For example, they may say: ‘. . .because you can get your teeth into it.’
This exercise makes a good suppertime game. And you can use it to find a metaphor to help you communicate a message in a more memorable way.
Applying metaphors to find new solutions
In his book Sleight of Mouth, Robert Dilts relates the story about a young man in a psychiatric ward suffering from the delusion that he’s Jesus Christ.
He spends his days unproductively, rambling around, annoying and being ignored by the other patients. All attempts by the psychiatrists and their aides fail to convince the man of his delusion.
One day, a new psychiatrist arrives on the scene. After observing the patient quietly for some time, he approaches the young man. ‘I understand that you have some experience as a carpenter,’ he says. ‘Well . . . yes, I guess I do,’
replies the patient. The psychiatrist explains to him that they’re building a new recreation room at the facility and need the help of someone with the skills of a carpenter. ‘We could sure use your assistance,’ says the psychiatrist,
‘that is, if you’re the type of person who likes to help others.’
And so the story ends well. The patient has been respected for his beliefs and becomes open to communicating with people once more. Now his therapeutic healing can begin.
In this story, the new psychiatrist connects with the client by working with his own metaphor of carpentry. The patient believes that he’s Jesus Christ, and so the psychiatrist accepts that and doesn’t attempt to contradict.
Instead, the psychiatrist works with the patient’s belief and adopts the same metaphor – Jesus the carpenter – to set the patient on the road to recovery.
Skilled therapists of all disciplines frequently work with the client’s own metaphors to help shift problems. In the same way, you can work with other people’s metaphors to aid communication in everyday conversation. For example:
✓ To convey bad news like project delays or job changes ✓ To calm down an anxious teenager facing exams ✓ To explain a complicated subject to a group of people ✓ To encourage confidence or courage in a young child
You can use word-play to defuse tension, through themes such as the weather and nature – moving from rain and storms to sunshine and calm, or comparing a challenging situation with climbing a mountain or crossing a river. Also, relating a message in terms of a friend’s favourite sports – golf, tennis, sailing, or football – can help elicit shifts in thinking.
As an example, when your colleague at work tells you that ‘this project is a real nightmare,’ you can gently drop words connected to sleep and dreaming into the conversation to gain more information or lead the person to a more positive state of thinking. So you may feed some of the following types of
Symbolic Modelling
James Lawley and Penny Tompkins, authors of Metaphors in Mind (2006, Developing Company Press) have developed a process called Symbolic Modelling. This process enhances the ability of those trained in NLP and other methods to work at a symbolic level with clients. ‘Metaphor is particularly valuable with those who find it difficult to describe what is happening for them because of trauma, lack of self-awareness or embarrassment,’ says James. ‘For example, in a business meeting, a senior leader may not want to say that he’s scared about the way the organisation is going.
However, by getting into the symbolic domain, he can readily admit that it’s “like a rough sea getting more turbulent”. This enables him to express his fears without exposing himself to judgement.’
Working with symbols and metaphors allows clients to feel more resourceful when dealing with challenging topics. As psychotherapists, Penny and James are experienced at working symbolically with clients who’ve been through severe trauma. Sometimes a client may find that speaking about the details of the event is too painful. ‘Working with clients’ personal metaphors,’ Penny says, ‘honours their unique experience and creates a context in which change can take place organically. This can happen because the Clean Language of David Grove prevents therapists from unwittingly adding to or changing a client’s symbolic experience.’
We provide the Clean Language question set in Chapter 18 and you can find more on Clean Language and Modelling in Chapter 19.
Permission from James Lawley and Penny Tompkins.
awake at night?’, ‘Are there some scary bits?’, ‘Perhaps people need to sleep on this for a while?’, ‘How would you like to get this put to bed?’, and ‘So in your wildest dreams, what would you see happening?’
Anthony is a therapist who works with clients with addictive behaviours. He told us:
I had a client who told me about the pleasure she derived from her drinking until it got out of control. Initially she described the delight of her favourite tipple – the anticipation and smell of the first glass, how appealing it looked in the bottle, beautifully packaged and presented. But as she went on to describe the feelings of helplessness as the addiction overtook her, the alcohol was transformed into an ugly spirit that haunted and frightened her. Over a period of time, we were able to work with her story, develop the plot and rework it to have a happier ending. She could then believe in a future where she could break free from the addiction that was overwhelming her life.
Employing direct and indirect metaphors
NLP distinguishes between direct and indirect types of metaphors:
✓ A direct metaphor compares one situation with another that has an obvious link in terms of the type of content. For example, it may compare learning a new computer software application with learning to drive: both are about learning.
✓ An indirect metaphor makes comparisons that aren’t immediately obvious.
For example, it may compare learning new computer software with cooking a meal or planning a holiday. Such indirect metaphors form the basis of the most creative advertising campaigns.
Building Your Own Stories
In her ‘Passion to Publication’ writing workshops, Kate encourages budding authors to create their own Origin Stories and then develop them into an article or book. These stories are the personal ones that have fired up the person’s passion for what they’re writing about and relate the times when the writer felt the extremes of emotion – from peaks of excitement to troughs of anxiety. As each person in the group shares a story, it inevitably fires up new stories for the other writers as they connect the writer’s experience with similar ones of their own. The most convincing writing tells compelling stories, just as the most compelling tales are those told from the heart.
Strong communicators recognise the power of story to achieve rapport more readily and entrance their audience – whether that is with one person or many. Indeed much therapeutic work depends on the narrative form of
communication. In this section, we gather together ideas for you to develop your own repertoire of stories and build your skills as an engaging storyteller.
Even if you never thought of yourself as a storyteller before, you can soon see how to capture your own story ideas and organise your thoughts for maximum effect.
Using the Personal Story Builder Journal
Everyday experiences can form the basis of your own compelling stories.
Here’s a way to capture and record storylines that you can adapt later.
1. Find a situation that generated an emotion: write the emotion down (was it joy, contentment, pride, fear, anger, shock, confusion, guilt, and so on?).