Frank: «How do you know?»
Man: «Well, you know, I just feel that — "
Frank: «Ah! The intensity of your feelings is not the test of reality!»
Now that's a reframe of sorts. If you think of reframing as only being useful for taking something unpleasant and making it nice, then you should probably find a new profession. Many people need to have a more accurate view of themselves and the world, and that's not always nice.
The man Frank Farrelly worked with assumed that his wife didn't have «interactions» with other men, and that she didn't know that he was seeing other women. He also assumed something even more dramatic: that she was not important to him. He is the one who will come to therapy when his wife drops him like a hot potato. Suddenly no other woman in the world will do. I call people like him «pinies.» They come in pining away for their lost loves. And if they had had more sensory experience to begin with, they might never have lost them.
Let's say I'm a therapist from the Midwest, and I became a therapist without knowing exactly how I got to be one. I was going through school, and chemistry was too hard; I didn't really like mathematics, and I found history boring. All my friends were going to be teachers, but I didn't want to do that, because I wanted a new crowd. I felt inadequate, and when I got into therapy, I saw that people always compliment each other in groups, and I thought that was really groovy. So I became a therapist and got a license, but I still have strong feelings of inadequacy, and this causes me trouble. If I generalize my own problems to the rest of the world, there are going to be a lot of people I can't help, because some people do not have problems with feeling inadequate. In fact, if some of them felt inadequate, they'd be a lot better off.
There are many people in the world who do not know how to use sensory experience to test and find out what they do and don't do well. What they really need is a good strong dose of self–doubt. When they get too sure of themselves, they often do something that results in their getting hurt. However, they don't use that as the basis for becoming less sure of themselves in a way that's useful. They go through cycles almost like a manic–depressive: competence, competence, COMPETENCE, failure! I often meet people like that. One of the things that you can do to help them is to stick your foot out and trip them just as they are feeling really competent—before they fall too hard. Then you can begin to assist them in building the kinds of sensory feedback that will give them valid information about themselves.
So don't think of reframing as being appropriate only in a context where you take something negative and make it positive. Sometimes a good stiff dose of fear or incompetence or uncertainty or suspicion can be very useful.
Woman: You sound like the devil.
You're not the first one who has said that, I'll tell you! There was a cute little social worker who came up to me in a workshop I did in the Midwest—
Woman: A man or a woman?
Does it matter? Are you a sexist? How's that for reversing a presupposition! The comment this person made to me as it came up and coyly looked at me was «Are you telling me that it's OK to be tricky?» I said «Yes, that's what I'm telling you.» And it said «Oh, I was so good at that when I was young, and I haven't been able to do it for years. Will it be manipulative?» And I said «Yes.» Now, I think that's an example of where reframing is really needed.
Virginia Satir does «parts parties," which are reframes done through psychodrama. Everyone gets to be one of somebody else's parts. If you don't like the person, it's a great time to get revenge. For some reason I was always a bad part. I never got to be Little Bo Peep or any part like that. I always had to be Machiavelli. And I was always the last one to get reframed! In one of these parts parties, I got to be somebody's ability to be manipulative. I don't know why; type–casting, I guess. Suddenly in the course of the parts party, this person stopped and said «I like that part! I never really thought about it, but my ability to be manipulative has gotten me a lot of good things.» And if you think about it, it's really true.
However, a content reframe has been done in the field of humanistic psychology: «manipulating is bad.» If you look in the dictionary, the first definition of manipulation is «To work or operate with the hand or hands; to handle or use, especially with skill; to manage or control artfully.» That doesn't have anything to do with good or bad. It has to do with being able to do something effectively.
If your frame is that «Anyone who manipulates is bad» it limits you from doing many things. If you believe, as Sidney Jourard said, that «Anyone who is good is transparent» that means you have to go out of your way to say unpleasant things to people. If you go to Humanistic Psychology conferences, people come up to you and say «Hi, you look awful today.» «I don't really feel good, but I'm going to tell you that I do anyway.» When you are caught inside of any frame like that, it limits your choice. Whether the frame is a «good» one or a «bad» one doesn't really matter.
As a communicator you want to have the ability to shift the frames that people put around anything. If a person believes that something is bad, the question is «When, where, how, and for whom?» Reframing is a different way of doing the same things you do with all the Meta–Model questions. Rather than asking the question «for whom?» you just change it. If somebody says «Stupidity is inherently bad; it is bad to be stupid» you say «Some people use stupidity as a way to learn a tremendous amount. Some people use stupidity as a way to get people to do things for them. That's pretty smart.»
Typically people think that success is good and confusion is bad. In our workshops we're always telling you that success is the most dangerous human experience, because it keeps you from noticing other things and learning other ways of doing things. That also means that any time you fail, there's an unprecedented opportunity for you to learn something that you wouldn't otherwise notice. Confusion is the doorway to reorganizing your perceptions and learning something new. If you were never confused, that would mean that everything that happened to you fit your expectations, your model of the world, perfectly. Life would simply be one boring, repetitive experience after another. Confusion is a signal that something doesn't fit, and that you have a chance to learn something new.
The phrase «unprecedented opportunity» is a reframe in itself, because it directs you to search for the opportunities that always exist, even in the worst disaster.
Another reframe we're always making is «The meaning of your communication is the response that you get.» Most people don't think that way at all. They believe that they know what the meaning of their communication is, and that if somebody else doesn't realize it, it's the other person's fault. If you really believe that the meaning of your communication is the response that you get, there is no way that you can blame others. You simply keep communicating until you get the response that you want. A world without blame is a very altered state for most people!
Ben: People's beliefs, or presuppositions, often give them a lot of trouble. My question is how do you pull out a pin on someone's belief system, and will you give me an illustration of it?
Why would you want to? Let me ask you that, first… . How do you know someone will be better off without a particular belief? You're asking for a model without having an outcome… .
I only pull the pins out of someone's reality when I believe that it will take somebody somewhere useful. I don't agree that doing that with everyone in this seminar is going to be useful. There are people here whose pins I am not going to touch. That's a decision which I make, based on my sensory experience. The only basis on which I can make that decision is knowing what the ramifications of pulling that pin are going to be. Let's say we have somebody in here who bases eighty percent of her experience on certain religious beliefs. What happens if I pull the pin about good and evil? I have no way of knowing what I will end up with! And if I don't know what I am going to end up with, I don't pull pins!