The fundamental presupposition of reframing is that all behavior (strategies) is or was adaptive given the context in which and for which it was established. NLP assumes that all behavior is geared toward adaptation and only becomes maladaptive when it is generalized to contexts in which it is not appropriate, or when it is stopped from adapting to changes in the individual or in the individual's ongoing contexts. Our contention is that every human being makes the best choices available to them at any given moment, based on the contents of their personal history and their ability to generalize or to make discriminations about their sensory experience of their ongoing context. Further, we claim as we pointed out earlier that every individual has available, at any point in time, the resources needed to make the appropriate changes and choices required to adapt to any situation, if these resources can be accessed and ordered in the appropriate sequences. This process is what this book is all about.
6.411 The reframing TOTE
Reframing, considered in all its aspects, becomes a very sophisticated process, and we have decided to devote an entire future volume, Reframing, to this technique alone. For the purposes of this book we have chosen to present the basic steps of reframing as the following 2-part TOTE (see diagram of previous page):
The diagram describes a series of interactions that would pro-cede in the following order:
1. The preexisting or newly designed strategy is tested to find out if it achieves the appropriate outcome. This may be done by creating or recreating the specified contextual conditions for the strategy internally by having the individual recall specific experiences or by future pacing. This may also be accomplished by providing the appropriate conditions in the ongoing external context. The individual should be taken through each step of the strategy so the performance and efficiency of the strategy as a whole may be evaluated.
2A. If the strategy sequence is appropriate and workable the outcome will be achieved smoothly, and the strategy will exit onto some other program of behavior.
2B. If the strategy or outcome is not satisfactory or if it violates the personal ecology of the individual, a representation of incongruence or interference will emerge at some point in the execution of the strategy — either the individual will complete the steps in the strategy without securing the outcome, or the strategy will be interrupted in mid-sequence. What is important for the programmer here is to identify how the interference is represented (i.e., whether it is an internal voice, a feeling or an image). The most direct way to elicit this information is to simply ask, "What stopped you?" When you ask a question such as this, be sure to pay close attention to any following nonverbal responses, especially accessing cues. Often the individual will be unconscious of the actual representation that created the interference, but will show you by responding with the appropriate accessing cue. The programmer should also pay attention to the tonalities the individual employs as he is going through a step involving internal dialogue. Many times, for example, an individual will say to himself the appropriate words (digital portion) for the strategy step but say them in an incongruent tonality.
3. This step begins the "reframing" of the interference. The incongruence or objection is acknowledged and accepted as a valuable resource for supplying feedback needed to improve the functioning of the strategy. The interference is put to work for the programmer and the individual by determining the purpose or intent of the interference. The programmer will first want to test the client's representation of the outcome: Are there any negative 4-tuples anchored by the individual's current representation of the outcome? Sometimes the individual will fear losing the choice of some previous outcome. An example of this might be that of an individual who desires to have the ability to be more assertive in social situations, but has experienced a part of himself being "put off" at times by assertive people, and is afraid that by becoming assertive, he might lose the ability to be "nice." The outcome looks good but doesn't feel right. These kind of objections may be easily discovered by eliciting the outcome sequitur.
Another thing to test for is whether the outcome is directly contradictory to a meta-outcome, or another outcome of priority from another strategy or part of the individual, causing an internal conflict. In other cases the outcome may lead to experiences the individual is not yet ready for.
Each of the phenomena described thus far applies to groups and organizations as well as to individuals. In the case of larger order systems, the representations, strategies and parts of the system are characterized by the people, departments, subsystems, etc., that make up the operating units of the total system in question. The interference or objections will be represented in the behavior of individuals or other subdivisions rather than through representational systems. The kinds of conflicts over outcomes listed previously will be found within an organization in the same way they can be found within an individual.
4. If the outcome is unsatisfactory to some part of the individual or organization, the programmer should help the individual/organization operate to modify the outcome, or, rather, the representation of the outcome, so that the intent of the interference is satisfied. Depending on the nature of the outcome and of the objection, the programmer may choose one of five possible operations:
(1) Meta-model the client's representation of the outcome to make the representational details of the experience more explicit. Meta-modeling ambiguous outcomes, such as "assertiveness," mentioned in the example given previously, will make them more specific and attainable in terms of the client's sensory experience and will decrease the possibility of multiple responses to ambiguous stimuli. In some cases this will clearly separate the client's new desired outcome from other experiences in the client's personal history (negative or frustrating instances, for example). In other cases it will make the association between the client's desired outcome, and other more resourceful experiences in the client's personal history, more apparent.
(2) Simply ask the individual if he can modify his representation of the outcome in such a way that the intent of the interference will be incorporated. For example, you may ask, "What would it (the outcome) be like if you could be assertive and still be nice?"
(3) Integrate any negative 4-tuples that were accessed as interference by collapsing them together with the positive 4-tuples accessed by the outcome.
(4) Provide a framework in which all parts or aspects of the system (interference included) are working toward the same goal by generalizing the outcome and/or the intent of the outcome to a meta-outcome, until it is general enough that all parts can agree on it. This would involve generalized outcomes such as "survival," "protection," "growth," "making sure all parts get their needs met," etc. This provides a context such that objections and interference no longer function destructively or as "sabotage," but, since all parts are working toward the same outcome, they will be constructive contributions.