Equally important, I want to make a distinction between the behavior that he doesn't like and its useful purpose. This separation is also presupposed by my question. I don't ask if there is a useful purpose, I ask it his unconscious part is willing to communicate what the useful purpose is. If the unconscious part is not willing to communicate its positive function, I say "Fine" and just go ahead. The important distinction between the behavior and some useful purpose has been made. This gives me lots of flexibility in making changes. She doesn't like the behavior, so I find some positive purpose which it serves. This opens the door to creating new choices.
4) Creating New Alternatives,
a) As soon as the conscious mind knows the useful purpose, or the part identifies for itself what it is, the next step is to generate alternative ways to accomplish the useful purpose. You can simply ask that part if it would be willing to go into the creative resources where people dream and manufacture ideas—you can describe anything which has to do with the manifestation of new choices, rearranging things, or creativity–and get some new ways to accomplish this positive function other than the one it is using now. Totally reassure the part that it does not have to accept any of these choices, and that it does not have to give up the old behavior. It can simply go in and get a whole plethora of other ways of accomplishing the same positive intention.
b) When you get a "yes" tell it to go ahead, and to give you a "yes" signal again when it has gotten ten new choices. If the conscious mind knows what the pattern of behavior is and the function it serves, then you can allow the conscious mind to know about the new choices. But there is no need for the conscious mind to know about the choices.
I want you to do just that much, even though it may not make much sense to you. You first ask her to pick a behavior that she most wants to have more choices about. Then you essentially say "Separate the behavior that you are using from what it is supposed to accomplish— what its purpose is." Then you say "OK, now that you have separated those and you know the difference, I want you to go into all of your creativity and come up with ten new ways to accomplish this purpose.
You don't have to use them. There's no commitment here to change anything. Just come up with ten ways that you would be able to accomplish the same purpose."
When the person signals you that she in fact has the ten choices, or that she only got eight, then stop. Bring her back to the waking state. OK, try that much.
* * * * *
In the piece that you just did, the basic thing that you arc trying to accomplish is to get somebody to learn unconsciously to separate behaviors from what those behaviors accomplish. If a behavior is a way of accomplishing a particular outcome, once you've made that distinction you can easily get the person to begin to generate other possibilities—three, ten, fifty ways of accomplishing the purpose other than the problem behavior. You want her to end up with ways which are as immediate, as effective, and as available as the way she is using now. If you do this, typically it is not that difficult to begin to induce very pervasive change.
If you think only in terms of changing a behavior, like smoking, you don't have much room to move. You can either smoke or not smoke, and it's very difficult to get people to not do things. If you back up and work in terms of the positive function of smoking—for instance relaxation—this gives you a lot more flexibility. There are many ways a person can relax.
People sometimes try deliberate symptom substitution, but they usually get into difficulty. For example, take a person who unconsciously wants to feel satisfaction, and the way she achieves that satisfaction is by eating a piece of chocolate cake. Replacing eating with painting a picture is not going to work very well, because it is a lot easier to get a piece of chocolate cake than it is to paint a picture.
It's a lot easier to smoke a cigarette to relax than it is to go to Mexico. Smoking may not relax you as well, but it is much more immediately available. Unconsciously you don't really make the kind of qualitative distinctions that you might make philosophically. You might consciously decide that it isn't nearly as satisfying to eat chocolate cake, because then you have to regret it afterwards, and it detracts from the rest of your life. You might decide that if you took up a hobby or you found something else to do, that would satisfy you more. However, if what you try to substitute to give you that feeling of satisfaction is not as immediate and as available as the chocolate cake, you'll cither go back to the same pattern of behavior or you will find something else that is easily available.
Now, sometimes when you find something else that is as immediate, you find something that is worth having. But often people quit overeating and begin to smoke. Or they quit smoking and spontaneously gain weight. Or they give up some habit that gets in their way, and they end up doing something even more destructive to them. So it's important that you have a way of evaluating the choices that you select.
5) Evaluating New Alternatives.
a) I'm going to ask you to pair up again with the same person and continue with the next step. Put her back into the altered state, reestablish whatever signal system you were using, and then ask her to go through each of the choices, and to evaluate each one in terms of whether unconsciously she believes it is at least as immediate and effective and available as the way she is now using to accomplish the positive function. Whatever the intention behind the behavior is, will these alternative choices work just as effectively to accomplish it? Each time she identifies one that will, allow the "yes"signal to occur, so that you can count the number of choices she unconsciously selects. You want to know how many choices she unconsciously believes meet that criterion. If you get ten, you are in good shape.
b) If you get less than three acceptable choices, have her go back to step four and generate more until she has at least three. If you only have one choice about how to do something well, that's not much of a choice. That's where most of you are now with whatever you are dealing with. If the only way you can get immediate gratification to satisfy yourself is by overeating or yelling at your children or whatever it happens to be, you don't really have a choice. If you develop only one more possibility, you still don't really have a choice. All you have is a dilemma.
If you have three possibilities, in addition to the one you don't like, then you are into the Land of Selection and that's really what choice is all about. So I want you to have her generate at least three possibilities that unconsciously she will accept as being as immediate, as available, and as effective, at accomplishing that particular purpose.
6) Selecting One Alternative.
a) Now, once you get a signal from her that tells you she has three, then have her unconsciously select which of those new ones to try out. You don't want her to select the old one, so the best way is to bypass that possibility by presupposition. You ask her to select which of the new ways strikes her as being the most effective and the most available in satisfying whatever purpose she has, and to give you a "yes" signal when she has made the choice.
b) Then ask that unconscious part of her if it would be responsible for using the new choice instead of the old one for three weeks to evaluate its effectiveness. If she discovers it will not work, then she can try out the other two, or go back to the old pattern. Going back to the old pattern of behavior doesn't constitute failure, but is simply a signal to generate more possibilities, perhaps at night while she dreams and sleeps, perhaps in a daydream.