If the answer is still "no" then you have him continue the search for a model, using what we call "referential index shift." You say "Do you know anyone who responds to that kind of situation in a way that you think is quite appropriate, elegant, and effective, and a way in which you would like to respond?" You can say "I know by the fact that you are dissatisfied with your present behavior, that you have some standard for what kind of response you would like to have. Pick some human being—someone whom you respect and admire–who has what you consider to be a much more integrated and appropriate response to this kind of situation." The model they select can be "real" or "fictional." A fictional character from a movie or a book is as real an internal representation of a possible response as are actual people in your life experience, and can serve as excellent models.
Once he has selected a model, you have him go through a three–step sequence to incorporate that model's behavior into his own repertoire. First you have him see and hear the model responding to the situation that he wants to have a new choice about. You can ask him to raise his "yes" finger to indicate when he has completed this. Then you reach over, push the "yes" finger down gently, and say "Good. Having watched and listened to this other person do this, do you now believe that this is the kind of response you would like to be able to make?" If you get a "no," you have to back up and ask him to find another model, or see the same model respond differently. If you get a "yes," you go on
in this second step you say "Now substitute your own image ana your voice into this film strip and sound track. Watch and listen to it again, and raise your "yes" finger when you are done. Here he watches and listens to himself doing the behavior, but he is still dissociated kinesthetically.
When he finishes this step, you ask him "After seeing and hearing yourself do this, do you still want this as a piece of behavior? Do you Still think that this is appropriate for you?" If you get a "no" you back
up and modify the behavior until it is appropriate—either by making small changes, or by going back to selecting a new model.
If you get a "yes," you ask him to step into the image and have the experience a third time, from the perspective of being there and having the feelings that go along with that particular response. When he has done this, you ask "Was that still satisfactory?" If the answer is "no," you back up and modify the behavior. If the answer is a congruent "yes," that means that the new behavior has been tried out in that situation and found to be satisfactory.
This is a really respectful and graceful way of approaching change, because you keep the change dissociated from him until he has decided that it would be useful. Then you wire it in.
Next you do a future–pace in the same way I described earlier. You can ask his unconscious mind to give you a "yes" signal as soon as it has discovered what external cue it will use as an automatic trigger for the new behavior.
At the end, you can give him some general suggestions for amnesia. "It is important to remember to forget the things that you don't need to remember" is one way to say it. Your outcome is behavioral change. You don't care whether he has any consciousness of it or not. You might suggest that he will remember only as much as his unconscious mind believes is useful for his conscious mind to know about. If his unconscious decides to give him nothing, ask minimally that he has a warm tingling sensation as he comes out of trance as an indication that something useful has happened, and that he can look forward to being delightfully surprised by some new behavior when he gets into the context.
Man: What do you do if you get a "no" response when you ask the question "Docs your unconscious know what the cue is?" You could say "Then I would like you to recall to your unconscious mind the particular situations that you watched and listened to in which you want your behavior to be different. I would like you to create exactly that context again with those same people, those same surroundings, and watch and listen to what it is that happens right at the beginning of that experience, which could be used as a cue to trigger new behavior."
that I think it's time to act. Go through this in pairs so that you get some experience now with the basic outline. Let me reassure you that it is quite appropriate for you to stumble a bit with this material. I'm asking you to employ an entire strategy for generative change, with a brief amount of instruction. If you were already able to do these things gracefully and smoothly, you would have wasted your time and money coming here. So I'm delighted that you are courageous enough to feel free to limit yourself to the choices I offer here. I remind you that these are simply more choices to be added to your general repertoire as an effective communicator. With some practice these choices will become as smooth and graceful as any other techniques you have learned to use.
New Behavior Generator Outline
(1) Select situation in which new behavior is desired.
(2) Pick a model.
(3) Watch and listen to the model behaving in the situation.
(4) Substitute your image and voice for the model's.
(5) Step into the movie to experience the kinesthetic feelings.
(6) Future–pace: What cue will trigger off the new behavior?
* * * * *
The strategy you all just used is designed for straight behavioral change. The only difficulty I noticed people running into was in dealing with "secondary gain." Let me use the problem that Nora worked on as an example.
Nora was interested in learning to have choices about smoking. Smoking is a habitual problem that has a profound set of secondary gains for most people. In other words, there are certain things that smoking does for Nora and other smokers that serve a positive purpose. It's actually better that she smoke, and get access to those experiences and those resources, than it would be for her to quit smoking. She wants to give up something that she knows is physiologically damaging. The difficulty is that if she were to give it up without anything else happening, she would lose access to certain resources and states of consciousness that are important to her.
I'm confident that if we were to get Nora to stop smoking without doing anything else, her unconscious mind is flexible enough that she would begin smoking again within a few months. If we were to make an overall judgement about her functioning, it is probably better that she smoke—even with the damaging physical consequences—and retain access to certain resources, than that she stop smoking and lose access to those resources. Any difficulties that involve secondary gain can be dealt with easily by using reframing. The new behavior generator is primarily for simple behavioral change. If there is secondary gain, use reframing.
The new behavior generator can also be combined with reframing in a useful way. If on the "generating new choices" step your partner doesn't create new alternatives quickly enough to satisfy you, you can say something like this:
"And as you continue to work, developing and considering various alternatives … I'd like to remind you of … some additional resources … sources of models that you might consider… . There may be other times and places in your life … when you had alternative behaviors which are more successful … at protecting you and getting you what you want and need … than X… . If there are, you might consider those alternatives. … In addition … you might quickly go on … a thorough search visually … and auditorily … for people whom you really respect and admire … who seem to have alternative choices … which are more effective than X … and still allow them the kinds of experiences that you desire for yourself …. Evaluate each one of those … allowing the part of you that runs X … to determine for you which, if any, of those are more effective than X. … Of course once your unconscious has determined … that it has these three methods of proceeding to do what X was supposed to do … more effectively than X … it will give you that 'yes' signal, and cause you to arouse … taking all the time you need."