Therapist: Mary, as I heard Fred ask for you to be more loving, I saw you flinch, and I'm wondering what you saw, heard, and felt as he said this.
Mary: Oh, he was just criticizing me again. I never am sensual enough for him.
Therapist: I heard him ask for something for himself. I wonder if you could say what made you feel as though he were criticizing you. Was it his tone of voice or the way he looked? Did you not believe what he was asking?
Mary: It was like he was yelling at me for making a mistake. Hummmm ... I guess I don't believe he was asking but that he was telling me.
Therapist: Would you like to check that out? I have a guess at this point in time that Fred has some trouble asking directly for things for himself, that maybe he believes he won't get it anyway, so he asks in a very clumsy way. I think that maybe you don't know how to understand any better than he knows how to ask. I think that there is something here for both of you to learn, if you would be willing. I would like to check it out with him and try to find some way through this block.
From this point, the therapist can teach Mary that both sets of messages she receives are valid, and that she has been responding only to one of them — to a gesture and tone which she doesn't understand. By asking, she can get helpful feedback; by continuing with the calibrated communication, she will only feel bad. At the same time, this teaches Fred that his message was clumsy, and that Mary's response was to his non-verbal message. Furthermore, his understanding of her response was a misinterpretation of her non-verbal message.
Breaking Calibrated Communication Loops at the Transition Point of Generalization
The therapist may also choose to break the calibration at the transition point of generalization. When Mary heard Fred's incongruent communication, she made a decision to pay attention only to the non-verbal part of that communication. Just as Fred didn't understand that his output did not match his intent, so, too, Mary did not understand that her response did not match Fred's intent. His gestures and his tone of voice were not congruent for Mary with asking — they were congruent with her experience of demanding. She had the feeling that he was criticizing her, telling her that she felt a certain way, the way she feels when she is being criticized, and was demanding something, so she generalized.
Let's examine the process of generalization more closely.
1) Fred is incongruent in his communication, presenting Mary with sets of messages which do not match. Specifically, he consciously intends to ask her for more loving, and his words match his conscious intent; he also feels helpless, and this feeling (largely outside of awareness) is reflected in his tonality, body posture and gestures. . ..
2) Mary must now respond. She sees Fred's body posture and gestures and hears his tone of voice, and she responds to that set of messages rather than to his words.
3) In her past experience with Fred (and others), the tonality she presently hears and the body posture and gestures are associated with demands he has made on her.
4) Mary's decision in step (2) above, plus her past experience with the part of Fred's incongruent communication to which she is attending and responding, lead her to the generalization that Fred is demanding something from her.
5) In the past, these demands, for Mary, have been connected with feelings of helplessness and anger at the unfairness of being imposed upon. Her response to Fred, then, is based more on these past feelings of anger and helplessness than on the present time-place situation.
The therapist needs to be aware that surface communication often contains deeper messages which, if uncovered, can help to establish feedback. This process of generalization constitutes another transition point at which calibration can be broken. For example:
Therapist: Mary, as Fred just asked you a question, I was wondering what this was like for you. How did you feel as Fred just asked for you to be loving?
Mary: Well, I felt like he was scolding me, telling me what I should do.
Therapist: Could you say what made you feel that way?
Mary: Well, he looked disgusted and he sounded angry.
Therapist: How did you feel as he did this?
Mary: I guess I felt defensive, pushed.
Therapist: Mary, when you see Fred looking disgusted and sounding mad, as you described he just did, does that mean he is criticizing you and pushing you?
Mary: Of course; he does that kind of thing a lot.
Therapist: Oh, so that's it. Mary, have you ever had the experience of being disgusted with yourself, or mad at yourself, and so when you spoke to someone else, it didn't come off quite the way you meant?
Mary: Well, yes; but this is different — he does this a lot.
Therapist: You're so very sure? Is it possible that this big, strong guy over here maybe doesn't feel that strong on the inside, so, when he talks to you about something which is important to him, it doesn't come out quite right? Is that a possibility?
Mary: Well, I guess so.
Therapist: Would you like to find out? I have a hunch that when Fred feels low and looks and sounds like he just did, you take one look at him and go, "Oh, my God; what have I done now?"
Breaking calibrated communication at the transition point of generalization requires that the therapist have access to some experience which the family member has had which contradicts the generalization. Or the therapist can simply create one by checking out the generalization with the other family members. Generalization can also be broken linguistically by exaggeration. For example, the therapist could say:
Therapist: Mary, if you believe this, both you and Fred are in a real bind. Do you mean that Fred has to wear a perpetual smile and always sound happy or you're being criticized and demands put upon you? That sounds like a terrible burden for both of you. Is that what you're telling me?
Breaking Calibrated Communication Loops at the Transition Point of Fixed Generalizations from the Past (Complex Equivalence)
Fixed generalizations from the past is the next transition point in calibration loops and is also another juncture at which the therapist can intervene. Mary can be helped to build a program which, for the most part, will be outside of awareness, and which has the following steps:
When Mary thinks that someone is angry at her, she feels bad in a certain way. At some other point in time, when Fred is communicating with her, but he is not angry at her, if she feels bad in that same way, then she has a fixed generalization which says, "If I feel bad in this specific way, then Fred must be angry at me."
Mary has come to experience her world in a certain way, and she has learned to move in that world by paying attention exclusively to certain clues from outside of herself, while, at the same time, ignoring all of the other messages she is receiving. This limits what is possible for her to experience. By making it possible for Mary to accept and act on the other, presently unnoticed, clues, the therapist helps her to break the fixed generalization that has held her in bondage. In other words, when Fred is angry and demanding, he presents a whole set of messages. When he communicates incongruently, he presents a small part of the messages which he uses when he is angry. Mary is calibrated by fixed generalization to interpret any of the analogue communications which occur when Fred is angry to mean that he is angry. So, by her calibration, she responds to only a part of Fred's total message. One choice the therapist has here is to make the Complex Equivalence explicit — to label it — and then to demonstrate that it is not necessary and, in fact, distorts the communication process.