In the neurolinguistic programming model such experiences as objections, incongruence, and resistance are utilized as valuable tests for the effectiveness of the installation of a strategy. Rather than rejecting interference phenomena as "sabotage," we use them to check on the strategy in operation (whether it is preexisting or newly designed and installed). Interference to the operation of a strategy generally occurs (I) when some other resource (in the form of a representation or a sequence change) is still required for the successful securing of the outcome, or (2) when the strategy is not effective for all contexts in question.
Objections do not mean the programmer has failed in designing a good strategy, but are rather accepted as natural feedback, and utilized to modify the strategy in order to make it more effective. Interference is the result of naturally occurring tests for personal ecology.
If you have elicited or designed and installed a strategy and the strategy does not secure the intended outcome when you attempt to utilize it there are a number of things to check: (Each of these checks should be made, of course, after you have tested to make sure you have not broken rapport.)
1) Calibration of the strategy: Are each of the representational systems involved and are their corresponding accessing cues clearly delineated and at the appropriate order of magnitude?— That is, make sure none of the representations are too weak to work properly. Make sure the designated representational system for each step in the sequence has the highest signal value for the ongoing 4-tuple at that point in time. If, when you anchor, the individual has an internal dialogue that says "This won't work," firing anchor will retrigger this internal dialogue. It is important to maintain the representational integrity of each strategy step (this is the "chain-is-no-stronger-than-its-weakest-link" aspect of strategies). If the representational systems in question are lacking in amplitude, work on fine tuning the strategy steps by having the individual exaggerate or practice the appropriate accessing cues and by consciously focusing on the designated representational systems.
2) Make sure the transitions between the steps in the strategy are smooth enough that they do not interrupt the flow of the sequence. If the individual does have difficulty with some of the transitions, have them rehearse the synesthesia patterns until they become more adept.
3) Congruency Check:
a) Clearing personal history: Make sure the individual is congruent about achieving the desired outcome. Compare the specific outcome against the meta outcomes of the individual, or organization, to make sure that it is compatible and ecological. Many times an individual will, at earlier times in his personal history, develop negative anchors for some outcome that later on he desires to attain. Other times, reaching a particular outcome will lead to the possibility of accessing other experiences and outcomes that the individual is not yet prepared to accept or face. In this case the programmer will need to either (1) modify the outcome so that it does not present any threats to the personal ecology of the individual, (2) integrate the negative 4-tuple from the past with the one that desires the outcome in the present context (by anchoring them sequentially and then collapsing the anchors) so that it no longer presents any interference, or (3) access and add in other resources from the individual's personal history that will allow him to handle or avoid any problematic residual effects of the outcome. (See Patterns II and The Structure of Magic II for more material on congruency.)
b) Make sure none of the steps anchor multiple responses. Are all of the steps specific enough that they do not generalize and anchor more than one strategy that is vying for prime control? If this occurs, check the context markers (or design and install one) at the decision point, the operate-or-exit point of the strategy (see design).
4) Make sure all steps are in the appropriate order and that no representational system important for the task has been left out. a) If the strategy has been designed, check it against the well-formedness conditions, and/or access additional resources from the client's personal history, b) If the strategy was elicited, go back over the elicitation procedure to make sure no steps have been mistakenly left out or added in.
6.41 Reframing
Reframing is one of the most fundamental technique/concepts of NLP and is the most effective tool for dealing with interference. The process of reframing changes how some representation, or, indeed, any part of a system, fits into that system as it functions in varying contexts. In doing so it transforms what previously have seemed to be blocks to the operation of the system into resources. The essential goal of reframing is to create a framework in which all parts of the system become aligned toward achieving the same meta-outcomes (ie., the survival, protection, growth, etc., of the system) by accepting and acknowledging all aspects of the system (positive or negative) as valuable resources to the system, given the appropriate context.
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.