Changing with Families - A Book About Further Education For Being Human

_Introduction

In the following pages we will present our particular view of the manifold and exciting field of family therapy. As with any complex area of human behavior, the ability of therapists to perform family therapy far outruns their ability to explicitly understand and communicate to others what they specifically do when they practice family therapy. The purpose of this book is to attempt to make understandable to the reader the patterns of which we have become aware in our practice of family therapy and to catch up the theory of family therapy with its practice. Specifically, by extracting the patterns of family therapy, we hope to accomplish several things: First, by forcing ourselves to become aware of the patterns of our own behavior in doing family therapy, we will become more systematic in our work and more effective as people-helpers, and, second, we will be able to more effectively communicate our experience to others involved in family therapy so that a meaningful dialogue becomes possible among all of us as we help one another to become more successful and dynamic in our work.

The way that we hope to accomplish these goals is by creating an explicit model or map for our behavior in family therapy. By explicit model we simply mean a guide for behavior which can be used by anyone wishing to work as an effective family therapist. This guide for doing family therapy will be explicit if it presents the patterns necessary for a therapist to work in family therapy effectively and creatively in a step-by-step manner which makes it possible for the therapist to learn and to use these patterns. As we understand it, models or maps for behavior are not true or false, accurate or inaccurate, but, rather, they are to be judged as useful or not useful for the purpose for which they were intended. Since the model which we create here has as its purpose to assist each of you in becoming a more effective family therapist, we present it to you and invite you to take the model, the patterns we identify here, and to use them in your work in family therapy.

The first task which we need to accomplish is that of finding some common experience with which each of us, as family therapists, can identify. If we can succeed in this, then we can all begin together the journey to a better understanding of our work. If we can find this experience, then we can have a mutual reference point, or point of departure, from which we can build the model so that it will be useful for all of us. In a field as complex as family therapy, there are so many places from which we could start that it is difficult for us to choose among them. However, we have decided to begin with the patterns of verbal communication — the patterns by which the therapist and the members of the family communicate with one another in words. This is not a judgment that words are more important than, or have some priority over, other forms of communication such as body movements, tone of voice, etc., but simply a place — a set of experiences — which we all share and from which we can begin.

In order to assist each of you as you read this book to connect the words before you on this page with the actual feelings, sights, sounds, smells, tastes — with the excitement of working with a real family in your experience — we will proceed by presenting excerpts from transcripts to illustrate the patterns in our experience which we wish to most vividly model. Finally, as we begin, we would like to remind you to identify the patterns from the transcripts in this first part of the book; this part is designed simply to give you practice in identifying the patterns. Once we have identified a pattern, we will not identify it again each time that it occurs, but, rather, we will continue to move on to other patterns. In Part II, we will sort these patterns into natural groups which will help you to organize your experience in family therapy. We suggest that you simply sit back, breathe comfortably and use your skills to connect the words before you with your own experience.

PATTERNS OF EFFECTIVE FAMILY THERAPY LEVEL I

There are several important things which an effective family therapist assumes when he or she walks into a session with a family. First, the fact that the family has come to family therapy is a direct statement that they have hopes that they can change. This is true in our experience even when the family members are not aware of it. In fact, even in the extreme case of court referrals, the family has made a choice to come to therapy rather than selecting jail. Their presence in therapy, then, is a direct reflection of their hopes about continuing as a family, and that they believe at some level that they are capable of change.

Second, we assume, by the fact that the family is in our presence for therapy, that they recognize at some level that they need assistance in making those changes. In our experience, we have found it useful to assume that the family has the resources necessary to make those changes, and our task, then, is to help them tap those resources. Thus, one of our major goals is to assist the family members to recognize and accept the resources already in the family system, although they may be presently unacknowledged and untapped. The therapist will work to develop rapport and mutual trust with the family as a necessary first step in making changes. Without trust, no real risks will be attempted and no real changes will occur.

Third, by accepting the particular therapist, the family is accepting that person as a guide to lead them in changing. The therapist serves as a model for the family. More specifically, the therapist offers a model of openness — the freedom to select from what is available that which is relevant at the time and place for the therapist and for the family. This requires that the therapist be in touch with his own processes, as well as with the needs of the family. This modeling occurs not only at the conscious level but also at the subliminal level, i.e., the messages carried by the therapist's body posture, voice tone, etc., serve as a model for the family members.

We begin with an account of an opening session of family therapy. The therapist has just introduced himself and learned the names of the family members. Join us in a walk through the therapy session in which we will illuminate some of the ways by which the desired phenomena appear. We wish to point out to the reader that the following transcript is partial and fragmented. The quoted portion dealing with Dave is only a part of the full transcript. The therapist uses the same patterns and takes the same time and care with each family member in turn. To enable us to present these patterns in a clear way, we have left out sections of the transcripts.

Therapist: Well, I'm very pleased to be here with you this afternoon. I'm wondering what it is that each of you hopes to change by coming here to work together with me. I don't know whether the process which you went through in deciding to come here was easy or difficult for you, but I do know that your coming here is the first step in making those changes which each of you wants, (pause) Dave (addressing the father in the family), I'm curious whether you can shed some light on the hopes which you have for yourself and your family. Can you tell me what you hope, specifically, will change by your coming here?

Dave: Well ... I feel like we're just not pulling together as a family . . . like some things are missing . . . I'm just not sure. I can't get ahold of it — I can't get a handle on it.

Therapist: Yes, Dave; can you tell me one thing that is missing for you?

There are several important patterns in this short transcript which emerge clearly. First, the therapist assumes or presupposes that:

(1) There are things which the family wants to change. (. . . wondering what it is that each of you hopes to change those changes which each of you wants shed some light on the hopes which you have what you hope, specifically, will change . . .)

(2) The family went through the process of deciding to come to therapy. (. . . whether the process which you went through in deciding to come here was easy . . .)

(3) The process of change has already begun. (. . . your coming here is the first step in making those changes . . .)

Notice that the therapist does not ask the family members if they have hopes of being able to change; rather, he presupposes that they do, and he asks, instead, what are the specific changes which they desire. The family, thereby, comes to focus their attention on what changes and hopes rather than on whether changes and hopes exist. The therapist is systematic in the language forms he uses — specifically, he uses language assumptions (presuppositions)[1] as a tool in talking to the family in therapy. In other words, rather than using the language forms in column A, he uses those in column B:

By the skillful use of language assumptions (presuppositions), the therapist can assist the family in focusing upon the issues which are most important for achieving what they want in the therapeutic session.

We have found it to be very important in our experience to understand that the family therapist needs to make contact with each of the family members individually. The therapist must be careful not to assume that any one member of the family is a spokesperson for the rest of the family. The therapist makes a series of contracts for change — one for each family member. In this way, the therapist explicitly recognizes the integrity and independence of each member of the family. The basis of the art of family therapy is the therapist's ability to integrate the independent growth needs of each family member with the integrity of their family system. In exploring the desired changes with the individuals, the therapist makes skillful use of language assumptions (presuppositions). The specific language assumptions used by the therapist will be effective only to the extent that they are congruent with the growth needs of the family.

A second important pattern illustrated by the foregoing transcript is the delicate way in which the therapist begins the process of gathering information. There are several patterns which the therapist uses in the transcript. He begins with a statement about himself (I'm very pleased to . . .). Next, he uses a series of "questions" which aren't really questions in the usual sense. Notice, for example:

I'm wondering what it is that each of you .. .

I don't know whether the process . . . was easy or difficult. . .

I'm curious whether you can shed some light. . .

The particular language form used in this questioning is called embedded questions.[2] When questions are embedded as they are in the examples above, they do not demand an answer, yet they begin the process of bringing certain issues to the attention of the people listening — in this case, the issues concerning which hopes about which changes are held by each of the family members. In addition, this form of questioning opens up the possibility for any one of the listeners to respond if he so chooses. In other words, it allows the listener the maximum number of choices about how and when he will respond. This seems to us to be particularly important in the initial stages of family therapy, when the therapist is gathering information. Finally, in conjunction with this pattern, the therapist pauses after he has presented several embedded questions, to allow any family member the space to exercise the choice of responding to the questions if he so chooses.

One of the choices which the therapist has when he receives no verbal response to the embedded questions is to select one of the family members and to identify him by name, requesting his response. Again, notice that, even after identifying the family member, the therapist is delicate in his questioning, using the embedded question first, I'm curious whether you can .... Furthermore, the therapist uses another important pattern as he becomes more direct in his attempt to gather information — the pattern of polite commands (conversational postulates).[3] The therapist wants Dave, the father/husband, to respond to the embedded questions he has been asking. However, rather than directly stating a command for example:

Dave, tell me, specifically, what you . . . ,

the therapist asks Dave a question,

Can you tell me, specifically, what you . . .

Again, later, after Dave has responded, the therapist uses the same form — the polite command (conversational postulate):

Dave, can you tell me one thing that is missing for you?

The important thing about this pattern is that, although what the therapist says has the form of a question which could be answered legitimately by a simple yes or no, it has the force of a command. Consider a common, everyday example: You and a friend are in the same room; the telephone rings, and your friend glances up at you and says,

Can you answer the phone?

This sentence has the form of a simple question which requires only a yes or no answer, yet the typical response to it is for you to answer the phone. In other words, you will respond to this question as though your friend had made a direct request of you,

Answer the phone.

The use of the yes/no form of a question in cases such as this is the polite way of making a direct request. Again, the therapist, by skillfully employing this pattern, leaves the family member maximum freedom to respond.

We return, now, to the transcript.

Therapist: Yes, Dave; can you tell me one thing that is missing for you?

Dave: I want some things for myself and I really feel that my family needs some things, too.

Therapist: Can you tell me what some of those things are?

The therapist has begun the task of coming to understand how Dave wants to change. He will repeat this process with each of the family members. In order to be effective in family therapy, the therapist needs to understand both what resources the family presently acknowledges and uses, and also on what expectations the family can agree — the desired state of the family system toward which they agree to work. Each and every verbal and non-verbal exchange with family members gives the therapist information to understand the present state of the family system and at the same time it gives the family members an opportunity to learn. By skillful communication, the therapist, from the very beginning, helps the family members to develop a reachable goal for their changes — the desired state. In this particular case, the therapist is asking the male parent what he wants — what changes in the family would be acceptable for him, what he wants for himself and for his family. Dave attempts to respond; he says,

. . . like some things are missing. . .

. . . want some things for myself. . .

. . . need some things, too ....

The therapist's ears need to be tuned, to be open to detect those parts of the verbal messages which do not pick out specific parts of the speaker's world of experience. If the therapist is willing not to assume that he understands the generalities which he hears, he can make some meaning of them. Specifically, rather than assuming that his concept of the generalities being spoken is the same as the family member intends to communicate, the therapist can take the time and energy to determine more precisely the message from the person with whom he is working. The therapist may accomplish this in a graceful and sincere way by asking the other person to specify exactly to what he is referring when he uses those generalities.

It is important for us to emphasize that, while the therapist is using the pattern of language assumptions (presuppositions), embedded questions and polite commands (conversational postulates) to gather information and to establish individual contracts for change with the family members, he is also offering information to them. The therapist gives his understanding of the messages presented by the family; for example, as he asks questions such as:

What specific changes do you hope for for yourself?

he subtly presents his interpretation of what the family's presence for therapy means to him — namely, that their task is to make changes. This give-and-take process is an example of communication as well as being a communication in itself.

In each of Dave's responses, the therapist can identify a language form which fails to specify for the therapist some particular part of Dave's experience — the form: some things. This is an example of a common pattern — people coming to us for assistance often are not specific about what it is that they want or hope for. Our task, then, is to assist them in being specific. This is reflected in the words they use to communicate with others. When a part of a sentence picks out some specific portion of the listener's experience, then we say that that part has a referential index.[4] When a sentence part fails to pick out a specific part of the listener's experience, we say that it fails to have a referential index. Each time that Dave has responded, his sentence has included a part which failed to pick out a specific part of the therapist's experience (to have a referential index). This is a signal to the therapist to request that the speaker supply a referential index:

Can you tell me one thing. . .

Can you tell me what some of those things are...

Here the therapist is systematically assisting Dave to identify what he wants. At the same time, the therapist is providing the family members with an effective way of communicating. When the therapist hears something which he is unable to connect with his own experience, rather than let unsuccessful communication slide by or pretend that he really understands or that he can read Dave's mind, he simply identifies the portion of the sentence which he could not understand and asks about it. Any assumptions need to be checked out. The therapist, by demanding clear communication, gives the family the message that he takes seriously both his ability to understand and their ability to communicate, and that he is interested in really understanding what they want.

Therapist: Can you tell me what some of those things are?

Dave: Well, I don't know… I guess I've just lost touch …

Therapist: Lost touch with?

Dave: I don't know. . . . I'm not sure.

Therapist: Dave, what is it, specifically, that you don't know, that you're not sure of?

Dave: … Well, I'm not sure anymore of what I want, for me or for my family. I'm a little bit scared. Therapist: … scared of?

The therapist is continuing to assist Dave in coming to understand what, specifically, it is that he wants for himself and his family. One of the most important patterns of which we are aware is the therapist's ability to sense what is missing in a family system. This capability to discern what is missing is critical in assisting the family in changing, and it applies at many different levels of behavior. For example, one thing which we, specifically, check for is the freedom of each family member to ask for what he wants. If that freedom is missing for any member of the family, then we work to find ways for him to gain that freedom. This is an example of something important which is missing at a high level of patterning. The process of identifying missing parts of experience and assisting the one with whom you are working in recovering them or completing imperfect experiences — of making things whole — is one of the most powerful interventions which we, as therapists, have available to us. The very process of making things whole, whether at a verbal or a nonverbal level, has a profound physical and neurological effect upon the person involved.

At the verbal level of patterning, Dave has produced a series of sentences, each of which has something missing. The therapist is responding systematically, first identifying that something is missing and then asking directly for it. For example, Dave says,

I've just lost touch.

As the therapist listens to this sentence, he tries to make sense out of it. He hears Dave describe his experience with the verb lost touch. In addition, he hears Dave say, specifically, that he (Dave) has lost touch. But, as the therapist attempts to understand what Dave is saying, he notices that Dave has failed to state with what specifically he has lost touch. In other words, the therapist understands that the descriptive verb lose touch is an expression of someone's losing touch with something or someone, and that what or whom it is is not stated — it is missing — or, in terms of a language description, it has been deleted.[5] We can represent this as follows: When the therapist (or any native speaker of American English) hears someone using the verb lose touch, he knows that it is a description of a process which has taken place between the person or thing doing the touching and the person or thing being touched:

or

LOSE TOUCH (person/thing touching, person/thing being touched}.

The amazing thing is that, even when the sentence which the listener (in this case, the therapist) hears fails to include one or the other of these pieces, he knows by his intuitions about language that both of the pieces are implied. For example, when the therapist or any native speaker of English hears the following sentence, he understands that more is implied than is actually present in the sentence.

One of the temptations for the therapist is to fill in his own understanding of what has been deleted, thereby losing the opportunity to learn what's missing for the family member.

Since the therapist can use his own language intuitions to determine whether anything is missing, he can listen and systematically respond, asking for the portions which are implied but not expressed. Extracting from the transcript, we have,

By listening carefully and making use of the intuitions he has about his language, the therapist can systematically assist Dave in understanding what he has deleted.

Therapist: Scared of?

Dave: Well, I know that Marcie (the mother/wife) is depending on me.

Therapist: How do you know that Marcie is depending on you, Dave?

Dave: Well, I know her pretty well; I just sense it.

Therapist: Yes; I understand that you know her pretty well, and what I'm trying to understand is how you communicate with her. Can you tell me how, specifically, you sensed just now that she was depending on you?

Dave: Sure; see the way that she's looking at me — that's how I know she's depending on me.

Words carry meanings. We need to understand that these words are idiosyncratic to the person using them, and there is no guarantee that the same meaning will be understood by the other person. So checking out is always necessary.

When each of us uses our language system to describe our experience, we select certain words to carry the meaning to the listener. For example, we use nouns to describe certain parts of our experience. As we mentioned previously, when we use nouns which have no referential index relative to a specific part of the listener's experience, we fail to communicate with as much clarity as is possible. Similarly, when we (albeit, unconsciously) select verbs to describe the processes or relationships which we experience, we have choices about how specific we will be, and, consequently, how clear our communication will be. For example, if I select the verb kiss to describe a process in my experience, I convey more information than if I select the verb touch, although both are accurate descriptions of my experience.

I kissed Judith contrasted with I touched Judith

The verb kiss conveys all of the meaning which the verb touch carries, with the additional specification that I touched Judith with my lips. In other words,

kiss = touch with lips

We can say, then, that the verb kiss (relative to the verb touch) is more specified; it gives the listener more information about the process being described. The verb kiss could, of course, be further particularized by specifying where the lips touched the person being kissed. This process we call specifying verbs.[6]

As the therapist goes about the task of assisting the family members in understanding what they seek, he sets a model for clear communication. In the verbal exchange, he can check the verbs which the family members use to describe their experience, requesting that they specify these process descriptions until he can make sense out of their narrations. Again, extracting from the transcript, we have,

By systematically insisting that he be able to understand the messages from individual family members, the therapist is setting an example for clear communication as well as teaching the family members specific ways to clear up their verbal communication.

Therapist: Dave, what are you aware of right now?

Dave: I feel kinda tight . . . stomach flipping around; you know . . . when Marcie looks at me that way, I

feel kinda funny.

Therapist: Funny how?

Dave: You know, there's a lot of confusion . . . dependency makes me feel tight.

Therapist: You feel confused about what, Dave?

Dave: You know . . . dependency makes me feel confused . . .

Therapist: Whose depending on you makes you feel confused?

Human speech is one door to understanding between the speaker and the one to whom it is spoken. Understanding how human speech reflects this is an essential tool for therapists. We will, therefore, go into detail to show how this concept is illustrated in this interview.

There are several important patterns in this portion of the transcript. First of all, Dave has begun to use a language pattern known as nominalization.[7] Nominalization is the name of the linguistic process by which people represent active portions of their experience by words which are usually used to represent the more static portions of their experience. Nouns are usually used to represent these more inert portions of our experience — chair, table, stove, mirror, etc. — while verbs are normally used to represent the more dynamic parts of our experience — running, jumping, watching, listening, etc. However, through the language process of nominalization, we represent the active portions of our experience in a static way. For example, in the following two sentences, both of the words in italic seem to function as nouns.

I see cats.

I see frustration.

The word cats serves to separate from the world of experience a particular type of animal, while the word frustration represents something quite different. Frustration is associated with the verb frustrate which sounds and looks very much like it and has a similar meaning. The verb frustrate is the name of a process by which someone/something is frustrating someone. Using the kind of visual representation we developed previously in our discussion of the linguistic process of deletion, we have,

FRUSTRATE (something/someone doing the frustrating, someone being frustrated)

So, when the therapist (or any native speaker of English) hears the sentence,

I see frustration.

he can, by checking his intuitions about the meaning, discover that there is more implied by the sentence than actually appears on the surface. Specifically, we have,

In the example we are presenting, the linguistic process of using a noun for a verb description (the process of nominalization) also includes the process of deleting the information associated with the original verb description.

In the transcript, Dave uses two nominalizations, confusion and dependency. As the therapist continues to try to comprehend the present family system and what its members want, he encounters these nominalizations. As is typical of nominalizations, so much of the material associated with the verb of process representation has been deleted that the therapist cannot fully understand Dave's communication. The following exchanges then occur:

Notice that the therapist is systematic in his responses; he identifies the nominalizations, and

(a) Turns the noun word back into a verb word:

(b) Assumes that Dave is one of the deleted parts of the nominalization:

(c) Asks for the other part of the nominalization which has been deleted:

There are two ways which we have found very useful in our work to systematically identify and challenge nominalizations in the communications of family members in the context of family therapy. First, people are unable to cope when they represent processes in their experience as events, static and fixed, having deleted most of the information about the parts which went to make up that process. If the missing something which they want in their lives is represented as a process with the parts of that process identified, then there is a possibility for them to act to influence and change the process to get what they want. Understanding how they arrived at the place in their lives where they are now helps them to identify the next step toward getting what they want for themselves. If, however, the thing they want is represented as an event with most of the pieces missing, they have little hope of influencing and changing it. They, literally, are victims of their representation. When the nominalizations are converted into process representations and the pieces of the process are identified, coping becomes possible. Dave feels confused about what he is to do when Marcie looks at him in a certain way. Understanding the specific process by which "a lot of confusion" is created is an important first step in changing it.

Secondly, when a family comes to us for assistance, they are usually able to agree that they seek some nominalization such as love, warmth, support, respect, comfort, etc., for themselves. However, unless the therapist is alert to connect these words with experience (de-nominalize these nominalizations), filling in the deletions, etc., for each of the family members, there is little hope that the individuals will be satisfied. In other words, since each family member regards a different experience as love, warmth, etc., these words connect with experience (de-nominalize nominalizations) differently for each of them. What one of them regards as warmth another may consider smothering. By systematically connecting words with specific experiences (de-nominalizing) with each of the family members, the therapist can identify the experience or set of experiences which all of the family members will be able to accept as fulfilling their desires and hopes for themselves as individuals and as a family. By de-nominalizing, the therapist establishes the experiences which will be satisfying for the family and which he can then work with them to create. These experiences constitute the desired state of the family system; they allow the therapist to compare what the family resources are at this point in time with what they will need to create in order to reach the state they agree upon (through the process of de-nominalization) as being appealing to them. By this process, a direction is established for the therapist and the family members to organize the experience of family therapy.

Many times in our experience, using the verbal techniques of de-nominalization, a family member will begin with one nominalization and, in the process of connecting it with specific experiences, will supply another nominalization as one of the missing pieces. For example,

Dave: You know, there's a lot of confusion . . .

Therapist: You feel confused about what, Dave?

Dave: Dependency makes me feel confused . . .

Notice what has happened here: Dave uses a nominalization, confusion, which is somehow connected with a part of Dave's experience which he wants to change. The therapist applies the verbal de-nominalization. Dave responds by supplying one of the missing pieces; however, the missing piece which he provides is, itself, a

nominalization. The therapist alertly applies the verbal de-nominalization again:

Therapist: Whose depending on you makes you feel confused, Dave?

This kind of cycle is one which we find frequently in our family therapy work. By systematically applying the verbal de-nominalization technique to each nominalization, the therapist succeeds in assisting the family member in identifying by exactly what process he is perceiving or failing to perceive what he is experiencing. This process of cyclic de-nominalization (by tying the word description to things which are in the "real" world of experience) allows both the therapist and the family members to understand the specific experiences which they can create together to continue the process of change and growth.

A second important pattern in this portion of the transcript is contained in the statements which Dave makes:

Dependency makes me feel tight. . .

Dependency makes me feel confused . . .

These two sentences have the same form — each of them claims that there is something (dependency) outside of the person involved in the description which causes that person to experience a certain feeling. In other words, each of these sentences claims that there is a Cause-Effect relationship over which the person involved has no control and which, literally, makes him have a certain experience.

Linguists have identified a certain class of sentences such as:

Max makes Sue weigh 357 pounds on Tuesdays.

And

Mildred forces Tom to be 8 feet tall on Saturdays.

as semantically ill-formed.[8] That is, sentences of this class make claims which are at odds with our usual understanding of the way the world operates. Specifically, these sentences claim that one person is causing another person to have a certain experience. However, since the experience which the sentences claim the second person is having is an experience which most of us consider to be beyond the conscious control of human beings, the sentences, literally, make no sense. In other words, since Sue (or anyone else) cannot control what she weighs on a certain day of the week, it makes no sense to claim that Max is causing her to control her weight in that way.

Within the context of therapy, we have found an extension of this linguistic class very useful. Specifically, any sentence such as:

He makes me sad.

is called Cause-Effect semantically ill-formed.[9] Several examples may help to identify the pattern in your experience:

She makes me really mad.

He really makes her sad.

Walking along the beach makes me feel refreshed.

We understand that these sentences may be a valid description of a person's experience. However, what we are saying is that the Cause-Effect relationship which each of these sentences seems to require is not necessary. We have determined in working with people in therapy that, all too frequently, their pain and lack of freedom and choice are connected with parts of their experience which they represent in the Cause-Effect semantically ill-formed pattern we have just identified. This, typically, takes the form:

This caused that.

I am helpless.

It is final.

We have found it useful in our work to assist people in having a choice about whether a particular movement, act, smile, word, etc., from someone else necessarily has to have the effect on them that they claim. Typically, people who do not have such choices experience little or no control and responsibility over their own lives. Specifically, as therapists we have found that we can effectively assist clients in coming to have these choices by asking them to describe in detail the process by which someone causes them to feel or sense what they are experiencing. The process of assisting the one with whom we are working in understanding the specific way in which he fails to have a choice in his verbal and non-verbal communication with others typically involves the linguistic patterns we have already presented, especially de-nominalization and the specification of verbs. We have found this pattern to be a very useful model.

We return, now, to the transcript.

Dave: You know, dependency makes me feel confused.

Therapist: Hold on a minute, Dave; let me see if I understand this. When you see Marcie look at you in a certain way, you know that she's depending on you and you feel tight, is that right, Dave?

Dave: Yeah, that's right. I never have been able to get a handle on it; you know, altogether, like I felt when you just said it now.

Therapist: Let's check this out, Dave, (turning to Marcie, the wife/mother in the family) Marcie, you heard what Dave said about knowing that you're depending on him when you look at him in a certain way, and I'm wondering whether . . .

Dave: (interrupting) Yeah, you know, Marcie, like right now, when your eyes get narrow and you lean forward, I know that you're unhappy with me, and .. .

Therapist: Wait, Dave, (turning again to Marcie) Marcie, are you unhappy with Dave right now?

Marcie: No, I'm trying to understand what's going on here, and …

One of the ways in which people in families create pain and unhappiness for themselves is by assuming that they can come to know the thoughts and feelings of another person without that other person's directly communicating those thoughts and feelings. We call this Mind Reading semantic ill-formedness.[10] Mind Reading occurs in any situation in which one person claims to know the inner experience of another without a direct communication of the second person's experience. Frequently, this takes the form of:

If you loved me, you would know without my telling you.

Extracting from the transcript, we have:

In these two exchanges, we can identify both the Mind-Reading pattern and one of the ways in which the therapist can usefully challenge this process by specifically asking for a detailed description of the process by which the person (Dave, in this case) obtained the information he claims to have. This process (Mind Reading) is one of the most tragic ways by which well-intentioned people in a family can distort their communication and cause pain. We realize that it is possible to understand a great deal about the inner experience of another person without his having to describe it in detail in words. One of the skills which we continue to sharpen in our work as therapists is the ability to identify and understand another person's experience through the analogue (nonverbal) messages which they present to us. The tone of voice, the posture, movements of the hands and feet, the tempo of speech — are all important messages which we each utilize in our work. We accept for ourselves the rule of explicitly checking our comprehension of non-verbal messages rather than basing further communication upon our assumed understanding of those messages. What we have noticed time and again is that, under stress, people tend to hallucinate the inner experience of others and to act upon those hallucinations without checking first to find out if they match the actual experience of the other person. Once this process of Mind Reading without checking begins, clear communication becomes difficult and finally collapses, and we see a family in pain. In our experience, the therapist's ability to identify and effectively challenge the Mind-Reading pattern is one of the most important interventions in assisting a family to move from a rigid, closed system to one which allows freedom to grow and change.

Closely associated with the general pattern of Mind Reading is another important pattern, that of Complex Equivalence[11] — the names which people attach to their experience.

Dave is presenting us with an excellent illustration of the way in which people calibrate their experience. Dave has decided that, whenever he sees Marcie looking at him in a certain way (not specified), she is depending upon him; she is experiencing an inner state which he labels "dependency." In the second example, Dave has decided that, whenever Marcie narrows her eyes and leans forward, she is unhappy with him. What is common to both instances is that Dave has equated a piece of Marcie's observable behavior with her total communication and then has labeled it an inner experience.

What we are illustrating here is that people cause themselves pain and difficulty by attaching a word (label) to some part of their experience and mistaking the label for the experience. One powerful phenomenon we have seen in our work is the fact that people pay particular attention to different portions of their experience and, subsequently, may come to attach the same label to a very different experience. For example, for people who use their visual skills most extensively, the word respect will, typically, have something to do with eye contact, while people who emphasize body sensations (kinesthetic representational system) will pay more attention to the way others touch them. By this process, people may use the same word to describe very different experiences. We call this process Complex Equivalence (the experiences which the words represent) and, typically, it may be quite diverse for different people. In other words, instead of using feedback (for example, asking Marcie what was going on), Dave has calibrated his experience so that, whenever he detects certain movements by Marcie, he "knows" what she is experiencing. Notice that the therapist makes two different types of responses to Dave's Mind-Reading— Complex-Equivalence statements. First, the therapist re-states the claim that Dave has made about Mind Reading and the specific Complex Equivalence which he uses. This serves two purposes: The therapist checks to make sure that he understands the Mind-Reading process which Dave is presenting; at the same time, the therapist's re-statement allows Dave to hear a complete description of the process. In fact, those with whom we work frequently will laugh out loud when the contention which they have just made is repeated to them, recognizing that the connection claimed is spurious. For others, the therapist's re-statement allows them to fully understand the process for the first time. Dave's response is a good example of this:

I never have been able to get a handle on it; you know, altogether, like I felt when you just said it now . . .

The second response which the therapist makes is to challenge the Mind-Reading—Complex-Equivalence pattern in the family by turning to the other family member involved — in this case, Marcie — and asking her to state whether or not Dave's Mind Reading—Complex Equivalence was accurate. As the transcript shows, Dave was hallucinating. (We use this word [hallucinate] when we are referring to ideas which are "made up" when factual data are not available. Our brain must make something from everything. We do not consider it pathological in this context, only descriptive.) Marcie was not, in fact, unhappy with him at that point in time. In our experience in therapy, so much of the pain experienced by members of a family is connected with calibrated communication, communication based upon Mind Reading and Complex Equivalence. This makes the therapist's ability to detect and effectively challenge these patterns extremely important.

Marcie: No, I'm trying to understand what's going on here, and,. . .

Therapist: Thank you, Marcie. (turning back to Dave) Dave, I want you to try something new for yourself and Marcie. Are you willing to try something new, Dave?

Dave: Well, yeah, OK . . . I'll try. What is it?

Therapist: Dave, I want you to look directly at Marcie and tell her how you're feeling right now, and as

you do . . .

Dave: (interrupting) Oh, no; I'd really like to, but I just can't.

Therapist: You can't, Dave? What stops you?

Dave: Huh? What stops me?

Therapist: Yes, Dave, what stops you from looking directly at Marcie while you tell her what you are feeling?

Dave: I don't know ... I really don't know. I just can't.

Therapist: Dave, could you tell me what would happen if you did this?

Dave: What would happen? I don't know . . .

Therapist: Guess, Dave!

In this portion of the transcript, the therapist has made a request to Dave to try something new, something which runs counter to the calibrated communication, involving the Mind Reading and Complex Equivalence, which is going on between him and Marcie. Dave's response is to state that it is impossible to do what the therapist has asked: I just can't. Now, the therapist knows from his own experience — of looking directly at Marcie when he communicates with her — that looking directly at her when speaking to her is possible for him. Therefore, if Dave thinks that this is impossible, then his claim is a signal that he has been asked to perform an act which is outside of his model of the world and, more specifically, outside of his model of what is possible for him with Marcie. One of the patterns which has assisted us most in organizing our experiences in family therapy is our ability to detect the limits of the family members' models of the world — what acts are, literally, beyond the limits which they allow themselves. In natural language systems (verbal), there are a small number of expressions which logicians call modal operators[12] of possibility and necessity. These are words and phrases which specifically identify the limits of the speaker's model of the world. By identifying these limits, we are able to help the person involved to extend his model to include what he wants for himself and his family, to turn into a choice something which he has regarded as inevitable. In the following exchange between Dave and the therapist,

the two responses by the therapist assist Dave in extending the limits of his model to continue the process of change toward what he wants for himself and Marcie.

Next, we list some of the most common words and phrases in the English language which identify limits in a person's model and, opposite them, the two verbal challenges we have found most effective in helping to change these limits.

The therapist's challenges to these cue words and phrases, which identify the limits of the family's model of what is possible for them, have, in our experience, been extremely effective in assisting in the process of change.

Closely associated with modal operators is the type of exchange illustrated by the following part of the transcript:

Dave: Oh, no; I'd really like to, but I just can't.

Therapist: What stops you?

Dave: I really don't know ... I just can't.

Therapist: Dave, what would happen if you did?

Dave: I really don't know.

Therapist: Guess, Dave!

Often, when using verbal patterns to assist the family members in changing, we have received the reply, I don't know. We often ask them to guess. We have found that asking people to guess relieves them of the pressure to know accurately, and, therefore, they can come up with more relevant material. By responding with a congruent guess, time and again we have enabled family members to express something important about what stops them from getting something they want for themselves. When requested to guess when he claims not to know the answer to some question, the family member invariably produces an answer. The answer can come from only one place, his model of the world. Thus, his answer tells us a great deal about how he organizes his experience, what resources are available to him, what limits he accepts, etc.

We continue now with the transcript. Essentially, in the section we skip, the therapist continued to work with Dave, assisting him in understanding just what it is that he wants for himself and for his family. The therapist accomplished this, primarily, by insuring that he understands what Dave is telling him; he insists that Dave communicate in language without nominalizations, deletions, relatively unspecified verbs, or nouns without referential indices. We begin the transcript again just after the therapist has turned his attention to Marcie, the mother/wife member of the family.

Therapist: Well, Marcie, you have had an opportunity to listen and watch as I worked with Dave, your husband. I'm wondering what you were aware of as you did this. Would you be willing to say?

Marcie: Sure; I think that I see pretty clearly what you are trying to do. You know — I have eyes, and I'm no dummy; I get the picture.

Therapist: What specifically did you see, Marcie?

The therapist is illustrating a very important principle here: He has directed his verbal communication to one of the family members. During this period, the other members of the family have had an opportunity to observe and to listen to the process of communication between the therapist and Dave. The therapist now asks Marcie to comment on her experience of the exchange between Dave and the therapist. By requesting her comments (by using embedded questions and polite commands [conversational postulates]), the therapist accomplishes several things:

(a) He gives each member of the family the message that, not only does he accept comments on his behavior and the ongoing process of communication, but he, in fact, encourages them, that he takes seriously their ability to understand and make sense out of their expeiience and is interested in knowing what that experience is to them.

(b) He requests that another member of the family present him with the results of her ability to make sense out of a complex piece of family interaction.

The therapist pointedly requests that Marcie present her learnings and understanding of the interaction between Dave and himself. This is one important way that the therapist may explicitly present the message that, although he has been directing his verbal communication to Dave, all of the family members are involved at the same time; they are all participants in the ongoing process of communication. Secondly, when the therapist encourages Marcie to comment about her experience of the Dave-therapist interaction, he is asking her to repeat a learning experience with which we are all familiar. As children, each of us learned a great deal of what we understand about the world by observing and listening to our parents and other adults communicate. This time, the context openly invites people to "listen in," in contrast to much of childhood's experience in which this was tacitly forbidden. By explicitly repeating this situation, the therapist provides an opportunity for Marcie to up-date her old learnings — her understandings from her original family system.

Each of us organizes and represents our experiences of the world and each other differently, in ways which are unique to each of us. My experience of the "same world" will differ from yours in some ways. Through our initial genetic heritage and from our extensive experience in coping and living, each of us has created a map or model of the world which we use to guide our behavior. We do not experience the world directly but rather through the models of the world which we have developed to help us organize our ongoing experience. The means by which we develop and elaborate our models of the world are the three universals of human modeling — deletion, distortion and generalization.[13] When we pay attention only to selected portions of our environment and ignore others, we are using the modeling principle of deletion. When we represent to ourselyes a two-dimensional object, we are distorting. When we approach a door which we have never seen before, reach out and grasp the door handle, turn it and pull open the door without any conscious decision about the process, we are making use of the modeling principle of generalization — that is, in our previous experience, whenever we saw and felt a door with a handle, we succeeded in opening the door by grasping the handle, turning it and pulling it, so we automatically generalize to the new experience — the new door. Over our years of experience, we have each developed strategies (mostly unconsciously) for modeling our experience. By asking Marcie to comment on what she was aware of during the exchange between himself and Dave, the therapist has an opportunity to compare his awareness of the model he created with Marcie's impressions. Specifically, the therapist can learn, by listening to Marcie's response, which of the different ways of representing her experience she values most highly — that is, what Marcie's most used representational system[14] is. How can the therapist specifically determine this from the response he receives from Marcie? Below, we list the descriptive verbs and other parts of the sentences which Marcie uses which are most closely associated with verb or process descriptions:

We will refer to these words as process words (predicates) which, roughly, include verbs, adverbs, adjectives, and nominalizations. Of the eight predicates used by Marcie in this first communication, four are words which presuppose a visual representation of Marcie's experience. The other four predicates are unspecified with respect to the kind of representation they indicate. For example, a person can try or do something using sounds (an auditory representation) or feelings (a kinesthetic representation), etc. One way to understand an important type of patterning in Marcie's communication and in her ability to make sense out of (or model) her experience is to notice that her choice of predicates confirms that the primary way by which she creates a representation of her experience is by creating pictures or images of it. In the terms we are developing here for our family therapy model, Marcie's choice of predicates reveals that her most used representational system is visual. Next, we list some of the predicates which Dave used to express himself earlier in the transcript.

Of the ten predicates listed above used by Dave, more than half of them presuppose a kinesthetic representational system — that is, Dave organizes his experience, his model of the world, by feelings. Thus, Dave's most used representational system is kinesthetic. The remaining predicates used by Dave are consistent with this statement, as they are unspecified with respect to representational system.

Knowing a person's most used representational system is, in our experience, a very useful piece of information. One way in which we have found this useful is in our ability to establish effective communication. As therapists, if we can be sensitive to the most used representational system of the person with whom we are working, we then have the choice of translating our communication into his system. Thus, he comes to trust us as we demonstrate that we understand his ongoing experience by, for example, changing our predicates to match his. Being explicit about how the other person organizes his or her experience of the world allows us to avoid some of the typical "resistant client—frustrated therapist" patterns such as those described in Part I, The Structure of Magic, II, Grinder and Bandler:

We have in past years (during in-service training seminars) noticed therapists who asked questions of the people they worked with with no knowledge of representational systems used. They typically use only predicates of their own most highly valued representational systems. This is an example:

Visual Person: My husband just doesn't see me as a valuable person.

Therapist: How do you feel about that?

Visual Person: What?

Therapist: How do you feel about your husband's not feeling that you're a person?

This session went around and around until the therapist came out and said to the authors:

I feel frustrated; this woman is just giving me a hard time. She's resisting everything I do.

We have heard and seen many long, valuable hours wasted in this form of miscommunication by therapists with the people they work with. . . . The therapist in the above transcript was really trying to help and the person with him was really trying to cooperate but without either of them having a sensitivity to representational systems. Communication between people under these conditions is usually haphazard and tedious. The result is often name calling when a person attempts to communicate with someone who uses different predicates.

Typically, kinesthetics complain that auditory and visual people are insensitive. Visuals complain the auditories don't pay attention to them because they don't make eye contact during the conversation. Auditory people complain that kinesthetics don't listen, etc. The outcome is usually that one group comes to consider the other as deliberately bad or mischievous or pathological.

The point we are illustrating here is that one of the most powerful skills we, as therapists, can develop is the ability to be sensitive to representational systems. For change to occur, for the persons with whom we are working to be willing to take risks, for them to come to trust us as guides for change, they must be convinced that we understand their experience and can communicate with them about it. In other words, we accept as our responsibility as people-helpers the task of making contact with the persons we are trying to help. Once we have made contact — by matching representational systems, for example — we can assist them in expanding their choices about representing their experience and communicating about it. This second step — that of leading the individual toward new dimensions of experience — is very important. So often, in our experience, family members have "specialized" — one paying primary attention to the visual representation of experience, another to the kinesthetic portion of experience, etc.

For example, we discover from the transcript that Dave's primary representational system is kinesthetic, while Marcie's is visual. Once we have made contact, we work to assist Dave in developing his ability to explore the visual dimensions of his experience and to assist Marcie, in getting in touch with body sensations.[15] There are two important results of this:

(a) Dave and Marcie learn to communicate effectively with one another.

(b) Each of them expands his/her choices about representing and communicating their experiences, thus becoming more developed human beings — more whole, more able to express and use their human potential.

Within the context of family therapy, by identifying each family member's most used representational system, the therapist learns what portions of the ongoing family experience is most available to each person there. Understanding this allows the therapist to know where, in the communication patterns of the family, to look for faulty communication, where the family members fail to communicate what they intend. For example, if one family member is primarily visual and another auditory, the family therapist will be alert to note how they communicate, how they give each other feedback. Under stress particularly, each of us tends to depend only upon our primary representational system. We come to accept a part of our experience as an equivalent for the whole — accepting, for example, only what we see as equivalent to what is totally available not only through our eyes but also through our skin, our ears, etc. This explains the close connection between representational systems and the kinds of Mind Reading and Complex Equivalences developed by family members.

At this point in the presentation of the patterns which we have identified as useful in organizing our experience in therapy, we are going to shift the way in which we present the transcript. We have identified the most important of the verbal patterns which are in our family therapy model and, with the presentation of the principle of representational systems, we have begun to move to the next level of patterns. Verbal communications and your ability to hear the distinctions which we have presented are very useful portions of an effective model for family therapy. These verbal patterns and your ability to respond systematically to them, however, constitute only a portion of the complete model. In the presentation of the transcript up to this point, we have confined ourselves to reporting the verbal patterns. In this way, we hoped to find a common reference point from which each of you could connect what we are describing with words here in this book with your own experience in therapy. We hoped that, by finding this common reference point, you would be able to utilize, immediately and dynamically in your work, the patterns which we have identified.

Now we move on to patterns at the next level of experience, patterns which have as one of their parts the verbal patterns which we have just identified.

PATTERNS OF EFFECTIVE FAMILY THERAPY LEVEL II

Each of us, as a human being, has many choices about the way in which we present ourselves — the way by which we communicate. Most of the time, as we meet and separate and meet again, we do not make conscious decisions about the way we communicate. Normally, for example, we do not consciously select the specific words and even less frequently do we consciously select the syntactic form of the sentences with which we communicate verbally. Yet, even at this level of communication patterning, the unconscious choices which we make are systematic and reveal a great deal about the ways in which we organize our experience, grow and change. This, in fact, is one way to understand the verbal patterns which we have identified in Level I. These patterns of choice made by the persons with whom we are working in therapy about the form of the sentences which they use to present themselves are ways in which the therapist can come to quickly and efficiently understand their model of the world, the way in which they organize their experience.

Verbal communication constitutes only a portion of the complex process of communication which goes on between people. At the same time that people are presenting one another with words and the formal verbal patterns we have identified, they are also holding some portions of their body in a certain posture; they are moving their hands and feet, their arms and legs with smooth or erratic, rhythmic or arhythmic motions; they are speaking with a tone of voice which is melodic, raspy, lilting, or grating; they are speaking at a constant tempo, or speeding up and slowing down; they are moving their eyes in a rapidly shifting scan, or maintaining a fixed stare, with their eyes focused or unfocused; they are altering the rhythm of their breathing, etc. Each of these movements, gestures, tones, etc., are choices which they make, usually at the unconscious level, about the way they present themselves, the way they communicate. Each of these is, in fact, a message about their ongoing experience, about the way they organize their world, of what they are most acutely aware. Just as with the verbal patterns, when each of the patterns, once detected by the therapist, could be used by him for a specific, effective therapeutic intervention, here also, in the case of the messages carried by the person's voice, body movements, etc., the therapist can train himself to identify patterns and to intervene to assist the person to grow and change.

One of the most useful ways of proceeding in this complex area, in our experience, is for therapists to educate themselves to identify patterns of congruity and incongruity. When a person is communicating congruently, all of the messages which he conveys match — they are consistent, they fit with one another. Incongruent communication is presented to us when the other person sends out messages with his body, with his voice tonality, with the words he uses, which do not match. In order to learn to detect this mishmash and to respond creatively to it, either in therapy or in the day-to-day contact we have with one another, we must have clear, open channels for receiving and organizing all of this information. There is no substitute for the therapist's ability to see, to hear, and to feel. In order to distinguish congruent from incongruent communication, the therapist must clear his input channels. By failing to clear the channels he runs the risk of either being preoccupied and missing the other person's messages or of hallucinating spurious messages instead of being receptive to what's actually being presented. When a therapist fails to clear all of his senses, he usually succeeds only in Mind Reading rather than in identifying and responding creatively to the messages from the person with whom he is working.

Each of us has a nervous system, a personal history, and a view or model of the world which are unique to us. When we meet another person and communicate carefully, we are sensitive to the other individual in hopes of truly making contact and learning to appreciate his uniqueness, even as we, ourselves, change and grow from our experience of the differences between us. Much of our education is directed toward insuring that the verbal language which we share with other speakers (English, for this book) overlaps enough to enable us to make contact. This gives the people in the same language/ culture group a basis for communication. In the case of the languages of the body, tonality, etc., almost no formal education is given to us; in fact, little is known about these languages. Yet, these non-verbal messages constitute the bulk of the information which is communicated by human beings.

One of the ways in which each of you can become more sensitive to the variances from person to person in the non-verbal language which carries so much of our communication is to consider the differences in gestural and body language from culture to culture. In some cultures (Italian, for example), holding the hand palm-up at about chin level, extended in front of you, and opening and closing the hand is a way of signaling goodbye, while, in our culture, this gesture means something close to come here. It is also true in our experience that within cultures there are many differences in the meaning of the elements of non-verbal language. The furrowed brow for one person may be a signal of anger and displeasure while, for another person, it may simply signal concentration. Or again, shifting your gaze from the face of the person to whom you're speaking, just after hearing a question and prior to responding, is a signal in the behavior of one person roughly equivalent to Vm uncomfortable and don't want to respond, while, in another person, it is simply a way of cueing himself (specifically, of making a picture which will serve as the basis of the response) to respond appropriately. Translating it into words, it means (approximately), I'm organizing my experience with pictures and will respond in a moment. Each of the body movements, postures, tonalities, etc., which we employ in the non-verbal languages we use to communicate is the result of our own personal history, our own nervous system; few, if any, of these are conscious; few, if any, of these are standardized, either within our culture or across cultures. The point we are making here is that, while the bulk of communication between people is non-verbal, little of it is calibrated, and there is a great deal of room for miscommunication, especially in the Mind-Reading and Complex-Equivalence phenomena we have previously identified.

One very general overview of the process of communication which we have found useful in organizing our experience is that each communication — composed of the specific body posture, movement, voice tone and tempo, the words, and the sentence syntax — can be understood to be a comment on three areas of the ongoing experience:

The communicator, Self;

The person to whom the communication is addressed, the Other; and

The Context.

We represent this visually by the symbol:

We have found it useful to check a person's communication for his ability to be aware of and communicate about each of these dimensions. If, for example, a person is unable, at a given point in time, to be aware of and to represent to himself and to others (communicate) each of these parts of human experience, then this present inability is connected with the difficulties in his life which brought him to us for therapy. Thus, it indicates to us where we may choose to intervene to assist him in developing his ability to experience and make sense out of each of these parts of human experience, thereby creating more choices for himself. Notice that the same modeling processes detailed in the patterns of verbal communication in Level I of this part of the book also occur here at this higher level of patterning. When a family member says to us,

I'm scared.

we understand that he has deleted (linguistically) a portion of his experience; specifically, who or what is scaring him. When a family member is unable to be aware of and communicate about his own feelings and thoughts, or his experience of another family member with whom he is communicating, or the context in which the communication takes place, he is deleting (behaviorally) a portion of his experience and also a portion of his potential as a human being. In our experience, the process of restoring this deletion will be a very powerful learning experience for the individual, and it will assist him in having more choices in his life.

One of us [Virginia Satir] has identified four communication categories or stances which people adopt under stress. Each of these Satir categories is characterized by a particular body posture, set of gestures, accompanying body sensations, and syntax. Each is a caricature:

(1) Placater

Words — agree — ("Whatever you want is okay. I am just here to make you happy.")

Body — placates — ("I am helpless.")

Insides — ("I feel like a nothing; without him I am dead. I am worthless.")

The placater always talks in an ingratiating way, trying to please, apologizing, never disagreeing, no matter what. He's a "yes man." He talks as though he could do nothing for himself; he must always get someone to approve of him. You will find later that, if you play this role for even five minutes, you will begin to feel nauseous and want to vomit.

A big help in doing a good placating job is to think of yourself as really worth nothing. You are lucky just to be allowed to eat. You owe everybody gratitude, and you really are responsible for everything that goes wrong. You know you could have stopped the rain if you used your brains, but you don't have any. Naturally, you will agree with any criticism made about you. You are, of course, grateful for the fact that anyone even talks to you, no matter what they say or how they say it. You would not think of asking anything for yourself. After all, who are you to ask? Besides, if you can just be good enough it will come by itself.

Be the most syrupy, martyrish, bootlicking person you can be. Think of yourself as being physically down on one knee, wobbling a bit, putting out one hand in a begging fashion, and be sure to have your head up so your neck will hurt and your eyes will become strained so, in no time at all, you will begin to get a headache.

When you talk in this position, your voice will be whiny and squeaky because you keep your body in such a lowered position that you don't have enough air to keep a rich, full voice. You will be saying "yes" to everything, no matter what you feel or think. The placating stance is the body position that matches the placating response.

(2) Blamer

Words — disagree — ("You never do anything right. What is the matter with you?")

Body — blames — ("I am the boss around here.")

Insides — ("I am lonely and unsuccessful.")

The blamer is a fault-finder, a dictator, a boss. He acts superior, and he seems to be saying, "If it weren't for you, everything would be all right." The internal feeling is one of tightness in the muscles and in the organs. Meanwhile, the blood pressure is increasing. The voice is hard, tight, and often shrill and loud.

Good blaming requires you to be as loud and tyrannical as you can. Cut everything and everyone down.

As a blamer, it would be helpful to think of yourself pointing your finger accusingly

and to start your sentences with, "You never do this, or you always do that, or why do you always, or why do you never ...," and so on. Don't bother about an answer. That is unimportant. The blamer is much more interested in throwing his weight around than really finding out about anything.

Whether you know it or not, when you are blaming, you are breathing in little, tight spurts, or holding your breath altogether, because your throat muscles are so tight. Have you ever seen a really first-rate blamer, whose eyes were bulging, neck muscles and nostrils standing out, who was getting red and whose voice sounded like someone shoveling coal? Think of yourself standing with one hand on your hip and the other arm extended with your index finger pointed straight out. Your face is screwed up, your lips curled, your nostrils flared as you yell, call names, and criticize everything under the sun.

(3) Computer

Words — ultra-reasonable — ("If one were to observe carefully, one might notice the workworn hands of someone present here.")

Body — computes — ("I'm calm, cool, and collected.")

Insides — ("I feel vulnerable.")

The computer is very correct, very reasonable, with no semblance of any feeling showing. He is calm, cool, and collected. He could be compared to an actual computer or a dictionary. The body feels dry, often cool, and disassociated. The voice is a dry monotone, and the words are likely to be abstract.

When you are a computer, use the longest words possible, even if you aren't sure of their meanings. You will at least sound intelligent. After one paragraph, no one will be listening anyway. To get yourself really in the mood for this role, imagine that your spine is a long, heavy steel rod, reaching from your buttocks to the nape of your neck, and you have a ten-inch-wide iron collar around your neck. Keep everything about yourself as motionless as possible, including your mouth. You will have to try hard to keep your hands from moving, but do it.

When you are computing, your voice will naturally go dead because you have no feeling from the cranium down. Your mind is bent on being careful not to move, and you are kept busy choosing the right words. After all, you should never make a mistake.

The sad part of this role is that it seems to represent an ideal goal for many people. "Say the right words; show no feeling; don't react."

(4) Distracter

Words — irrelevant — (The words make no sense.)

Body — Angular and off somewhere else.

Insides — ("Nobody cares. There is no place for me.")

Whatever the distracter does or says is irrelevant to what anyone else is saying or doing. He never makes a response to the point. His internal feeling is one of dizziness. The voice can be singsong, often out of tune with the words, and can go up and down without reason because it is focused nowhere.

When you play the distracting role, it will help you to think of yourself as a kind of lopsided top, constantly spinning, but never knowing where you are going, and not realizing it when you get there. You are too busy moving your mouth, your body, your arms, your legs. Make sure you are never on the point with your words. Ignore everyone's questions; maybe come back with one of your own on a different subject. Take a piece of imaginary lint off someone's garment, untie shoelaces, and so on.

Think of your body as going off in different directions at once. Put your knees together in an exaggerated, knock-kneed fashion. This will bring your buttocks out and make it easy for you to hunch your shoulders and have your arms and hands going in opposite directions.

At first, this role seems like a relief, but after a few minutes of play, the terrible loneliness and purposelessness arise. If you can keep yourself moving fast enough, you won't notice it so much.

As practice for yourself, take the four physical stances I have described, hold them for just sixty seconds and see what happens to you. Since many people are unaccustomed to feeling their body reactions, you may find at first that you are so busy thinking you aren't feeling. Keep at it, and you will begin to have the internal feelings you've experienced so many times before. Then, the moment you are on your own two feet and are freely relaxed and able to move, you find your internal feeling changes.

It is my hunch that these ways of communicating are learned early in childhood. They represent the best the child can make out of what he sees and hears around him. As the child tries to make his way through the complicated and often-threatening world in which he finds himself, he uses one or another of these means of communicating. After enough use he can no longer distinguish his response from his feeling of worth or his personality.

Use of any of these four responses forges another ring in an individual's feeling of low self-worth or low pot [see Peoplemaking, by Virginia Satir]. Attitudes prevalent in our society also reinforce these ways of communicating — many of which are learned at our mother's knee.

"Don't impose; it's selfish to ask for things for yourself," reinforces placating.

"Don't let anyone put you down; don't be a coward," helps to reinforce blaming.

"Don't be so serious. Live it up! Who cares?" helps to reinforce distracting.

"Don't let anyone be smarter than you. Be smarter than everyone around you. Explain everything but don't experience it!" [helps to reinforce computing].

[Peoplemaking, Virginia Satir, pp. 63-72; Science and Behavior Books, 1972]

Finally, we would add to Satir's excellent description of each of these communication stances the syntactic correlates which we have found to accompany them:

Satir Category 1 — Placater

Use of qualifiers: if, only, just, even, etc. Use of subjunctive mood of verbs: could, would, etc. Mind Reading violations.

Satir Category 2 — Blamer

Use of universal quantifiers: all, every, any, each time, etc. Use of negative questions: Why don't you? How come you can't? etc. Cause-Effect violations.

Satir Category 3 — Computer (super-reasonable)

Deletion of experiencer noun argumements — the subject of active verbs as in / see — can be seen or the object of verbs wherein the object noun argument is the experiencer as in disturbs me — X is disturbing. Use of nouns without referential indices: it, one, people, etc. Use of nominalizations: frustration, stress, tension, etc.

Satir Category 4 — Distracter

This category, in our experience, is a rapid alternation of the first three; thus, the syntax which identifies it is a rapid alternation of the syntactic patterns of each of the three listed above. Also, the client displaying this category rarely uses pronouns in his responses which refer to parts of the therapist's sentences and questions.

(The Structure of Magic, II, John Grinder and Richard Bandler, p. 53; Science and Behavior Books, 1976)

One way to understand how these postures can be useful in your work is to realize that each of these patterns is useful in coping, given the appropriate context, but that no one of them is complete. Messages about self and context have, for example, been deleted by the placater. Understanding that each of these presents a choice, we, as people-helpers, are able to assist the people with whom we are working to have all of them as alternatives for response. Another way that we have found these Satir categories appropriate to use is that each of the postures represents a universal and frequently occurring pattern of incongruity.

As therapists committed to the profession of people-helping, we are daily faced with the task of responding to non-verbal languages. The problem with which we are faced, then, is how to understand the intricacies and complexities of the unspoken messages effectively enough to assist the person with whom we are working to change and grow. There are two ways which we have found most effective in coping with this difficulty: First, to simply ask what some particular, repetitive body movement, tonality, etc., is or what it looks like, or sounds like, or feels like to him. Secondly, we have found that very dramatic and effective therapy can be based solely on a judgment of match or mismatch, congruent or incongruent, with respect to the messages which we receive.[16]

Notice that neither of these choices requires the therapist to engage in Mind Reading. In the first case, he merely asks for a translation into words (the full Complex-Equivalence relationship), and, in the second case, he assigns no oral meaning to the non-verbal messages he is receiving, but simply decides whether or not the messages fit together. Following are several examples of these patterns, taken from the same transcript further on in the session.

Therapist: Yes, Marcie; and I'm wondering just how you would know when Dave is respecting you.

Marcie: Well, for one thing, he has to learn to pay attention to me; how can he respect me when he doesn't even pay attention to me? Like right now . . .

Therapist: Marcie, how do you know that Dave's not paying attention to you?

Marcie: See for yourself; this whole time, like always .. . I'm talking and he's looking at the floor.

Therapist: So, when you're talking and you see that Dave is not looking at you — then you know that he's not paying attention to you?

Marcie: Good; I see that you've got the picture.

Therapist: Well, I'm not so sure. I'd like you to ask Dave whether or not he was paying attention to you, OK?

Marcie: Yeah, OK. Dave, I would really like to know if you are paying attention to me. (As Marcie says this, she leans forward, with her left index finger extended in Dave's direction, her right hand on her hip, her tone of voice shrill and tight, her throat and neck muscles taut.)

Dave: Of course, Marcie, you know that. . .

Therapist: (interrupting Dave) Hold it a minute, Dave, (turning to Marcie) Marcie, I want to tell about some things I was just aware of when you asked Dave whether or not he was paying attention to you, OK? I had some difficulty understanding exactly what you were communicating. I heard the words which you used, but, somehow, the way that you moved your body, your left hand, and the tone of your voice that you used when you spoke didn't fit for me.

Marcie: Oh, yeah. Well, you're the one who wanted me to ask him. I already knew that he wasn't paying any attention.

Disregarding the patterns which we have already identified, you will notice that the therapist is using his senses — his input channels — to detect incongruity in Marcie's communication to Dave. Specifically, the words which he hears do not match her tone of voice nor her hand movements and positions. Without attempting to assign any meaning to these non-verbal cues, he simply presents them to Marcie and states that he had a difficult time understanding her communication. Consider what has happened here: The therapist detects Mind Reading and Complex Equivalence by Marcie:

not pay attention to me = not look at me when I'm talking

Next, he moves to break up this piece of calibrated communication by asking Marcie to check out her Mind Reading-Complex Equivalence with Dave. As she asks Dave about this, her voice tone, body posture and movements fail to match her words. The therapist again intervenes by making Marcie aware of the incongruities which he detected in her communication and tells her of his difficulty in understanding her incongruent communication. Marcie's response clearly indicates that she is completely calibrated with respect to Dave's communication; she is absolutely convinced that Dave is not paying attention to her when he is not looking at her. Since she is totally convinced, the task which the therapist has asked her to perform is not congruent with what she believes, and the result is an incongruent communication.

Marcie: Oh, yeah; well, you're the one who wanted me to ask him; I already know that he wasn't paying any attention.

Therapist: (turning to Dave) Dave, I'd like you to respond to Marcie's question.

Dave: Sure; well, I really was listening to what Marcie (the therapist gestures that Dave should speak directly to Marcie), to what you were saying, Marcie (looking at her). Oh, what's the use (looking down at the floor).

Therapist: Dave, what happened with you just then? You seemed to look at Marcie and then you looked

back at the floor.

Dave: Oh, I just saw that look again on Marcie's face. I know what that means: She's unhappy with me.

Therapist: Marcie, true or not true, what Dave said?

Marcie: No. Actually, I was watching Dave's face and thinking how much I'd like to believe him.

Therapist: Dave, tell us about how you end up looking at the floor instead of directly at Marcie.

Dave: What?

Therapist: I'd like you to describe what happened to you when you were talking to Marcie and looking at her, and then you ended up looking at the floor.

Dave: Oh, I'm used to that. I don't talk so good when I get tight — you know, like I was describing before.

And when Marcie looks at me that way, I sorta go blank, you know what I mean?

Therapist: And when you are trying to listen to Marcie and understand her, what happens that you end up

looking at the floor?

Dave: I really want to hear and understand what she is saying, and if I try to look at her and I see that look

on her face like before, I don't hear what she's saying. Marcie, I really do . . . really.

Therapist: I'm wondering (turning to Marcie) whether you realized that Dave was not looking at you but rather at the floor, not because he wasn't paying attention to you, but because it's really important to him that he is able to pay attention to what you are saying. Did you know that before?

Marcie: (beginning to cry softly) Yes, Dave, I believe you.

Therapist: And you, Dave, when you see that look on Marcie's face — the one that you used to think was because she was unhappy with you — do you understand that that's Marcie's way of showing interest, of paying attention to you?

This portion of the transcript shows several important patterns. First, notice that some of the pain connected with Dave and Marcie comes directly from the calibrated communication system which they have built up with one another. In the way that Marcie organizes her experience, she has set up the Complex Equivalence that if Dave is not looking at her, he is not paying attention to her. In Dave's way of organizing his experience, whenever he is looking at Marcie and he sees a certain expression on her face, he has to look away from her in order to continue to be attentive. This is just the vicious cycle of communication failure we encounter so frequently: The very thing that one family member does to accomplish something is the cue or signal to another family member that he is not doing that very thing. The cycle continues indefinitely as there is no way in the present patterns of communication for the individual members to get feedback.

This exchange between Marcie and Dave, then, is an excellent example of the way in which the patterns of Complex Equivalence and Mind Reading can hook up to create a chain of calibrated communication which results in pain for the family members. We can break up the process in a step-by-step manner to identify the overall pattern and the separate elements of it.

1. Both Marcie and Dave are caring, well-intentioned people. They sincerely want to communicate with each other. Marcie begins to talk; Dave is watching her as he listens.

2. Marcie struggles to express herself accurately, and Dave struggles to understand. In her efforts to communicate, Marcie changes the expression on her face, narrowing her eyes as she makes mental pictures to help her organize her communication (remember, her most used representational system is visual), and leans forward. Dave, in the past, has seen a similar expression on Marcie's face and observed similar body movements by Marcie when she is unhappy with him. That is, Dave has a Complex Equivalence of:

Marcie narrows eyes and leans forward = Marcie is unhappy with Dave

3. By the Complex Equivalence, Dave "knows" what Marcie is feeling and thinking; that is, employing the Complex Equivalence, Dave uses Mind Reading to determine Marcie's experience. This is the first piece of calibrated communication.

4. Since Dave "knows" that Marcie is unhappy with him, he is tight and finds it difficult to listen and to understand what she is saying while he is aware of her signals. Thus, he shifts his gaze from Marcie to the floor. Notice that this shift comes from his desire to understand Marcie, plus his Mind Reading.

5. Marcie notes the shift of Dave's eyes from her to the floor. In the past, Marcie has seen this movement on Dave's part when he is not paying attention to her. Thus, Marcie has the Complex Equivalence of:

Dave shifts gaze from Marcie to the floor = Dave is not paying attention to Marcie

6. By Complex Equivalence, Marcie "knows" that Dave is not paying attention to her — she "knows" the inner experience which Dave is having. Marcie is now Mind Reading; this is the second piece of calibrated communication.

7. Since Marcie "knows" that Dave is not paying attention to her, she increases her efforts to capture his attention — leaning farther forward in her chair, narrowing her eyes even more, as she attempts to organize her communication more effectively (by making pictures of the ways she might use to gain his attention). Notice that these changes which she goes through come from her desire to communicate with Dave, plus her Mind Reading.

Dave and Marcie are now locked into a vicious cycle: The more that Marcie tries to express herself effectively, the more she presents Dave with signals that she is unhappy with him, and the more that Dave detects the signal that Marcie is unhappy with him, the more he responds by trying to understand, presenting her with signals that he is not paying attention to her, and the more that Marcie detects Dave's signals, the more she strives to communicate and to capture his attention, and the more .... After some period of time — after the cycle has gone around several times — Marcie will, in fact, become unhappy with Dave, and Dave will, in fact, stop paying attention to Marcie to avoid the bad feeling it gives him. This last step puts the finishing touches on the calibrated communication as it confirms the Complex Equivalence and Mind Reading upon which that communication cycle is based.

In our experience, one of the results of calibrated communication cycles, such as those we have observed between Dave and Marcie, is that, as they continue to miscommunicate in other ways, they come to doubt their worth as human beings. For example, Marcie may come to question whether she is worth Dave's attention, and Dave may come to wonder whether Marcie's being unhappy with him is because he is incapable of being the cause of her experiencing happiness.

A pattern closely connected with one way by which the therapist breaks up a calibrated communication is that of translation. Marcie's most used representational system is visual, and, consistent with this, is the type of Complex Equivalence she sets up: Dave is not paying any attention to her unless he is looking at her when she speaks. But Dave's primary system for his experience is kinesthetic. Since he feels bad (tight and blank) when he sees her look at him in a certain way, he then shifts his gaze to the floor in order to be able to pay attention. The therapist recognizes this pattern and states it explicitly, in effect translating from one model of the world (Dave's) to the one which Marcie uses.

Omitting part of the transcript, we come now to another example of incongruity:

Therapist: (turning to the son) OK, Tim, just tell me one thing that you would like to change in your family.

Tim: (glancing quickly at his mother) Well, I don't really know . . . Mom always says not to talk about...

Marcie: (interrupting, leaning forward in her chair, pointing her finger, slowly moving her head from side to side) Go ahead, dear; just say whatever you'd like, (voice tone shrill)

Tim: Ah ... I think that I don't want to . . . maybe later.

Therapist: Margaret (15-year-old daughter), when Marcie spoke to Tim just now, what were you aware of?

Margaret: Well, I don't know . . . she looked kinda angry and . . .

Therapist: What did she say to Tim?

Margaret: Gee, I really don't remember.

There are several useful patterns in this exchange. First, notice that the words which Marcie uses to express herself do not agree with the posture, body movements and voice tonality which she uses as she says the words. The boy Tim (12 years old) must decide to which message he will respond from the conflicting ones he is receiving from Marcie. We can represent this process visually:

Tim decides (not necessarily consciously) to accept the first group of three messages and respond to them rather than to the last single one.

The therapist has identified another piece of incongruent communication — in this case, rather than comment on it himself, he asks another member of the family to do so. Her response allows the therapist to determine several things: Margaret, apparently, is not aware of the incongruity; she reports only the information which she received visually. One of the unfortunate but all-too-common patterns which result from incongruent communication is that the people exposed to it decide to shut down one of their major sources of information. In other words, since the messages which they are receiving do not fit together, their response to this incongruity — the way in which they resolve it — is simply to delete one of the sources of the non-matching messages. In Margaret's case, she is aware of what her mother, Marcie, looked like but not of what she said.

Several unfortunate things result from this kind of decision on the part of Margaret. First, she has developed a pattern by which, whenever she is presented with an incongruent communication — a situation in which the messages which she is receiving from the other person do not fit — she systematically selects the information which she receives visually. This deprives her of a major source of knowledge about other people and the world around her. Secondly, when Marcie (or anyone) communicates incongruently, she is indicating that she, herself, is uncertain, split, or of more than one frame of mind about what is going on. Incongruent communication is a signal that that person has more than one map or model for his behavior, and that these maps or models conflict. Since these maps or guides for his behavior clash, when he attempts to respond to others, he presents messages from each of these models and the messages do not agree. When Margaret chooses to respond to only one set of messages (derived from Marcie's one model of the world), Margaret loses touch with the other part of Marcie. Each of the models which Marcie has is truly a part of, and a resource for, her. When the people around her come to respond to only one of these parts, Marcie herself begins to lose touch with the other part, and she becomes wholly unaware of this other resource which could be available to her. Typically, she becomes blocked in her growth and development as an alive and creative human being, her communication remains incongruent, and she feels split, paralyzed — even confused — about what she really wants.[17] Thirdly, when Marcie communicates incongruently, other family members are faced with the task of deciding to which set of messages they will respond. Take Margaret as an example: She is only aware of the information she receives visually. Notice that she labels the non-verbal signals: She looked kinda angry. This, of course, is a pattern which we have already identified several times, that of Complex Equivalence:

This particular Complex Equivalence is likely to become generalized into a piece of calibrated communication — that is, whenever Margaret sees and hears the signals listed above, no matter what else is happening, she will decide (again, probably unconsciously) that Marcie is kinda angry. This is the way in which the phenomenon of incongruent communication serves as the basis for establishing the Complex Equivalences from which come Mind Reading and the calibrated communication sequences which are all too often the source of pain. By asking different members of the family to describe their experiences of the ongoing processes, the therapist begins to find out about the rules, the patterns of what the family members are allowed, or are not allowed, to do, say, or notice about themselves and each other.[18]

One of the classes of rules which is, in our experience, very useful in coming to understand family systems, especially in the context of therapy, is the class of rules about what the family members may perceive and act upon when they experience incongruent communications. Another way of understanding these rules is to determine which input channels the family members may use. These are often the patterns of Complex Equivalence which occur over and over again. The foregoing example of Margaret and Marcie suggests that the information from the visual input channel will take priority over the other channels when there is a mismatch.

Another, and in our experience, equally important, set of rules is that which specifies which output channels may be used to express which types of messages by which family members.

Therapist: Yes, Marcie, I understand that you are worried about what Margaret is doing at school. I wonder if you would let her know directly by telling her right now about your concern for her.

Marcie: That's silly; of course she knows that I'm concerned about her.

Therapist: Are you sure, Marcie? How do you know that she knows that you're concerned about her?

When was the last time that you told her?

Marcie: Look, things like that don't need to be said; after all, I'm her mother; I mean . . . (fading out)

Therapist: Well, just go ahead and try it, Marcie; you know, being her mother and all.

Marcie: Margaret, I . . . (pause) . . . (Marcie laughs nervously) . . . this is really hard. I don't see what. .. OK (laugh), I am concerned about you, Margaret. I care about you and what you are doing.

Therapist: (turning to Margaret) Well, Margaret, did you hear what she said?

Margaret: Yeah, I heard . . . but it's blowing my mind . . . and I like it.

Therapist: Margaret, is there anything that you would like to say to Marcie?

Margaret: Oh, oh ... , mmm, let me see ... well, actually, I do want to tell you that your face looked so nice and soft when you just said what you did. I mean, ... I really liked watching you and hearing what you said, and any time you want to say anything like that again, I'll be glad to listen.

Therapist: Marcie (turning to her), did you hear her? (pointing to Margaret)

Marcie: (crying softly) Yes, I did.

Here, the therapist begins by identifying the by-now-familiar pattern of Mind Reading. He challenges the calibrated feedback by asking the mother to check with her daughter to find out whether or not her hallucination is accurate. Marcie immediately balks. This notifies the therapist at once that a family rule is involved — specifically, the rule that, in this family, the expression of concern by the mother for the daughter (and, in our experience, this rule probably applies to other members of the family as well) cannot be explicitly communicated verbally. In other words, in the terms which we have been developing, the rule eliminates the output channel of verbal expression for messages of concern.

The therapist stays with Marcie, encouraging her until she successfully breaks the family rule against expressing concern through bodily contact. As soon as the mother has accomplished this, he moves to the daughter and works with her to provide positive feedback to Marcie. Then, he extends this new learning, the ability to use the output channel of direct verbal expression to communicate concern, and has the daughter break the rule, also. Next, he creates another option for expressing messages of love and concern within the family system. He guesses at and then verifies that there is a rule against the mother and daughter (and, most probably, the other family members) expressing their love and concern physically — that is, he identifies another output channel which has been knocked out by a rule.

Therapist: I have a hunch about something. Marcie, is there any way that you can imagine that you could, right now, express your concern for Margaret?

Marcie: Huh, I don't see how . . . , I . . . no . .. I can't.

Therapist: Well, are you willing to learn another way of expressing your concern for Margaret?

Marcie: Sure, I'm game. I sorta like what I've learned so far.

Therapist: Marcie, I would like you to slowly get up, cross over to Margaret, and hold her gently.

Marcie: What? That's silly; things like that ... oh, that's what I said the last time, (getting up and crossing the room to Margaret and slowly, at first clumsily, and then more gracefully, embracing her)

Therapist: (quietly turning to Tim) And, Tim, what are you aware of as you watch this?

Tim: (startled) Ahh, I want some, too.

This is an excellent example of the outcome of a therapeutic intervention to assist the family members in congruently expressing their feelings and caring for each other. The therapist assists the members of the family in becoming congruent in the expression of important messages. As this happens, he immediately generalizes this new learning to include other output channels — other choices for harmonious expressions — and other family members.

SUMMARY

In Part I, we have attempted to begin to develop a model of the ways in which we have found it useful to organize our experience in family therapy. We have done this by, first, attempting to find a point of common experience from which to build our model. This point of common experience is a description here in words which each of you can associate with the actual rich and complex experiences you have had in your work as family therapists. As we stated previously, models of experience — our model of family therapy — are to be judged as useful or not useful, not as true or false, accurate or inaccurate. The first requirement for a model to be useful is that you must be able to connect it with your experience — thus, the need for a common reference point. We have selected language patterns as the common reference point; these constitute the Patterns of Family Therapy, Level I.

The second level of patterns which we have identified involve non-verbal as well as verbal patterns. We have not attempted to be exhaustive — there are many more patterns of which we are aware which we have found to be extremely useful in our work in family therapy. Rather, we have attempted to identify the minimum set of patterns which we feel necessary for creative, dynamic and effective family therapy. In the next part, Part II, we will group these patterns into natural classes and specify some of the ways in which we fit them together in effective, larger level patterning. We will also, in this next part, focus more on the choices which the family therapist has in assisting the family members to change the patterns of their system to make possible the process of change and growth, both for each of them as individuals and for the family as a whole.