’t believe everything you
think!

Ron Farkas
Prevention, development &
remediation
Nothing in and of itself means
anything.
It takes a Meaning Maker to
construct an association, set a
frame, link events and marry
concepts.
There is a Taoist story of an old farmer who had worked
his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away.
Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. "Such
bad luck," they said sympathetically. "May be," the
farmer replied. The next morning the horse returned,
bringing with it three other wild horses. "How
wonderful," the neighbors exclaimed. "May be," replied
the old man. The following day, his son tried to ride one of
the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The
neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his
misfortune. "May be," answered the farmer. The day
after, military officials came to the village to draft young
men into the army. Seeing that the son's leg was broken,
they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the
farmer on how well things had turned out. " May be,"
said the farmer.
 This external behavior ‘is’/
‘equals’(leads to or causes) -->
this internal state.
• causation statements: how we
model the way the world works,
functions, relates to itself, etc.
• equations statements: how we
decide and model regarding
meaning, what abstractions
equate with behaviors, our
paradigms of significance
 • value words & ideas: the
ideas, events, experiences, etc.,
that we deem important and
significant
• identifications: what things
equal other things, that we
identify as the same
• presuppositions: unquestioned
assumptions that we simply
operationalize as true
Make a distinction between the
behavior and the intention.
Intervention
 Deframing

#1. Chunking Down

 To elicit this conversational
reframing pattern, use the elicitation
questions that move a person down
the scale of abstraction/specificity.
‘How specifically?’
‘What specifically?’
‘When specifically?’
‘With whom specifically?’
‘At what place specifically?’
 Deframing

#2 Detailing the sequence of the

Strategy
#2 strategy continued
To elicit this reframing pattern, use the
strategy elicitation questions:

‘How do you represent that belief?’

‘How will you know if and when it does
not hold true?’
‘What comes first? What comes next?’
‘How do you have each piece coded?’
‘And you’re absolutely sure you don’t
have that in this other format?’
Deframe Summary
Content Reframing
#3 Reframe the EB
#3 Summary
#4 Reframe the IS
#4 Summary
 #5 Reflexively Apply EB to
Self or Listener
#6 Reflexively Apply IS to Self
or Listener
#5/#6 continued
#7 Counter Examples
Content Reframe Summary
content reframe summary continued 1
Content Reframe Summary continued 2
Counter Framing
Reverse Presuppositions
Reverse Presuppositions continued
#7 Counter Example Framing
#7 Counter Example Framing continued 1
#7 Counter Example Framing continued 2
Temporal Presuppositions
Identity Statements
Identity Statements continued 1
Identity Statements continued 2
Identity Statements continued 3
Questions from Cartesian Logic:

• What will happen if you do? [Theorem]

• What won’t happen if you do? [Inverse]
• What will happen if you don’t? [Converse]
• What won’t happen if you don’t? [Non-
Mirror Image Reverse]
Counter Framing Summary
 The ‘Time’ Frames

Before:
#8 Positive Prior Intention Framing
#9 Positive Prior Causation Framing
After:
#10 First Outcome
#11 Outcomes of Outcomes
#12 Eternity Framing
Before:
#8 Positive Prior Intention
Framing
Before:
#8 Positive Prior Intention Framing
[continued]
If we treat people as they are,
we make them worse. If we
treat people as they ought to be,
we help them become what they
are capable of becoming.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

[1749-1832]
#9 Positive Prior Causation Framing
#9 Positive Prior Causation Framing [Continued]
#10 First Outcome Framing
#11 Outcome of the Outcome
Framing
#12 Eternity Framing
#12 Eternity Framing [continued]
Designing Alternative Futures
The ‘Time Frames’ Summary
Outframing
 #13 Model of the World

‘Who made this map anyway?’

#13 Model of the World [continued]
#14 Criteria and Value Framing
#14 Criteria and Value Framing [continued]
#14 Criteria and Value Framing [continued]
#15 Allness Framing
#15 Allness Framing [continued]
#16 Necessity Framing
#16 Necessity Framing [continued]
#17 Identity Framing
#17 Identity Framing [continued]
#18 All Other Abstractions
Unreality
Self/Other
Tonal Emphasis
#18 All Other Abstractions

Summary
#19 Ecology Framing
#19 Ecology Framing [continued]
Outframing Summary
 A man wanted to know about mind, not in
nature, but in his computer. He asked ‘Do you
compute that you will ever think like a human
being?
The machine then set to work to analyze its
own computation habits. Finally, the machine
printed its answer on a piece of paper, as such
machines do. The man ran to get the answer
and found neatly typed, the words: “That
reminds me of a story”.

Gregory Bateson
Analogous Framing
#20 Storytelling
 #20 Storytelling

Shifting Referential Indices

#21 Both/And Framing
#22 Pseudo-Word Framing
#23 Negation Framing
#24 Possibility and ‘As If’
Framing
#25 Systemic & Probability
Framing
#26 Decision Framing
Conclusions
Formal Dialogue
We are the sum total of what we
think!
Glossary