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

by Richard Bandler

  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 g
oal 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 d
escribe 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,