JamesLawley
22-05-2005, 11:02 AM
Recently someone posed the question:
After using Clean Language for the first time with a "non-trained" client I was asked what I meant by the "where/whereabouts" questions. All I could think of was to ask: "inside/outside of you". How do you cleanly guide them towards the intended direction for the answer?I replied:
It's great to know that you are practising the questions. And yes, some people new to the process will ask what we mean by "where/whereabouts?". Asking "inside/outside of you?" is a neat solution I'd never thought of, so thank you for that.
There are several ways I approach this kind of situation:
1) My first response would be to pause before I respond because clients will often say something like "I don't know what you mean 'where is my future?' [pause] right in front I suppose."
2) If the client asks "What do you mean by 'where is X?', do you mean ......?" then my answer will almost always be "yes" regardless of what the "......" is. My aim being to send the meta-message that the client is always right about their own experience and I want to hear what they were going to answer.
3) Probably my most likely response would be change the question to "I mean when you ... how do you know you ..." e.g. When you feel confident, how do you know you feel confident?
This more general question will tell me what the client currently uses to distinguish this particular experience from all their other experiences. (If they are not aware of using location, then are they aware of any other attribute of this experience -- sometimes a client with very low self-awareness will not be able to answer this question at all. You can usually tell when they respond with the blank look that I interpret as: 'I understand the individual words of that question but collectively they make no sense to me")
More generally, I can recommend that:
4) At the beginning with a new client, make sure that you ask 'where?' of parts of their experience that are commonly thought of as having a location, e.g. a feeling or when they are using a clear spatial metaphor (almost everyone does eventually).
5) Also, when you ask the 'Where?' question of an element of a client's subject experience, ask it as congruently as if you were asking it of a physical object. (If you don't expect to get an answer to your question, why should the client?)
6) You note that some clients will mostly answer 'where?' questions nonverbally (touch a part of their body, point or look in a particular direction) and that's OK. Keep asking the question occasionally and taking their nonverbal as the answer.
7) After trying all the above, if a client really does need a cognitive explanation and they have little self-awareness I will say something like:
"The main way I can tell the difference between those two chairs over there [or any two similar objects] is because they are in different locations. And the same is true for our interior experiences -- our mental images, our internal dialogue and sounds, and our feelings. Many people know they are feeling something because they feel it somewhere. If you feel something under your foot or in your hand you know about those feeling partly because you feel them in different places. Similarly, most, but not all, people experience different internal feelings and emotions in different parts of their body. When people say 'It was a gut reaction' or 'My heart is bursting' they do so because usually they experience sensations in those parts of the body. You say you want to feel more confident, and when you do feel confident, where do you feel confident?"
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Does anyone else respond in other ways to clients who ask this kind of question?
James Lawley
www.cleanlanguage.co.uk
After using Clean Language for the first time with a "non-trained" client I was asked what I meant by the "where/whereabouts" questions. All I could think of was to ask: "inside/outside of you". How do you cleanly guide them towards the intended direction for the answer?I replied:
It's great to know that you are practising the questions. And yes, some people new to the process will ask what we mean by "where/whereabouts?". Asking "inside/outside of you?" is a neat solution I'd never thought of, so thank you for that.
There are several ways I approach this kind of situation:
1) My first response would be to pause before I respond because clients will often say something like "I don't know what you mean 'where is my future?' [pause] right in front I suppose."
2) If the client asks "What do you mean by 'where is X?', do you mean ......?" then my answer will almost always be "yes" regardless of what the "......" is. My aim being to send the meta-message that the client is always right about their own experience and I want to hear what they were going to answer.
3) Probably my most likely response would be change the question to "I mean when you ... how do you know you ..." e.g. When you feel confident, how do you know you feel confident?
This more general question will tell me what the client currently uses to distinguish this particular experience from all their other experiences. (If they are not aware of using location, then are they aware of any other attribute of this experience -- sometimes a client with very low self-awareness will not be able to answer this question at all. You can usually tell when they respond with the blank look that I interpret as: 'I understand the individual words of that question but collectively they make no sense to me")
More generally, I can recommend that:
4) At the beginning with a new client, make sure that you ask 'where?' of parts of their experience that are commonly thought of as having a location, e.g. a feeling or when they are using a clear spatial metaphor (almost everyone does eventually).
5) Also, when you ask the 'Where?' question of an element of a client's subject experience, ask it as congruently as if you were asking it of a physical object. (If you don't expect to get an answer to your question, why should the client?)
6) You note that some clients will mostly answer 'where?' questions nonverbally (touch a part of their body, point or look in a particular direction) and that's OK. Keep asking the question occasionally and taking their nonverbal as the answer.
7) After trying all the above, if a client really does need a cognitive explanation and they have little self-awareness I will say something like:
"The main way I can tell the difference between those two chairs over there [or any two similar objects] is because they are in different locations. And the same is true for our interior experiences -- our mental images, our internal dialogue and sounds, and our feelings. Many people know they are feeling something because they feel it somewhere. If you feel something under your foot or in your hand you know about those feeling partly because you feel them in different places. Similarly, most, but not all, people experience different internal feelings and emotions in different parts of their body. When people say 'It was a gut reaction' or 'My heart is bursting' they do so because usually they experience sensations in those parts of the body. You say you want to feel more confident, and when you do feel confident, where do you feel confident?"
---
Does anyone else respond in other ways to clients who ask this kind of question?
James Lawley
www.cleanlanguage.co.uk