” When they do the behaviour you don’t want them to do, snap em out of it and lead them somewhere else ” Cesar Milan – The Dog Whisperer.
If you’ve ever had the experience of someone reaching out for a handshake and as you reach out they swiftly remove their hand and pull a face you will know how annoying, frustrating or rude it seems. This is because the total behaviour pattern hasn’t run so you’re unconscious kinda skips a beat often leaving you feeling a little vexed.
In NLP trainings many practitioners have had the experience of a handshake interrupt/hypnotic induction, this takes advantage of the body’s pre wired program of a hand shake –
1. Extend hand
2. Clasp
3. Shake
4. Release
5. Return hand
This is all classed unconsciously as one pattern of behaviour, both parties know the routine and follow the pattern.
With the handshake interrupt as you reach out you take the other person by the wrist, lift and turn their palm towards their face (smoothly and gently) point to their palm and say “Watch the changing focus of your eyes as you take a deep breath in …. and close your eyes and relax,now . . .. . .” and then begin a full hypnotic induction.
As I mentioned before this takes advantage of interrupting a ‘complete pattern of behavior and opens a hypnotic induction, or can move someone to a more useful way of thinking or being.
The key here is to have a useful direction ready to take the person in and to try it out and find out what happens.
These patterns do not need to be physical, our thought patterns are just as suggestible and can include conversations, problem states in fact anywhere when you notice a pattern emerging.
This week I have been working with kids in a pupil referral unit, they have all been excluded from schools for various behaviour issues.
[Read more...]Something I noticed fairly quickly while working with the kids is that patterns at in use as they have triggers for their behaviours and the response from the Teachers and TA’s is uniform and repeated, i.e complete patterns of behaviour.
If all behaviour is patterned and their behaviour and responses have become patterns what happens if the expected outcome doesn’t occur, could a linguistic pattern interrupt work with such extreme ranges of emotion?
I thought I’d find out.
The pattern always seemed to follow the same steps:
1. Kid ‘Acts up’ and looks to see if Teacher has noticed
2. Teacher names the child in a particular tone
3. Request to “calm down”
4. Escalation of the disruptive/destructive behaviour.
5. Physical restraint to prevent injury to self or others
I thought I’d try something different, so this is what I did, as one lad I noticed a pattern with was about to launch.
I looked at him squarely, caught his eye and said,
“The farmers gate is too big to go over or break down. You have to go under, now……. tell me, what is the matter”
He looked quizzically and said
“Err…What?…”
I replied
“What’s the matter?” and he began to tell me about how he was feeling upset about a bunch of things and we talked it out.
How did I choose that sentence?
I thought about it for a few hours before I used it, I even practiced it out loud to get used to saying the words on my trip over to the unit that morning.
I didn’t want to use words like problem or things that would immediately connect him with more anger, so a farmers gate seemed like a useful ‘image’ to stop the mental process, I thought that his previous experiences with being physically restrained might connect with the ” to big to go over or break down” on some level and by offering a metaphorical “under” I hoped he would follow my instruction to “tell me . . . . What is the matter”
I knew as long as I tried with an open mind something else would happen even if it was a delay to the escalation of behaviour it would have been different, in some way.
As it is it worked excellently, and may work in a variety of other situations to stop a conditioned response. It is possible any random statement could be used as a pattern interrupt, I preferred to have a think about what and when I was going to use this one in particular.
What could you learn from this tip that would be applicable in your life this week?
Enjoy
Andy
