This is a typical pattern that Carl Whitaker uses. Let me give you an example. Carl is working with a family and the father says «Nobody in this family has ever supported me by taking care of me. I always have to do it all myself. No one is ever solicitous or takes care of me, and it's been like this my whole life.» His supporting nonverbal behavior is «Isn't it terrible that I should have to live through this!» Whitaker watches and listens very attentively. When the man finishes, Whitaker pauses meaningfully while the man is waiting for some supporting remark like «Oh, that's really too bad. Maybe we can make changes in the family.» Then Carl looks over at him and says «Thank God!»
The outcome of that maneuver is 1) pattern interruption, because Carl's response is so unexpected, 2) the father will go inside and search for some way of figuring out how he could possibly be glad about that behavior, and 3) it honors the part of the father that has organized his behavior in such a way that nobody ever supports him in an overt way by taking care of him.
If you think about the message that is being offered, it's actually a conscious–mind complaint about his own behavior. He has behaved in such a way that no one has ever formed a relationship in which they take care of him. The response that Carl offers is a validation of the part that put him in that position of not having people take care of him. He is essentially saying «I'm sure glad that this part of you established those kinds of relationships with your family members and caused those behaviors to occur.»
That is a meaning reframe. It's fast and it can be very effective. Carl is presupposing that there really is something good about that behavior, and that the father will be able to come to a recognition, at least unconsciously, of the point of Carl's comment «Thank God!»
However, that is making an assumption which, strictly speaking, isn't warranted. It's possible—though not very likely—that there isn't anything good about that behavior. I trust Carl as a communicator, having had the opportunity to watch and listen to him. If he were to make that intervention, and the father's response was incongruent with the outcome Carl was working towards, I trust him to have enough sensory experience and flexibility to go on to try something more appropriate. Carl has finesse, so he wouldn't go back and talk about it, he would simply go on to another reframe or some other intervention that would help the person make the change.
The thing I don't trust is formulas. For instance, there is a formula in gestalt therapy that guilt is really resentment, and beneath that is anger, and below that is a demand. That could be a useful formula for some people. If you want to use a formula, of course it's another choice that you ought to have available to you. If you engage in content reframing, then you need to take the responsibility of being very sensitive perceptually to any incongruencies in response to your intervention, to know whether your reframes work. If they don't, you are imposing content on that person and probably doing him a disservice. If you know via feedback that a reframe has worked, that indicates that you made a guess which resonates and is congruent with an unconscious set of patterns in that person.
One way of thinking about content reframing is that it can be used as a temporary measure to loosen a person's perceptual frame. The client is fixed on the fact that some particular thing is the issue. She has riveted her conscious attention on the fact that X is the case, and you point out that it is «really» Y, or also Z. When you have succeeded in shaking up her perceptual frame, it will be much easier to go on to do other things.
For instance, there's a man in California who does a single content reframe that works with anorexics. He has an 80% cure rate with anorexia, which is a tough problem for most therapists. He brings the whole family into a room with a one–way mirror. There's a table in the room with a big pot of hot dogs on it. He walks in and says «I'm Dr. So–and–So; you have fifteen minutes to get this young woman to eat. I'll be back.» Then he walks out.
The family does all kinds of things to try to get the anorexic to eat. Some of them physically pin the girl down and start stuffing food in her mouth. They do their usual inadequate best to try to get her to eat. At the end of fifteen minutes he walks back in and says to the family «You failed miserably. Get out!» He throws everyone out but the anorexic. Then he turns to the anorexic and says «Now, how long have you been using this as a way of getting your family's attention?»
That's a gross imposition of content on the anorexic, but it works. Four out of five times the anorexia cycle is now broken and the anorexic can move into more healthy states. I don't argue with success like that.
Woman: I do something similar when I want to change the way the family members view the «problem» child. In a family session I'll say to the child «Don't stop getting into trouble. You're doing something really important with this behavior. Until you get the attention of these fools, or until you find a better way to get their attention, you keep on doing what you're doing.»
Excellent. There are actually two reframes in that intervention: 1) describing the problem behavior as a useful way to get attention, and 2) characterizing the symptomatic problem behavior as being under conscious control. That can be very useful. Any time you relabel another person's behavior like that, you are imposing your own beliefs and your own values. You are hallucinating freely and projecting your hallucination. There's nothing wrong with that, as long as you know what you are doing and realize the consequences of doing it.
Let me give you another example from Virginia Satir's work. She's working with a couple and the husband is yelling at the wife «You stupid bitch, blah, blah, blah.» When he pauses, Virginia says to him «I want to tell you, Jim, that I know that you are angry. You look angry and you sound angry, and I just want to tell you that one of the most important things for any individual in a family is that he feels the feelings he has, and that he can express them. I hope everyone in this family has the ability to express anger as congruently as Jim has.»
That's pacing: she builds a frame that says «That's good! That's really wonderful.» The husband isn't yelling anymore; he's listening to this appreciative message about his yelling and screaming—which is the last thing he expected!
Then Virginia moves in and gets really close to the husband. She places her hand gently on his stomach, and says in a soft, low tone of voice «And I'm wondering if you would be willing to tell me about those feelings of aloneness, hurt, and isolation underneath that anger?»
Whether or not there were any feelings of isolation, aloneness and hurt before she said that, there are now/The father isn't yelling, and he isn't even angry. Now Virginia can go on to build more useful patterns of interaction in the family.
Some people who have been exposed to Satir's powerful work simply copy the content of something she said that worked. You will never succeed in being an effective communicator if you base your responses solely on the content, because content will vary infinitely. Every one of us represents another unique human possibility in terms of content. However, we all seem to use the same kinds of processes or strategies to create our experience. So you do yourself a favor as a professional communicator if you focus on, get in touch with, and listen carefully to the kinds of messages that are offered which identify process as opposed to content. This is one of the advantages of using the six–step reframing model. It's more complex, but it safeguards the integrity of the client because it is a pure process model that stays out of content… .