"Developing your skill in detecting the client's most highly valued representational system will give you access to an extremely powerful utilization tool for effective hypnotic communication. There are two principal ways which we have found effective in teaching people in our training seminars to refine their ability to detect representational systems:
(1) attending to accessing cues which may be detected visually. Specifically (for the right–handed person):
accessing cue – representational system indicated
eyes up and to the left … - eidetic imagery (V)
eyes up and to the right … - constructed imagery (V)
eyes defocused in position … - imagery (V)
eyes down and to the left … - internal dialogue (A)
telephone positions … - internal dialogue (A)
eyes left or right, same level of gaze … - internal auditory (A)
eyes down and to the right … - body sensations (K)
hand[s] touching on midline … - body sensations (K)
(2) attending to the choice of predicates selected (typically, unconsciously) by the client to describe his experience (see Patterns, volume I, pages 68–76, 82–86 and The Structure of Magic, volume II, part I). When describing experiences, each of us selects words to describe the portions of experience we attend most closely to. Thus, as communicators, when we train ourselves to detect which representational system is presupposed by the words selected by our clients to describe their experience, we have information which we can utilize effectively in our communication with them.
"These are, of course, only two way of learning to detect representational systems — there are many others. We have found, for example, that breathing patterns are an excellent indicator of which representational system a person is using at a point in time to organize and represent their experience to themselves. During visualization, for example, the person's breathing tends to become shallow and high in the chest. Other equally useful indicators in our experience are the shifts in the tonal qualities of the person's voice, the tempo of speech, the color of the person's skin … We have presented two specific ways of detecting representational systems in sufficient detail to allow the reader to train him or herself to detect the representational system being used by a client at a point in time. Once you have comfortably mastered these two techniques — refined your ability to make these sensory distinctions — we suggest that you explore for yourselves other indicators which allow you to gain the same information. Such exercises in making sensory distinctions will not only increase your ability to be effective and graceful in your hypnotic communication but will increase and refine your ability to have the sensory experience which is, in our experience, the very foundation of effective communication and hypnosis."
Figure 1 depicts the eye movement index described in this excerpt in more detail, adding the tonal/digital and remembered/ constructed distinctions and the eye positions which access them.
3.232 Gestural Accessing Cues.
We also presented, in this excerpt, another form of accessing cue/indicators involving gestural complexes — "telephone positions" for internal dialogue, and hands touching the midline of the body for kinesthetic sensations. Telephone positions are those in which the person leans his head on his hand or fist so that his head tilts to one side (typically to the left) as if he were talking on a telephone. Stroking your chin with one of your hands or touching the area around your mouth nose and jaw is another common indicator and accessor of internal dialogue.
People will often (consciously or unconsciously) point to or touch with their hands the sense organs for the particular channel of representation that they are using as a means to access or indicate that channel. Someone might say, "I really began to realize the importance of what was going on," and be pointing to his or her ear — indicating auditory. More obvious is the person who says something like, "I give myself a lot of static about that," as they make circling motions around one of their ears with a finger.
Another example would be the person who says, "I noticed your disappointment," as she points toward her eyes, or the individual who says, "Now let me see," and begins to rub his eyes and the bridge of his nose.
Similarly, you may notice that when a person says, "That movie was really intense," she may place her hands over her chest and heart area, or when someone says "That was really delightful" he may rub or fold his hands over his stomach.
These gestures will, of course, also occur without the accompanying verbalizations.
3.233 Breathing Changes.
Breathing is one of the most profound and direct ways we have of changing or tuning our chemical and biological state to affect our neurology. Breathing at different rates, and filling or expanding different areas in our lung cavity will involve most of our body —accessing different muscle groups and changing the chemical composition of our blood (which provides the medium in which our brain operates). We have found that breathing changes constitute a powerful indicator and accessing mechanism for sensory specific states.
a) Breathing high and shallow in the chest (or the momentary cessation of breathing) accompanies and accesses visual attention.
b) Deep, full breathing low in the stomach area indicates kinesthetic accessing.
c) Even breathing in the diaphragm or with the whole chest, often accompanied by a somewhat prolonged exhale (as if speaking without moving one's mouth to make the words), will accompany internal dialogue.
These breathing patterns access attention within representational systems either externally or internally.
3.234 Posture and Muscle Tonus Changes.
Concurrently with these different types of breathing and to help tune in a particular representational system, we adjust the musculature and skeletal position of our bodies as well.[22] We have noticed the following correlations between postural variations and representational system accessing:
a) Muscle tension in the shoulders, neck and often the abdomen; shoulders hunched and neck extended characterize the body accessing posture for visual attentiveness.
b) (1) General muscle relaxation, with the head sitting solidly on the shoulders, which tend to droop, is characteristic of most internal kinesthetic accessing, unless the feelings are fairly intense; the accessing will then be accompanied/initiated by exaggerated abdominal breathing and expressive or even violent gestures. (2) External (tactile and motor) kinesthetic accessing will share the breathing and head position of internal kinesthetic cuing, but the body will be more in motion and the shoulders will be held more broadly (as is common to athletes).
22
Accessing cues carried out over long periods of time, particularly those involving breathing, posture and muscle tonus, will begin to shape an individual's body. Those who have specialized themselves with respect to representational systems— people who have come to value one representational system over the others for most of their behavior — will remain in particular accessing postures and maintain certain breathing rates and levels of muscle tension. This contributes to the relative atrophy or hypertrophy of certain muscle groups and affects the body's metabolism. We have noticed that certain body types tend to reflect the primary representation system of the individual. These body types seem to be the result of an interaction between the extended use of postural and other anatomical accessing processes and the genetic makeup of the individual.
The patterns we have observed between body types and primary representation systems seem to parallel, in some ways, the work on constitutional psychology proposed by W. H. Sheldon.
a)
b) An
c) A
d) The body of an