Richard
24-01-2004, 04:55 PM
THE PERCEIVERS
Metaphor and Clean Language Research Group, 30 November 2000.
Acknowledgements: These ideas were developed in the Metaphor and Clean language research group, 30 Nov 2000. Thanks also to Philip Harland for his valuable advice.
The way people perceive has implications for therapists and clients. I will consider how knowing more about perceiving informs us as therapists, as facilitators and in our everyday life. If the therapist is using `clean language', as described by Lawley and Tompkins, the work is, for the most part, using the client's perceptions.
Perceiving is something that I do all the time and, until recently, I had not thought twice about it. I belong to a metaphor and clean language research group and we spent some time considering `perceiving'. In a therapy session, the client and the facilitator each has their individual way of perceiving, of which some may be similar. The facilitator selects from the client's perceptions, those that will possibly help the client achieve their outcome. I find it useful to use the ideas about perceiving, that we discussed at the research group, and hope that there may be an opportunity for others to use them as well. I enjoy the greater breadth of experience that I have and, specifically with clients, there is more empathy. I am a doctor and worked in general practice. I found that using `clean language' to discover the client's perceptions took a little longer in the short term but was valuable, over time, when trying to provide the particular help needed for each individual. It is safer to consider the client's experiences using their own unique perceptions. This reduces the problems of transference and may reduce misunderstandings. The therapist's ideas and beliefs stay, as much as possible, with the therapist and don't interfere with the client's appreciation of their own things.
NLP suggests that if you don't like the world, as you perceive it, then you can change your perception of the world. A therapist or coach can help the client to perceive differently and Proust captures this idea of changing perceptions, in this quote, with reading of a book bringing about the new way of perceiving, in the following quotation. A therapist using `clean language' ensures that the client discovers their own things without bias from the therapist's own concerns.
? In reality, each reader reads only what is already within himself. The book is only a kind of optical instrument which the writer offers to the reader to enable him to discover in himself what he could not have found but for the aid of the book.? - Marcel Proust.
I will be considering perceivers from four perspectives.
How perceivers experience a perception for themselves.
When perceivers are communicating with others.
The act of perceiving in different ways.
Perceivers in the therapy setting.
1. How perceivers experience a perception for themselves
Perceptions include their perceivers. People perceive and, whenever they do this, their attributes influence what they perceive, at any instant in time. A person's attributes are the sort of person that they are. There are archetypal attributes as well as individual, personal ones. Archetypal attributes are the prototypes and the original models of our societies. Some archetypal attributes are:
parent/ child/ adult
demon/ maiden/ wise person
thinking/ feeling
big chunk/ small chunk
An example of how an individual can be influenced by archetypal attributes is my perception of a `cat'. As a child, I perceive a soft, lively, interesting `cat'. As an adult, there is a soft, lively `cat' that needs regular feeding, litter trays and visits to the vet. One of my personal attributes that affects my perceptions is that I like the taste of chocolate. Seeing, smelling and tasting chocolate is a perception, for me, which includes pleasure. For others, who dislike chocolate or are forbidden to eat it, the perception of chocolate is not simply `pleasure'.
The process of perceiving may be represented as a constellation of filters applied to the information taken in. As with attributes, some filters are common to many people and others are individual. Information is brought into awareness to create ? reality?. The filters allow us to choose and select the perceptions that we want. In a therapy situation, `clean language' helps the facilitator to stay with the client's meaning of the world and avoids guessing and interpreting about the filters that are operating for the client. I used to work as a Doctor in General Practice. I used my filters to assess the situation and hoped that this was, at least, some help for the client, who perceived the world using different filters from my own. When I use `clean language' the client does not need to connect or adjust to my perceptions as we are working with their world perceived with their filters and acknowledging their attributes. Since using `clean language', my clients have achieved their outcomes in fewer sessions
2. When perceivers are communicating with others
When communicating with another person: where am I perceiving from, which filters are involved and what form does the perception take?
Where.
NLP recognises three basic perceptual positions:
1st from the perceiver's position and perspective,
2nd from the other person's and
3rd overall to the communication between them.
Body language may sometimes be a clue to where the other person is perceiving from.
The perceiver sometimes moves slightly when considering 2nd or 3rd perceptual positions from the position used for 1st position. The positions of their body are likely to be consistent, during one particular therapy session, for the 3 perceptual positions. The client perhaps moves back in their chair when perceiving from second position and could tilt their head up for third position and takes up the appropriate body position during the exploration of their world, with wider appreciation of their perceptions.
Filters.
The therapist may attempt to perceive from the client's position using their perception of the client's filters and from the client's position using their own filters. The intensity and quality of the perception can vary in different perceptual positions due to the filters that are operating at that moment. For example, feet perceived by a chiropodist may differ from the perception of feet by a therapist. A chiropodist may see feet that have muscle imbalance with the arch support. A therapist may see the same feet with sore places on the toes. The particular words and phrases chosen affect communication because of the filters that we are using. NLP and Ericksonian teachings show different ways that words may impact on perception.
Filters and consciousness
Some perceptions are subliminal; filtered out of conscious perception and accepted by unconscious perception. Non verbal communication is often subliminal. Hence the quality and quantity of communication varies between email, answer machine, telephone and face to face. When perceivers are physically close they can use all forms of perception and there is the potential for rich and varied communication. However the conscious and unconscious filters in use can limit perceptions. The clothes that a person is wearing can affect the result of a job interview. A clearer exchange of information could come from an answer machine, telephone conservation or E-mail when the person's funky outfit is not seen.
Filters and physical, mental and spiritual states.
When I am healthy and newly in love I perceive a different world from the world that exists for me in bed with `flu. People with multiple personality disorder or manic depression perceive very different internal and external worlds at different times. Cultural norms are filters. In western cultures perceptual positions are coded grammatically for example in ?I am, you are, he is?. Whereas some African cultures tend to have a more encompassing ?we?, a whole village's rather than an individual's experience. Western perceivers usually perceive from their heads. I realise that this a sweeping generalisation, however academic achievements are important in Western `paternal' states. English educators and employers are often perceiving with their heads rather than using gut reactions and the importance of feelings. In ancient Greek civilisations, perception came from the trunk rather than the head.
Forms
The forms of perception are visual, auditory, kinaesthetic and olfactory. Communicating perceiving is done with language, music, visual art and with touch illustrating how these forms are involved. These forms all contribute to the perception. In a therapy session, a client may describe an argument with their partner when there were raised voices, gesturing hands and arms and feelings of fright and despair. The therapist, using clean language, can explore this perception. There are thresholds between the parts that are seen, heard and felt although the boundaries are fuzzy. The gesturing hands may be seen, felt and heard and results in a vivid perception. There are also thresholds between perceptual positions, that were mentioned in the section on where the perception is occurring. Separating the forms of perception and the perceptual positions, with the thresholds between them, helps to consider the experience in parts as well as in its entirety.
3. The act of perceiving in different ways
People have multiple simultaneous perceptions and select from these to perceive the world at any moment in time. The selection is partly unconscious and partly conscious. For example, I decide what I want to concentrate on at any particular moment in time. If I am facilitating a client, I am directing my attention on the individual and their outcome. If the fire alarm goes off, my perception of the situation suddenly changes.
We perceive ourselves as having a place in the universe with a role, an intention, at a certain time, and all of these in turn affect our perceiving. A diagram of perceiving may be represented as:
Environment ----------------How ------------------ Who
Object ----------------- connection between -------- subject
Observed -------------- relationship with ----------- observer
Attended to ------------ relation to ------------------- attender
Perceived --------------------------------------------- perceiver
When/ where ,Intention/ belief.
In this schema We implies individuals with beliefs, ourselves is who, a place is where, the universe is environment, role is how, intention is intention and time is when.
I can imagine a perception such as a picture, a feeling or a sound. To see how this occurs, take the situation where I strike a match to light the gas. I may imagine what might happen if I drop the lighted match into a bin of waste paper and decide to blow out the match first. Some agoraphobic clients restrict their lives severely with imagined perceptions such as being trapped underground in a tube train.
I can perceive
?what is there? ? what is not there?
and ? the part in between?
I can perceive the inside of the tube train and myself sitting on a seat, ?what is there?. I can perceive, in my imagination, that there may be an explosion in the station blocking my exit from the underground system, which ? is not there?. ?The part in between? includes the feelings that I experience, such as confidence that I will complete my journey safely in the usual manner, which is unconscious most of the time.
Time is part of perceiving. We can perceive multiple things simultaneously, sequentially or grades of fuzziness between these.
4. Perceivers in the therapy setting
Communicating perceiving can be using language, music, kinaesthetically with touch or with visual art. Therapy settings usually involve speech, and can use writing, sound and diagrams and pictures. Each medium limits and constrains. With each there is a spectrum of attention, of the facilitator and the client, represented in various ways.
one/ many
single/ multiple
whole/ part
central/ peripheral
broad/ narrow
diffuse/ concentrate.
The therapist, who is aware of these different ways, can, with clean language, direct the client's attention to less familiar areas where they can make progress towards their outcome.
Changing across the spectrum can be:
switching
moving to
transitioning
shifting.
Clients with painful, difficult material sometimes achieve their desire with a switching from, for example, seeing their forthcoming aeroplane flight in monochrome rather
than full technicolour. Other times the gentle moving towards is the better way.
Appreciation of the NLP logical levels of environment, behaviour, capability, belief, identity, and spiritual help the therapist to perceive the client's `world'.
Conclusion
During a consultation a client may say ? Something has just happened; I see it differently. I haven't perceived this in this way before. I feel different?.
The therapist and the client have worked together and there is a new perception. If this new perception is helpful, therapist and client can develop and use it. This new perception can be considered using the ideas that I have described above:
Is the client using a wider range of their attributes? See in section 1.
Where is the client perceiving from and what form is it taking? Section 2.
Are filters modifying? Section 2.
Is ?it? there, not there or somewhere in between? Section 3.
Is a time element involved? Section 3.
Is there a physical, mental, spiritual or logical level change? Section 4.
We are perceiving beings from before birth until we die. Modifying perception is part of the interaction for both therapist and client. Many find it easier to modify perception in symbolic form rather than their familiar unproductive patterns. Symbolic modelling using clean language is a form of therapy that helps clients realise what they want to have happen as perceivers of their own process.
Metaphor and Clean Language Research Group, 30 November 2000.
Acknowledgements: These ideas were developed in the Metaphor and Clean language research group, 30 Nov 2000. Thanks also to Philip Harland for his valuable advice.
The way people perceive has implications for therapists and clients. I will consider how knowing more about perceiving informs us as therapists, as facilitators and in our everyday life. If the therapist is using `clean language', as described by Lawley and Tompkins, the work is, for the most part, using the client's perceptions.
Perceiving is something that I do all the time and, until recently, I had not thought twice about it. I belong to a metaphor and clean language research group and we spent some time considering `perceiving'. In a therapy session, the client and the facilitator each has their individual way of perceiving, of which some may be similar. The facilitator selects from the client's perceptions, those that will possibly help the client achieve their outcome. I find it useful to use the ideas about perceiving, that we discussed at the research group, and hope that there may be an opportunity for others to use them as well. I enjoy the greater breadth of experience that I have and, specifically with clients, there is more empathy. I am a doctor and worked in general practice. I found that using `clean language' to discover the client's perceptions took a little longer in the short term but was valuable, over time, when trying to provide the particular help needed for each individual. It is safer to consider the client's experiences using their own unique perceptions. This reduces the problems of transference and may reduce misunderstandings. The therapist's ideas and beliefs stay, as much as possible, with the therapist and don't interfere with the client's appreciation of their own things.
NLP suggests that if you don't like the world, as you perceive it, then you can change your perception of the world. A therapist or coach can help the client to perceive differently and Proust captures this idea of changing perceptions, in this quote, with reading of a book bringing about the new way of perceiving, in the following quotation. A therapist using `clean language' ensures that the client discovers their own things without bias from the therapist's own concerns.
? In reality, each reader reads only what is already within himself. The book is only a kind of optical instrument which the writer offers to the reader to enable him to discover in himself what he could not have found but for the aid of the book.? - Marcel Proust.
I will be considering perceivers from four perspectives.
How perceivers experience a perception for themselves.
When perceivers are communicating with others.
The act of perceiving in different ways.
Perceivers in the therapy setting.
1. How perceivers experience a perception for themselves
Perceptions include their perceivers. People perceive and, whenever they do this, their attributes influence what they perceive, at any instant in time. A person's attributes are the sort of person that they are. There are archetypal attributes as well as individual, personal ones. Archetypal attributes are the prototypes and the original models of our societies. Some archetypal attributes are:
parent/ child/ adult
demon/ maiden/ wise person
thinking/ feeling
big chunk/ small chunk
An example of how an individual can be influenced by archetypal attributes is my perception of a `cat'. As a child, I perceive a soft, lively, interesting `cat'. As an adult, there is a soft, lively `cat' that needs regular feeding, litter trays and visits to the vet. One of my personal attributes that affects my perceptions is that I like the taste of chocolate. Seeing, smelling and tasting chocolate is a perception, for me, which includes pleasure. For others, who dislike chocolate or are forbidden to eat it, the perception of chocolate is not simply `pleasure'.
The process of perceiving may be represented as a constellation of filters applied to the information taken in. As with attributes, some filters are common to many people and others are individual. Information is brought into awareness to create ? reality?. The filters allow us to choose and select the perceptions that we want. In a therapy situation, `clean language' helps the facilitator to stay with the client's meaning of the world and avoids guessing and interpreting about the filters that are operating for the client. I used to work as a Doctor in General Practice. I used my filters to assess the situation and hoped that this was, at least, some help for the client, who perceived the world using different filters from my own. When I use `clean language' the client does not need to connect or adjust to my perceptions as we are working with their world perceived with their filters and acknowledging their attributes. Since using `clean language', my clients have achieved their outcomes in fewer sessions
2. When perceivers are communicating with others
When communicating with another person: where am I perceiving from, which filters are involved and what form does the perception take?
Where.
NLP recognises three basic perceptual positions:
1st from the perceiver's position and perspective,
2nd from the other person's and
3rd overall to the communication between them.
Body language may sometimes be a clue to where the other person is perceiving from.
The perceiver sometimes moves slightly when considering 2nd or 3rd perceptual positions from the position used for 1st position. The positions of their body are likely to be consistent, during one particular therapy session, for the 3 perceptual positions. The client perhaps moves back in their chair when perceiving from second position and could tilt their head up for third position and takes up the appropriate body position during the exploration of their world, with wider appreciation of their perceptions.
Filters.
The therapist may attempt to perceive from the client's position using their perception of the client's filters and from the client's position using their own filters. The intensity and quality of the perception can vary in different perceptual positions due to the filters that are operating at that moment. For example, feet perceived by a chiropodist may differ from the perception of feet by a therapist. A chiropodist may see feet that have muscle imbalance with the arch support. A therapist may see the same feet with sore places on the toes. The particular words and phrases chosen affect communication because of the filters that we are using. NLP and Ericksonian teachings show different ways that words may impact on perception.
Filters and consciousness
Some perceptions are subliminal; filtered out of conscious perception and accepted by unconscious perception. Non verbal communication is often subliminal. Hence the quality and quantity of communication varies between email, answer machine, telephone and face to face. When perceivers are physically close they can use all forms of perception and there is the potential for rich and varied communication. However the conscious and unconscious filters in use can limit perceptions. The clothes that a person is wearing can affect the result of a job interview. A clearer exchange of information could come from an answer machine, telephone conservation or E-mail when the person's funky outfit is not seen.
Filters and physical, mental and spiritual states.
When I am healthy and newly in love I perceive a different world from the world that exists for me in bed with `flu. People with multiple personality disorder or manic depression perceive very different internal and external worlds at different times. Cultural norms are filters. In western cultures perceptual positions are coded grammatically for example in ?I am, you are, he is?. Whereas some African cultures tend to have a more encompassing ?we?, a whole village's rather than an individual's experience. Western perceivers usually perceive from their heads. I realise that this a sweeping generalisation, however academic achievements are important in Western `paternal' states. English educators and employers are often perceiving with their heads rather than using gut reactions and the importance of feelings. In ancient Greek civilisations, perception came from the trunk rather than the head.
Forms
The forms of perception are visual, auditory, kinaesthetic and olfactory. Communicating perceiving is done with language, music, visual art and with touch illustrating how these forms are involved. These forms all contribute to the perception. In a therapy session, a client may describe an argument with their partner when there were raised voices, gesturing hands and arms and feelings of fright and despair. The therapist, using clean language, can explore this perception. There are thresholds between the parts that are seen, heard and felt although the boundaries are fuzzy. The gesturing hands may be seen, felt and heard and results in a vivid perception. There are also thresholds between perceptual positions, that were mentioned in the section on where the perception is occurring. Separating the forms of perception and the perceptual positions, with the thresholds between them, helps to consider the experience in parts as well as in its entirety.
3. The act of perceiving in different ways
People have multiple simultaneous perceptions and select from these to perceive the world at any moment in time. The selection is partly unconscious and partly conscious. For example, I decide what I want to concentrate on at any particular moment in time. If I am facilitating a client, I am directing my attention on the individual and their outcome. If the fire alarm goes off, my perception of the situation suddenly changes.
We perceive ourselves as having a place in the universe with a role, an intention, at a certain time, and all of these in turn affect our perceiving. A diagram of perceiving may be represented as:
Environment ----------------How ------------------ Who
Object ----------------- connection between -------- subject
Observed -------------- relationship with ----------- observer
Attended to ------------ relation to ------------------- attender
Perceived --------------------------------------------- perceiver
When/ where ,Intention/ belief.
In this schema We implies individuals with beliefs, ourselves is who, a place is where, the universe is environment, role is how, intention is intention and time is when.
I can imagine a perception such as a picture, a feeling or a sound. To see how this occurs, take the situation where I strike a match to light the gas. I may imagine what might happen if I drop the lighted match into a bin of waste paper and decide to blow out the match first. Some agoraphobic clients restrict their lives severely with imagined perceptions such as being trapped underground in a tube train.
I can perceive
?what is there? ? what is not there?
and ? the part in between?
I can perceive the inside of the tube train and myself sitting on a seat, ?what is there?. I can perceive, in my imagination, that there may be an explosion in the station blocking my exit from the underground system, which ? is not there?. ?The part in between? includes the feelings that I experience, such as confidence that I will complete my journey safely in the usual manner, which is unconscious most of the time.
Time is part of perceiving. We can perceive multiple things simultaneously, sequentially or grades of fuzziness between these.
4. Perceivers in the therapy setting
Communicating perceiving can be using language, music, kinaesthetically with touch or with visual art. Therapy settings usually involve speech, and can use writing, sound and diagrams and pictures. Each medium limits and constrains. With each there is a spectrum of attention, of the facilitator and the client, represented in various ways.
one/ many
single/ multiple
whole/ part
central/ peripheral
broad/ narrow
diffuse/ concentrate.
The therapist, who is aware of these different ways, can, with clean language, direct the client's attention to less familiar areas where they can make progress towards their outcome.
Changing across the spectrum can be:
switching
moving to
transitioning
shifting.
Clients with painful, difficult material sometimes achieve their desire with a switching from, for example, seeing their forthcoming aeroplane flight in monochrome rather
than full technicolour. Other times the gentle moving towards is the better way.
Appreciation of the NLP logical levels of environment, behaviour, capability, belief, identity, and spiritual help the therapist to perceive the client's `world'.
Conclusion
During a consultation a client may say ? Something has just happened; I see it differently. I haven't perceived this in this way before. I feel different?.
The therapist and the client have worked together and there is a new perception. If this new perception is helpful, therapist and client can develop and use it. This new perception can be considered using the ideas that I have described above:
Is the client using a wider range of their attributes? See in section 1.
Where is the client perceiving from and what form is it taking? Section 2.
Are filters modifying? Section 2.
Is ?it? there, not there or somewhere in between? Section 3.
Is a time element involved? Section 3.
Is there a physical, mental, spiritual or logical level change? Section 4.
We are perceiving beings from before birth until we die. Modifying perception is part of the interaction for both therapist and client. Many find it easier to modify perception in symbolic form rather than their familiar unproductive patterns. Symbolic modelling using clean language is a form of therapy that helps clients realise what they want to have happen as perceivers of their own process.