Reflections on the Mirror Model - Part - Philip Harland.pdf

7/27/2019 Reflections on the Mirror Model - Part - Philip Harland.pdf

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ections on the Mirror Model - Part 2" by Philip Harland http://www.cleanlanguage.co.uk/reflectio

5/26/2006

First published in Rapport, Issue 55, Spring 2002

REFLECTIONS ON THE MIRROR-MODEL

by Philip Harland

Part 2

An example of conversational clean language and inner-directed change

"If you can reflect the client's problem undistorted,

the client is relieved of the responsibility for holding it alone.

The problem shifts and the system will spontaneously re-organize."

Charles Faulkner

Source material

In the previous issue ofRapport(Winter 2001), I summarised the 'Mirror-model' as a self-reflective model of questioning that could be

used to facilitate pretty much anyone anywhere. (See Part 1.) And I drew distinctions between conversational clean language and Clean

Language as a therapeutic modality.

Conversational clean language is for the most part semantic, as you would expect: the information it gleans for the client is sourced in

what is said, and in the main engages the client's ego-state. Grovian Clean Language, on the other hand, is geared to identifying and

developing embodied perceptions, which are sourced not only semantically (in the client's language), but also somatically (in the client's

body), spatially (in the client's metaphor landscape), and temporally (in the client's coding of biographical, ancestral and cosmological

time). David Grove's therapeutic model stems from his clinical work with survivors of abuse, treating negative symptoms as coded

solutions from the unconscious containing positive resources for healing. Hardly a casual procedure. Yet even a casual conversation

which honours the underlying principles of Clean Language can have a far-reaching systemic effect.

Applied to conversational facilitation these principles are:

respect and reflect client's own words

avoid obvious metaphors in your words

no assumptions, judgments or interpretations

no suggestions, reframes or linguistic challenges

follow client information

keep questions clean

I don't propose to elaborate here on the philosophy of clean, as opposed to 'contaminated'or assumptive language, or about the virtues of

inner-directed, rather than facilitator-directed, change. If you want to catch up, or have yet to be convinced, you can find more on the

subject elsewhere.1

This second and last part of the article is a practical guide to using the questions and frames of the Mirror-model. The outcome, if I may

remind you, is not to try and understand the other person, but to facilitate them; it is not to suppose what they mean by what they say, but

to help them know themselves; and it is not to suggest solutions, but to help them generate solutions for themselves - if that is what they

wish to do.Honouring self-expertise.

Take the statement,

'It's all too much, I don't know which way to turn'.

Your colleague or client has said this kind of thing before about their work / lover / drinking / life, and again you're tempted to

commiserate, or to suggest which way they should turn / how to deal with the the other guy / why they should come off the booze / what

they must do to pull themselves together. Has this made any difference in the past? Not much. Today before you attempt to empathize, or

make intelligent suggestions, or offer linguistic challenge, or put them into hypnotic trance, or launch into an NLP process, you take the

opportunity to honour the expertise they have in themselves. You reach for your Mirror-model crib, kept handy in your purse or wallet ...


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3. PAST

* Prompted X?

* What happens/ed just before X?

* Before that?

5. HIGHER

* Importance of X?

* Purpose of X?

* Meaning of X?

* Enables X?

2. CONTEXT

* How do you know X?* Related to X?

1. PRESENT

* What X specifically?

* What kind of X?

* What part/aspect of X?

* Anything else about X?

* When X, what do you want?* When X, what about (other) X?

* Learnings?* Anything else?

4. FUTURE

*When X, what happens?

* Then what happens?

6. METAPHOR

* What symbolises X for you?

Or That's an X like what?

* What kind of [part of metaphor]?

* Anything else about [part of metaphor]?

X = client statement or part of statement from any frame

2001 Philip Harland

What exactly is your client's Present state? What is the wider Context for them of this? What in the immediate or distant Past may have

prompted it? How will it carry over into the Future? Are there Higher considerations that might help them deal with it? Or Metaphorcorrespondences that will allow them a different perspective/standpoint/flavour?

If you take the original statement as a starting point you can question it from any frame and move to any frame. The itinerary is normally

dictated by the logic of the information. In this instance it will take us from Present --> to Context --> to Past --> to Future --> to Higher

--> to Metaphor.

PRESENT

An immediate awareness, or foreground, frame. It's where the client's attention is right now.

Client:It's all too much, I don't know which way to turn.

This client is being very general. We can ask clean specifying and clarifying and questions:

You: What specifically is too much?

Client:I told you - everything.

You: What kind of everything?

Client: Oh, my marriage, and my new boss, and my own stupidity, I suppose.


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The problem areas are defining themselves. They may now be considered one at a time.

You: What kind of marriage is that?

Or

You: What aspect of your new boss?

Or

You:Is there anything else about your own stupidity?

'Is there anything else about[anything the client has said]?'is a generative question that can be asked in any frame, because there always

is. Even if the answer is, 'No, there isn't'. This will mean either that the client knows enough for now - when without your question they

may not have known they knew, so it was still worth asking - or that the question has evoked something the client prefers not to considerthere and then, so the question will have encouraged them to make a choice. Information either way: for them, not you. You have no need

to know.

CONTEXT

A wider present, or background awareness, frame. No present behaviour, thought or feeling takes place in a vacuum. In the diagram the

Context frame surrounds the Present frame, suggesting a state that includes and transcends immediacy. A shift in the client's attention

from partial to fuller awareness may itself be enough to unstick a stuckness.

In fact this client has already answered a 'What kind of?' question in the Present frame with further information, and now knows that their

'all too much'has marriage, work and self contexts.

Another clean Contextual question:

You:How do you know it's all too much?

has the potential for opening things up by inviting the client to check for sensory evidence, which may offer a new kind of information.

Client:How do I know? I have butterflies in the stomach.

You:And what might butterflies in the stomach be related to?

Client:Hm, it reminds me of the feeling I used to get before exams.

You might equally have asked'What kind of 'all too much'[statement #1] could that be when you 'don't know which way to turn'

[statement #2]?' As a facilitator you can speculate about two statements like these until the cows come home, but only the client candecide if they relate in any particular way. A clean 'related to' or 'what kind of X when [other] X?' question enables the client to consider

a connection between any two states or statements however far apart.

You:Is there anything else about that feeling?

Client:No. It wasn't very nice.

Let's go back a moment. The client discovered a clue ['the feeling I used to get before exams'] that you might want to examine in the Past

frame. First, however, you can ask the ultimate Contextual question. I omitted'What do you want?'from the original model. The Grovian

equivalent of this key NLP question is 'What would you like to have happen?', and I suppose I was saving that select starter for the special

occasion, the full five-course therapeutic process. In the meantime all my experience as a psychotherapist, trainer and citizen has

convinced me that the outcome question is indispensable for any kind of facilitation, and may be particularly relevant in those everyday

situations where we are more used to hearing what the boss, or the partner, or the average traffic warden thinks is the purpose of the

conversation, and haven't normally had the privilege of being asked for ourselves.

Although most of us will revert to our own motivation whatever others may want for us, I believe it helps to answer outcome questions

consciously, and if possible out loud. I was a film-maker before I became a psychotherapist, and the best tip I learnt for working withactors came from watching theatre director Mike Alfreds at work. He would always say to his actors: "When you come on stage, when

you enter this scene - whatever the situation, whatever your lines - what does your character want?"

You:And when you have these feelings of all too much and butterflies in the stomach, what do you want?

Client: [Pause] To understand them and be able to deal with them.

Your questions can now be directed to the outcome or to the original state. I don't think it matters much. All your questions will be clean,

and it is the client who makes the real decisions. Their response prompts the next question, so the process is always client

information-led. The important thing is that the client now has a self-defined template - in this case 'understanding'and'being able to

deal with'(though you might like to help them define these more precisely) - against which to measure all new information.

PAST


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As you ask questions that help relate the problem to what may have prompted it, your client will begin to get a sense of sequence. This

can be a powerful means of escape from the confines of a present state. Especially for a client who wants 'to understand'.

You: When you want to understand these feelings of 'all too much' and butterflies in the stomach and you want be able todeal with them, what could have prompted the feeling you used to get before exams?

Client:I guess the idea that I am being tested.

You: And what happens just before the idea of being tested?

Client:Just before? It's the thought that I have to solve someone else's problems.

You: And before that?

Client:My partner or my boss is telling me about their problems.

You:I wonder is there anything else about problems like that you think you have to solve?

Client: Yes. I feel incompetent if I can't.

FUTURE

The client has indicated a consequence ('I feel incompetent') of a present belief('I have to solve something'), and this can be explored in a

Future frame.

You:And when you feel incompetent, what happens?

Client:I get defensive.

You:And when you get defensive then what happens?

Client:Ha, I get angry.

You:And then what happens?

Client:I sulk.

You:And then?

Client:My partner and my boss get pissed off at me.

More links in the chain. The client now has a sequence. Given a sequence, a familiar pattern may be recognized - or a little-known pattern

may be revealed - or past and present, memory and immediacy, may seem less disconnected and become more like changes in the

seasons: temporary transitions in a continuously unfolding.

You:Is there anything else about feeling incompetent?

Client [Pauses]: Well, I don't feel loved. And then it all becomes too much.

In pursuit of a consequence the client has arrived back at a 'cause' ('I don't feel loved'). In the context of their relationship with the boss

this may be new and surprising information. The sequence now goes something like:

all too much --> other people's problems --> have to solve -->

feel tested --> can't solve --> feel incompetent --> get defensive -->

angry --> sulk --> [??] --> don't feel loved --> all too much ...

This may well be a repeating pattern.2

There seem to be many ways of getting into such a pattern, and maybe as many ways of getting

out. What else is there here? A modal operator of necessity ('have to') that could be examined. A possible gap in the sequence (between

'sulk' and 'don't feel loved'?) to be filled.And a likely bind (things all too much don't feel loved things all too much) for

unravelling. Interesting, speculative, and none of it need concern us directly. We are simply facilitators of conversational change here,

and the client will work through these and other matters as they choose.

The client now has information from Present, Context, Past and Future frames. What next? We could reflect and reiterate the recursive

sequence 'I don't feel loved and then it all becomes too much.'by returning to the Past--Present--Future axis until the client really gets to

know it. Or take time out and invite the client into a 'higher' frame.

HIGHER


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Invitations to consider higher purpose or meaning are not always welcomed with open arms, so do check your level of rapport and don't

expect to start off in this frame.

Questions here relate to the 'higher' logical levels of NLP - beliefs & values, identity, spirituality. They can help a client return to the

Present having evolved beyond their original state, or at the very least having a broader view of it. In the diagram the Higher frame

includes both Present and Context, representing a state that both embraces and transcends them.

You: What might be the importance of not feeling loved for you?

Client: The importance? Well, when I don't feel loved I can blame someone else for my feelings.

You:Is any purpose served for you by blaming someone else?

Client: Yes, I can escape responsibility.

You: What could be the meaning for you of escaping responsibility?

Client:I guess it means I don't grow - mentally or spiritually.

You What may enable [helps/supports] you not to grow?

Client: Oh, not taking time to sort out the confusion, thinking there's only one way to turn and that someone else knows what

it is, not me.

You:Is there anything else about all this?

Client: [Pause] Yes, I think I understand more about the feelings now.

These importance/purpose/meaning/enabling questions are clean in that they hold no assumptions, other than perhaps that there is an

importance, a purpose, a meaning and an enabling. They do not appear in the strict Clean Language modalities, Grovian Metaphor and

Symbolic Modelling. For three inter-related reasons, I believe. One, they are at a higher level ofabstraction than other questions, and this

makes it difficult for a therapist to put them directly to the form, location and temporal coding of a client'sembodiedperceptions. Two,

they require cognitive processing, which means the client has to come out of inner-directed trance into everyday narrative. And three,

they contain metaphors that arguably presuppose a therapist world view. 'Importance' has associations with external authority - it derives

from the Latin importare, 'to introduce from abroad' - and in that strict extrinsic sense may not be considered self-generatedly 'Clean'.

A colloquial model, however, can cast its net wider. 'Importance' also has a sense of 'personal significance' nowadays, so it gets my vote

as kind of clean. Not perfect, but serviceable, like my almost-white shorts. And there are notional modifiers for these 'importance' etc

questions. 'What might be ..?','Is there any ...?'and'... for you?'can be employed as mild detergents.

Asking these questions of ostensibly negative states ('not feeling loved', 'escaping responsibility', 'not growing'), by the way, does not

imply that the client should wantto feel loved, or to accept responsibility, or to grow. This may be an awkward concept for a facilitator to

grasp. Of course the client wants to feel loved, to grow, to know which way to turn! Well you could be right, but ask yourself if having

someone else identify with their not feeling loved('That must be awful for you...') is really helpful, especially if it's in a metaphor('awful')

that may be far removed from their own.

If you can embrace this fundamental premise of Clean Language - MAKE NO ASSUMPTIONS! - it could change the way you do

therapy, counselling and facilitation forever.3

I have introduced a 'Learnings' question to this Higher frame. Again, omitted from the original model. Although at the time I was

cottoning on to the importance of monitoring learning in trainings, I wasn't doing it much during therapy. 'What have you learnt?'is a

truly enabling question. The client is unlikely to move on until they know something new, and may not move on until they know they

know. Articulating knowledge brings the unnamed into awareness, and is a way of combining the strengths of both unconscious and

conscious learning.

Timing the question should allow time for significant learning. I've placed it apart from the other questions in the frame as a reminder that

it can be left for a while.

You:Now what have you learnt about all this?

Client: [Thinks] Well, I've learnt that I can deal with the feelings as long as I acknowledge them rather than try and deny

them. And I still want to know which way to turn!

METAPHOR

Not knowing 'which way to turn'is of course a metaphor that has been around from the start of the session. You may also recall the client

having 'butterflies in the stomach'in the Context frame, or their experience of partner and boss getting 'pissed off at me'in the Future


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frame.

You have a choice here. You can mosey along at the momentum of the other frames or move up the gears into full Metaphor process

using Clean Language proper.4

Even without Clean Language training you can utilise client-generated metaphor - which may appear at any time, in any frame - or you

can elicit one specifically:

You: What for you symbolises wanting to know which way to turn?

Or

When you want to know which way to turn that's like what?

Client:It's like I'm at a crossroads.

There are upwards of 30 Clean Language questions, but to explore this metaphor we need only two, and you are familiar with these

already. 'What kind of ...?'and'Is there anything else about ...?'are key clean questions that can unlock a phrase in any frame and open

up a treasure chest of new information for the client. Once you identify and engage client metaphor, you are accessing a container for

very precious, deeply coded information that comes directly from the unconscious.

You:And what kind of crossroads?

Client: Well, the kind where there's a main road that's obvious but goes nowhere and a narrow side road that looks

interesting but may be a long way round.

You:And is there anything else about a side road like that?

Client:It could be more interesting and useful and certain than I first thought.

Concluding

It is my belief that inner-directed change will always be more interesting, useful and certain than change that comes about as a result of

external direction, suggestion or challenge. And will also last longer.

This self-reflective model asks questions which do not presuppose answers, which prompt for self-knowledge and encourage people to

take charge of their own minds. And if that, in James Lawley's words, has "the ripple effect of influencing deeper organizing metaphors

and neuro-chemical processes", so be it. We're doing our job as facilitators of change.

Notes

1 Two websites: www.davidgrove.comand www.cleanlanguage.co.uk. The book: James Lawley and Penny Tompkins,Metaphors in Mind:

Transformation through Symbolic Modelling, The Developing Company Press 2000. Part 1 of this article:Rapport54, Winter 2001.

2More on Patterns in Chapter 7 of Lawley and Tompkins,Metaphors in Mind; and in Philip Harland,Resolving Problem Patterns, Part 1 andPart 2,

Rapport 49 & 50, Autumn & Winter 2000, and www.cleanlanguage.co.uk.

3Remember the therapist working in a prison who was told by an inmate, "I broke the jaw of the last person who told me 'time would heal'."

4The French version of Clean Language isLangage Propre, in which the wordpropre nicely combines the sense of 'uncontaminated' (the language of the

therapist) with the sense of 'one's own' (the language of the client). If you're interested in the therapeutic possibilities of client-generated metaphor and

symbol in any language I strongly recommend you train in the process. See below.

Acknowledgments to David Grove, Penny Tompkins & James Lawley, and the London Clean Language Practise Group.

2001 Philip Harland

Philip Harland is a neuro-linguistic psychotherapist specialising in Clean Language and Therapeutic Metaphor. More

at www.davidgrove.com/therapists . Many of the research papers and articles Philip has published on language,

addictions, patterns, unconscious processing, etc can be seen at www.cleanlanguage.co.uk. He is a consultant to the

mental health charity Mind and to the British Association of Anger Management, and with his partner Carol Thompson

runs a personal + professional development consultancy [email protected], [+44] 020 8341 1179.

They incorporate clean language and metaphor in their Presentation and Interpersonal Skills trainings

Philip Harland teaches Clean Language and Metaphor Therapy to counsellors and consultants at the British

Association of Anger Management, www.angermanage.co.uk,

For other trainings in Clean Language and Symbolic Modelling check the The Developing Company's 'Calendar of Events' at


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www.cleanlanguage.co.uk, [email protected]

Other articles on this site by Philip Harland:

Supermodel: A contextual metaphor for NLP language modelsRapport 41, Autum 98.

The 'Mirror model' - A Guide to Reflective QuestioningRapport 42, Winter 98.

Persist with Clean Language Parts 1, 2 & 3.

Possession and Desire - a 3 part paper about addictions:

Part 1 - 'Violent Pleasures' -Rapport 45, Autumn 99

Part 2 - 'Limit of Desires' -Rapport 46, Winter 99

Part 3 - 'The Physician's Provider' -Rapport 47, Spring 2000Compulsion - a seven session client case study - The Magic Lamp, Issues 7 - 12

Resolving Problem Patterns:

Part 1 -Rapport 49, Autumn 2000

Part 2 -Rapport 50, Winter 2000

A Moment in Metaphor-Rapport 51, Spring 2001

How the Brain Feels:

Part 1 - Arousal -Rapport 56, Summer 2002

Part 2 - Sensation -Rapport 57, Autumn 2002

Part 3 - Construction -Rapport 58, Winter 2002

Rapport is the journal of ANLP (UK)

All information on this web site (unless otherwise stated) is copyright 1997-2003 Penny Tompkins and James Lawley of The Developing Company. All

rights reserved. You may reproduce and disseminate any of our copyrighted information for personal use onlyproviding the original source is clearly

identified. If you wish to use the material for any other reason please contact:

Penny Tompkins and James Lawley

@

The Developing Company

Tel/Fax in UK: 0845 3 31 35 31 * International Tel/Fax: +44 845 3 31 35 31

email: [email protected]

Thank you for your interest in this web site: www.cleanlanguage.co.uk

Return to: Site Index

First published on this site 27 December 2001. Updated 19.2.02 +

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Reflections on the Mirror Model - Part - Philip Harland.pdf