e) Rehearse or reanchor more completely the old steps in the strategy.
The final and most important part of the reframing, is to use the interference itself as an important part of the modified strategy. This is done by having the interfering representation serve as a context marker to assure that the client knows when, where and how to apply the modified strategy. That is, the interference is itself turned into a decision point within the strategy, so that it actually becomes an important step in the strategy rather than being interference to the strategy.
6.412 Reframing TOTE
The following transcript is an example of how this TOTE may be applied step-by-step to an actual installation process. In the transcript, a woman has come to one of the authors to work on a weight problem. The woman, in her mid-thirties at the time, was approximately 30-40 pounds overweight. She had tried a number of weight loss plans without success.
AUTHOR: Do you find that you overeat regularly? ... Or does it happen in spurts?
(The author begins by gathering information about the client's present state — testing to find out if it is a generalized response or one that is contextually based.)
CLIENT: Oh, its pretty consistent. I'll finish dinner and know that I've had enough . . . but then I'll see something left over (eyes move up and left, then shift down and right) ... or see some dessert (eyes move up and left) that looks so good .. . (eyes down and right) and the next thing I know I'll be eating it.
(C identifies the response as a general one, and initially indicates that her motivation strategy for over-eating is a rapid synesthesia pattern that cycles from the sight of food directly to the act of eating it: Ve→Ke.)
A: How do you "know" that you've had enough to eat?
(A gathers information about C's test for when she has eaten enough.)
C: (Eyes move down and left) I tell myself that I've eaten plenty ... I shouldn't be eating any more ... I keep a close watch over what I eat, you know . . . But it just doesn't seem to make any difference.
(C indicates an internal auditory cue that derives from external visual sources. Ve→Aid. Notice that C's strategy for "knowing" when she's had enough does not include a kinesthetic component at all (a component that plays a major role in her motivation strategy to eat).)
A: Have you ever tried to stop yourself from overeating?
(A gathers more information about C's present strategies.)
C: Oh sure ... I keep telling myself that I shouldn't be eating any more (eyes down and left) ... But it doesn't seem to do any good . . . (eyes down and right) the impulse is too strong by then.
(C's motivation strategy for not eating appears to consist primarily of internal dialogue. (The other two representational systems are involved in her motivation strategy to eat— since there is no overlap between the strategies, it is no wonder that they may both be in operation at the same time without interfering with one another). Because C's eating strategy is wired directly to her actions (Ke) and her auditory motivation is evidently not, her motivation to eat will always pre-empt her motivation not to. Also, C's motivation strategy not to eat is not triggered until after she has already begun the behavior—this essentially means that she actually has to access her motivation strategy for eating and begin the process of eating before she can even access her motivation strategy for not eating!)
A: Has there ever been a time when you were able to control your eating?
(A begins to elicit resources.)
C: Oh yes . . . (eyes up & left) in fact when I was in high school and college I used to compete in beauty contests ... I used to have quite a figure . . .
(C accesses an appropriate reference structure.)
A: How were you able to control your weight then?
(A attempts to elicit the former effective strategy, to be utilized as a resource in the present context.)
C: Well... it wasn't me controlling it mostly .. . my mother was a very controlling sort of woman ... (eyes move down left and then shift over to the right) . . . She pretty much was in control of what I ate and how much . . . (eyes shift back and forth between down left and down right) . . . She told me what to do and when . . . (eyes flick up and left) I didn't have very much confidence in myself. . .
(C relates that her primary motivation for keeping her weight down had come from external sources — specifically, her mother (who, judging by C's accessing cues, was probably the source of C's current internal dialogue about eating).)
A: You didn't have to rely much on your own resources?
C: No ... I didn't have much choice in what was going on with my life (eyes back and forth between down left and down right) ... it really wasn't a very happy time in my life . . .
In response to the results of his inquiries, the author decides to abandon his search for applicable resources from C's personal history (since her relevant reference structures all appear to be associated with negative 4-tuples) and decides to opt for artificial design. Given the information he has gathered, it is evident that some specific conditions the strategy will have to meet will be (1) that C's motivation strategy for controlling her weight will need to include all representational systems, and (2) that the weight control strategy will have to be initiated before C has hooked into her motivation strategy for overeating. (3) C's test for knowing when she's had enough to eat operates only from external feedback (Ve) and does not involve any internal check (this, as we mentioned above, is probably a result of the programming done by C's mother). The result is that the test, though probably accurate, initiates no internal intervention (it is missing the operate phase). The author, then, must be sure to design such an operation into the strategy. (4) C has no representation of the desired state in the strategy, and, thus no means for obtaining feedback.
C's problem strategy was basically a polarity loop that cycled between the impulse to eat and an internal dialogue telling her not to:
The new strategy designed by the author, separated into sections to aid the reader in following its structure, was sequenced as follows:
(1) C begins, of course, with the act of eating.
(2) This will trigger her naturally occurring strategy to assess, by watching what she eats, when she's had enough. It is at this point that the author chose to install the new strategy sequence, as it is just before the problem loop starts. In addition to the feedback that she has eaten enough, (an internal step is established later in the strategy) the author added another verbalization to the internal dialogue that went, "I've had plenty to eat and if I stop eating now I'll be able to get skinnier." (This verbalization was rehearsed a number of times in conjunction with C's existing response.)
(3) This verbalization was to anchor a step in which C made a constructed image of herself the way she would like to look (Vc). This image was, in turn, to access the experience of how good it would feel to have accomplished the outcome that she had desired so long (Ki).
(4) As soon as she was able to get this feeling she was to immediately get up from the table (Ke) and go look at herself in a mirror. (She was given special instruction, if she did not have one already, to get a full length mirror and hang it in the kitchen, if possible, or in a room close by.) This step had an added advantage in that it forced an interruption of her external visual contact with food. After she looked at herself closely, she was to close her eyes, take a deep breath and check out her feelings, and test if she had had enough to eat. This was to verify (or contradict) the earlier communication from her internal dialogue. This step was sequenced after she had interrupted her external visual contact with the food on the table to make sure that the feelings were uninfluenced by her Ve →Ki synesthesia pattern.