phil
21-12-2003, 06:48 PM
“And when X, what happens to Y?”
At last night's London Clean Language Practise group, 3 December 2003, we explored the question:
"And when/as [X], what happens to [Y]?"
and it's sister:
"And when/as [X], what's happening to [Y]?"
Our purpose was to:
- Practise asking these questions
- Notice the difference between the two questions and when one would be more appropriate than the other
- Explore the range of circumstances when these are viable questions to ask.
Metaphors in Mind gives four examples/contexts for using these questions (reproduced at the end). However, Penny Tompkins and I felt that these questions deserve more exposure and are not as 'specialised' as we first thought.
We have found that these questions invite a client to notice what's happening at the same time as something else and hence are useful in inquiring if there a relationship between X and Y which is not necessarily apparent in the client's description of their perception. These questions also invite the client to attend to the simultaneity of two events in different contexts or locations.
We propose that these questions 'hold time still', i.e. they ask about the DURING of an event or events, rather than the BEFORE or AFTER and hence come into the category of 'Developing Questions'.
These questions seem particularly appropriate when the context is the client's body. Often a client will tell you that they are aware of several parts of their body but the relationship between these parts/sensations is not clear.
For example:
Client: "I feel love in my head and my heart. My heart opens and kind of extends outwards to embrace the other person."
Facilitator: "And when heart opens and extends outward to embrace, what happens to head?" or "And as heart opens and extends outward to embrace, what's happening to head?"
This example illustrates the most obvious way to use these questions: for X to be an event happening to one symbol (or in one part of the Landscape) and for Y to be another symbol (or a different aspect of the Landscape) existing in the same timeframe.
However, the practise group found that the questions produced interesting information for the client with other kinds of Xs and Ys as well.
e.g. Clive Bach came up with:
Client: "I don't know"
Facilitator: "And when don't know, what happens to I?" or "And when don't know, what's happening to I?"
These questions seem less appropriate in cases where X and Y are in different timeframes, particularly when Y follows causally or logically after X (although as ever, it worked for some people some of the time).
There was a general (although not universal) agreement that “what happens to” presupposes a slightly stronger (causal?) relationship between X and Y, than does “what's happening to” but it does so depend on the context of the client's Landscape.
The group were not able to find any easy way of knowing when to ask one or the other of these questions. This is in part because:
(a) there was little consistency to the way individuals processed each question; and
(b) when being asked these questions of 'real' stuff during a 10 minute session, some people reported that they didn't even notice which of the two questions was being asked.
Our preliminary conclusion is: You will know which of the questions to ask at the time based on: the logic of the client's Metaphor Landscape; your purpose for asking the question; and what just feels right.
I believe you can develop this feeling or intuition by getting used to asking these questions in a variety of situations with a variety of clients -- and you can start by accessing a Landscape of your own, asking yourself these questions and noticing what you have to do to answer them.
Do have fun and report back your findings.
EXTRACTS FROM METAPHORS IN MIND
PAGE 168 - ATTENDING TO A SYMBOL DURING AN EVENT
Asking the specialist question “When [event X] what happens to [Y]” directs his attention to where the answer lies in the current relationship between mature heart [X] and the person who has to undo jubilee clip [Y]:
T40: "And when red mature heart has had lots of experience, what happens to a person who has to undo jubilee clip that's tightening?"
C41: "I feel like the pupil. I've not reached the level of maturity required."
PAGE 194 - ACCUMULATING PERCEPTIONS
To invite the client to accumulate more and more of their Landscape into awareness you ask:
"And when [A], and [ B], and [C], what's happening to [X], and [Y], and [Z]?"
Where A, B, C, and X, Y, Z are the steps of a sequence, events in a story, nodes in a configuration or premises of a personal philosophy. These questions invite A, B, C and X, Y, Z to share the same perceptual space.
PAGE 217 - INVITING A CLIENT TO ATTEND TO THE POSSIBLE SPEAD OF A CHANGE
You can invite the client to notice whether a change has, or can, spread to symbols and contexts not yet mentioned. You do this by enquiring if a change in one place or time in the Landscape has resulted in a change elsewhere: "And when [change X], what happens to [symbol or context Y]?"
T62: "And confidence returns. And when red, mature heart that's had lots of experience and deep understanding goes to that young boy and he feels life again and the race becomes enjoyable and confidence returns, what happens to a mother who's just read a letter twice?"
C63: "She expresses it's a learning process, not a failure. She's comfortable with him."
PAGE 242 - WITH COUPLES
Another approach facilitates couples to create a joint metaphor for how they want their relationship to be, which they draw on one sheet of paper. As events unfold in the combined Metaphor Landscape, frank and eye-opening discussions are stimulated when they are asked:
"And when [X's event] what happens to [Y's symbol]?"
James Lawley
From: Phil Swallow, 15 December 2003
As we have discussed before, I think "When X, what is happening/happens to Y?" can be seen to go rather to the EFFECT of the implied/enquired-of relationship rather than to the relationship. This is because one meaning of what happens to is to check for a state, an effect:
"When you paint/are painting a wall, what happens/is happening to the wall?"
"It changes colour"
Here "changes colour" is an EFFECT of the RELATIONSHIP verb "paint/painting" The client may volunteer the relationship, perhaps due to the proposed adjacency of X and Y. It may seem pedantic - and it could be that a fac who is asking this as a relationship question could end wondering why s/he is not getting any relationship info.
James: I agree that this question does not necessarily provide OVERT relationship information. However the nature of the question implies a temporal relationship of Y happening at the same time as X. In other words it's a 'during' relationship.
Knowing what happens simultaneously or immediately following is fantastically useful information that, as a general rule, does not 'move time' back or forward. Therefore this question can be considered a developing question when the Landscape has yet to change (it seems to have a different effect on the questioner when X is a change that has just occurred).
Rather than requesting overt relationship information, this question asks the client to notice if there is, at the very least, a relationship of simultanaiety.
Phil: The 'when' introduces time, too, of course.
James: It was fairly clear from the self-modelling at the London CLPG that to answer the question, almost everyone had to consider X and Y at the same time. Sometimes only long enough for their attention to transfer from X to Y and sometimes their attention moved between X and Y while they considered the question.
In your example: "And when hammer and nail, what happens just after hammer and just before nail?", they would be necessarily considering whether there was a relationship between X and Y
Phil: I think they would necessarily be exemplifying / running the pattern of / enacting the relationship - I am less convinced that necessarily they would be considering/noticing/exploring it - (consciously).
So their attention to X and to Y may have them wonder about the existence of a relationship by their attention being directed to hang around there for long enough (done repeatedly it may even end up suggesting it) - and if they are very taken with X or Y (distraction), say, or particularly NOT taken with any relationship between X and Y (denial), the question won't direct them to it. Which is very clean and totally fine by me, by the way.
"When hammer, what happens to nail?"
"Nothing"
Or even
"Nail that was straight is now bent."
Or
"When hammer, what's happening to nail?"
"Nothing"
Or even
"Nail that was straight is now bending." (we may assume the hammer is hitting it - and we don't know that from the client information - it may be a heavy hammer that has been hung on the nail, for example)
SO, we still need this or something like it:
"Is there a relationship between hammer and nail?"
"Well, I suppose someone could pick up the hammer and hit the nail with it"
James: I hope the above explains that I do not see the "When X, what happens to Y?" question as trying to get the same kind of information as Is there a relationship...?.
Perhaps what is needed is a different category title. I placed it in the relationship category because the facilitator refers to two parts of the Metaphor Landscape rather than one as is the norm as in most CLQ's. Any thoughts on a different category title?
Phil: I get it now. I was thinking of relationship in the narrower 'between' sense and I see that it works in the way you describe. I do wonder though if the relationship you describe is the perceiver's system's relationship rather than the perceived's system's relationship. Too many apostrophes - as ever I resort to example, no, I PREFER example.
Take the John Anderson song "Swingin'"
[I]There's a little girl in our neighborhood
Her name is Charlette Johnson and she's really lookin good
I had to go and see her, so I called her on the phone
I walked over to her house, and this was goin' on
Her brother was on the sofa eatin' chocolate pie
Her momma was in the kitchen cuttin' chicken up to fry
Her daddy was in the backyard rollin' up a garden hose
I was on the porch with Charlette feelin' love down to my toes
And we were swingin'..."
Copyright Almo Music Corp. (ASCAP)/ Polygram International Publishing, Inc./Foggy Jonz Music (ASCAP)
1 time, 4 spaces, 4 characters. Okay, 5 characters, however Charlette and the singer, engaged as they are "swingin' on the porch" can be regarded as one unit perhaps :-)
Now the characters in the song are of course related in space and time and blood as they are family and they are all in one narrative, one story.
If however these characters in their four contexts were all strangers to each other and were in different countries, engaged in similar local contexts and behaviours, it would be possible to say there is no relationship between them, at least of the interactive kind, so they are no longer a system.
We can say there is a relationship of time because of the simultaneity, however that is a perception, and hence a relationship, in our own systems as perceivers.
One distinction that can be drawn here is about whether the symbols are or can be aware of a relationship to another symbol. A woman cooking chicken and a man rolling up a hose will be aware of a relationship between them if they are connected (say married) and adjacent in time and space (say in the kitchen and the garden of the same house at tea time), by using their senses and their memories.
The same people doing similar things but NOT married and NOT adjacent in space will not be aware of any relationship.
It also makes me think of context, a temporal context. Not perhaps time stopped - more slowed right down. A moving snapshot, perhaps (as I've described before) like the Harry Potter ones, where the characters are waving and laughing but don't change or go anywhere. So the 'happening to/at X' is perceivable, and also the 'happening to/at Y'. David's early stuff about the '-ing' nature of T-1 comes to mind.
So from all that I am thinking about:
awareness by the symbol of relationship to other symbols;
perceiverR's relationships between perceiveD's symbols;
moving snapshot (a perceived quantum of time);
distraction in relation to attention (8th January Research Group...)
One I question I would like to try out is "What's happening between X and Y?"
James: I like the extension of 'between' from space and time to cause-effect, and possibly to personal relationships, if X and Y are people!Of course there is a huge presupposition that something is happening "between". Is there anything happening between X and Y? is cleaner (but probably harder to remember to ask!).
Phil: Yes - happening used like this sounds more grubby, more metaphorical somehow.
Here's a curious one: "When nail, what happens to hammer?" Sounds funny that way round - exposes our presuppositions about attributed functions of symbols.
James: This question may sound funny, but because of its unusualness would probably be a brilliant one to ask as it requests the client to consider the inverse of the normal cause-effect relationship between hammers and nails.
James
(PS. Written at 35000 feet above a magnificent totally white frozen Canadian Landscape).
At last night's London Clean Language Practise group, 3 December 2003, we explored the question:
"And when/as [X], what happens to [Y]?"
and it's sister:
"And when/as [X], what's happening to [Y]?"
Our purpose was to:
- Practise asking these questions
- Notice the difference between the two questions and when one would be more appropriate than the other
- Explore the range of circumstances when these are viable questions to ask.
Metaphors in Mind gives four examples/contexts for using these questions (reproduced at the end). However, Penny Tompkins and I felt that these questions deserve more exposure and are not as 'specialised' as we first thought.
We have found that these questions invite a client to notice what's happening at the same time as something else and hence are useful in inquiring if there a relationship between X and Y which is not necessarily apparent in the client's description of their perception. These questions also invite the client to attend to the simultaneity of two events in different contexts or locations.
We propose that these questions 'hold time still', i.e. they ask about the DURING of an event or events, rather than the BEFORE or AFTER and hence come into the category of 'Developing Questions'.
These questions seem particularly appropriate when the context is the client's body. Often a client will tell you that they are aware of several parts of their body but the relationship between these parts/sensations is not clear.
For example:
Client: "I feel love in my head and my heart. My heart opens and kind of extends outwards to embrace the other person."
Facilitator: "And when heart opens and extends outward to embrace, what happens to head?" or "And as heart opens and extends outward to embrace, what's happening to head?"
This example illustrates the most obvious way to use these questions: for X to be an event happening to one symbol (or in one part of the Landscape) and for Y to be another symbol (or a different aspect of the Landscape) existing in the same timeframe.
However, the practise group found that the questions produced interesting information for the client with other kinds of Xs and Ys as well.
e.g. Clive Bach came up with:
Client: "I don't know"
Facilitator: "And when don't know, what happens to I?" or "And when don't know, what's happening to I?"
These questions seem less appropriate in cases where X and Y are in different timeframes, particularly when Y follows causally or logically after X (although as ever, it worked for some people some of the time).
There was a general (although not universal) agreement that “what happens to” presupposes a slightly stronger (causal?) relationship between X and Y, than does “what's happening to” but it does so depend on the context of the client's Landscape.
The group were not able to find any easy way of knowing when to ask one or the other of these questions. This is in part because:
(a) there was little consistency to the way individuals processed each question; and
(b) when being asked these questions of 'real' stuff during a 10 minute session, some people reported that they didn't even notice which of the two questions was being asked.
Our preliminary conclusion is: You will know which of the questions to ask at the time based on: the logic of the client's Metaphor Landscape; your purpose for asking the question; and what just feels right.
I believe you can develop this feeling or intuition by getting used to asking these questions in a variety of situations with a variety of clients -- and you can start by accessing a Landscape of your own, asking yourself these questions and noticing what you have to do to answer them.
Do have fun and report back your findings.
EXTRACTS FROM METAPHORS IN MIND
PAGE 168 - ATTENDING TO A SYMBOL DURING AN EVENT
Asking the specialist question “When [event X] what happens to [Y]” directs his attention to where the answer lies in the current relationship between mature heart [X] and the person who has to undo jubilee clip [Y]:
T40: "And when red mature heart has had lots of experience, what happens to a person who has to undo jubilee clip that's tightening?"
C41: "I feel like the pupil. I've not reached the level of maturity required."
PAGE 194 - ACCUMULATING PERCEPTIONS
To invite the client to accumulate more and more of their Landscape into awareness you ask:
"And when [A], and [ B], and [C], what's happening to [X], and [Y], and [Z]?"
Where A, B, C, and X, Y, Z are the steps of a sequence, events in a story, nodes in a configuration or premises of a personal philosophy. These questions invite A, B, C and X, Y, Z to share the same perceptual space.
PAGE 217 - INVITING A CLIENT TO ATTEND TO THE POSSIBLE SPEAD OF A CHANGE
You can invite the client to notice whether a change has, or can, spread to symbols and contexts not yet mentioned. You do this by enquiring if a change in one place or time in the Landscape has resulted in a change elsewhere: "And when [change X], what happens to [symbol or context Y]?"
T62: "And confidence returns. And when red, mature heart that's had lots of experience and deep understanding goes to that young boy and he feels life again and the race becomes enjoyable and confidence returns, what happens to a mother who's just read a letter twice?"
C63: "She expresses it's a learning process, not a failure. She's comfortable with him."
PAGE 242 - WITH COUPLES
Another approach facilitates couples to create a joint metaphor for how they want their relationship to be, which they draw on one sheet of paper. As events unfold in the combined Metaphor Landscape, frank and eye-opening discussions are stimulated when they are asked:
"And when [X's event] what happens to [Y's symbol]?"
James Lawley
From: Phil Swallow, 15 December 2003
As we have discussed before, I think "When X, what is happening/happens to Y?" can be seen to go rather to the EFFECT of the implied/enquired-of relationship rather than to the relationship. This is because one meaning of what happens to is to check for a state, an effect:
"When you paint/are painting a wall, what happens/is happening to the wall?"
"It changes colour"
Here "changes colour" is an EFFECT of the RELATIONSHIP verb "paint/painting" The client may volunteer the relationship, perhaps due to the proposed adjacency of X and Y. It may seem pedantic - and it could be that a fac who is asking this as a relationship question could end wondering why s/he is not getting any relationship info.
James: I agree that this question does not necessarily provide OVERT relationship information. However the nature of the question implies a temporal relationship of Y happening at the same time as X. In other words it's a 'during' relationship.
Knowing what happens simultaneously or immediately following is fantastically useful information that, as a general rule, does not 'move time' back or forward. Therefore this question can be considered a developing question when the Landscape has yet to change (it seems to have a different effect on the questioner when X is a change that has just occurred).
Rather than requesting overt relationship information, this question asks the client to notice if there is, at the very least, a relationship of simultanaiety.
Phil: The 'when' introduces time, too, of course.
James: It was fairly clear from the self-modelling at the London CLPG that to answer the question, almost everyone had to consider X and Y at the same time. Sometimes only long enough for their attention to transfer from X to Y and sometimes their attention moved between X and Y while they considered the question.
In your example: "And when hammer and nail, what happens just after hammer and just before nail?", they would be necessarily considering whether there was a relationship between X and Y
Phil: I think they would necessarily be exemplifying / running the pattern of / enacting the relationship - I am less convinced that necessarily they would be considering/noticing/exploring it - (consciously).
So their attention to X and to Y may have them wonder about the existence of a relationship by their attention being directed to hang around there for long enough (done repeatedly it may even end up suggesting it) - and if they are very taken with X or Y (distraction), say, or particularly NOT taken with any relationship between X and Y (denial), the question won't direct them to it. Which is very clean and totally fine by me, by the way.
"When hammer, what happens to nail?"
"Nothing"
Or even
"Nail that was straight is now bent."
Or
"When hammer, what's happening to nail?"
"Nothing"
Or even
"Nail that was straight is now bending." (we may assume the hammer is hitting it - and we don't know that from the client information - it may be a heavy hammer that has been hung on the nail, for example)
SO, we still need this or something like it:
"Is there a relationship between hammer and nail?"
"Well, I suppose someone could pick up the hammer and hit the nail with it"
James: I hope the above explains that I do not see the "When X, what happens to Y?" question as trying to get the same kind of information as Is there a relationship...?.
Perhaps what is needed is a different category title. I placed it in the relationship category because the facilitator refers to two parts of the Metaphor Landscape rather than one as is the norm as in most CLQ's. Any thoughts on a different category title?
Phil: I get it now. I was thinking of relationship in the narrower 'between' sense and I see that it works in the way you describe. I do wonder though if the relationship you describe is the perceiver's system's relationship rather than the perceived's system's relationship. Too many apostrophes - as ever I resort to example, no, I PREFER example.
Take the John Anderson song "Swingin'"
[I]There's a little girl in our neighborhood
Her name is Charlette Johnson and she's really lookin good
I had to go and see her, so I called her on the phone
I walked over to her house, and this was goin' on
Her brother was on the sofa eatin' chocolate pie
Her momma was in the kitchen cuttin' chicken up to fry
Her daddy was in the backyard rollin' up a garden hose
I was on the porch with Charlette feelin' love down to my toes
And we were swingin'..."
Copyright Almo Music Corp. (ASCAP)/ Polygram International Publishing, Inc./Foggy Jonz Music (ASCAP)
1 time, 4 spaces, 4 characters. Okay, 5 characters, however Charlette and the singer, engaged as they are "swingin' on the porch" can be regarded as one unit perhaps :-)
Now the characters in the song are of course related in space and time and blood as they are family and they are all in one narrative, one story.
If however these characters in their four contexts were all strangers to each other and were in different countries, engaged in similar local contexts and behaviours, it would be possible to say there is no relationship between them, at least of the interactive kind, so they are no longer a system.
We can say there is a relationship of time because of the simultaneity, however that is a perception, and hence a relationship, in our own systems as perceivers.
One distinction that can be drawn here is about whether the symbols are or can be aware of a relationship to another symbol. A woman cooking chicken and a man rolling up a hose will be aware of a relationship between them if they are connected (say married) and adjacent in time and space (say in the kitchen and the garden of the same house at tea time), by using their senses and their memories.
The same people doing similar things but NOT married and NOT adjacent in space will not be aware of any relationship.
It also makes me think of context, a temporal context. Not perhaps time stopped - more slowed right down. A moving snapshot, perhaps (as I've described before) like the Harry Potter ones, where the characters are waving and laughing but don't change or go anywhere. So the 'happening to/at X' is perceivable, and also the 'happening to/at Y'. David's early stuff about the '-ing' nature of T-1 comes to mind.
So from all that I am thinking about:
awareness by the symbol of relationship to other symbols;
perceiverR's relationships between perceiveD's symbols;
moving snapshot (a perceived quantum of time);
distraction in relation to attention (8th January Research Group...)
One I question I would like to try out is "What's happening between X and Y?"
James: I like the extension of 'between' from space and time to cause-effect, and possibly to personal relationships, if X and Y are people!Of course there is a huge presupposition that something is happening "between". Is there anything happening between X and Y? is cleaner (but probably harder to remember to ask!).
Phil: Yes - happening used like this sounds more grubby, more metaphorical somehow.
Here's a curious one: "When nail, what happens to hammer?" Sounds funny that way round - exposes our presuppositions about attributed functions of symbols.
James: This question may sound funny, but because of its unusualness would probably be a brilliant one to ask as it requests the client to consider the inverse of the normal cause-effect relationship between hammers and nails.
James
(PS. Written at 35000 feet above a magnificent totally white frozen Canadian Landscape).