Logical levels (2)
The second stage of the Logical Levels of Therapy involves taking a strategy that has yielded less than positive results for a person and making changes to that strategy, so that it yields results which are more supportive of that person's goals. In this stage the process begins the shift from pacing current experience to leading in the direction of new experiences and new behavioural choices.
The first stage, the strategy elicitation , required the person to be fully associated in the experience i.e. seeing through their own eyes what they saw at the time they were running the strategy, feeling what they felt, hearing what they heard etc.
The second stage requires the person to disassociate from the experience and, basically, to run through the experience as an outside observer. A useful question to ask to achieve this is:-
' Can you teach me how to X? '
' Imagine I was going to take your place for a day - can you teach me how to X so that I can do it in exactly the same way? Because I wouldn't want to forget about this problem. '
In order to answer this question the person has to disassociate from the experience and, at the same time, they are also recognised and validated as the expert on this subject.
Identifying this strategy as something which can be taught further reinforces the idea that it is a sequence this person has learned to run, rather than something which happens to them, and if it can be learned it can also be un -learned.
Hypnotic language patterns can also be integrated by emphasising key phrases, using a slightly lowered voice tone, while subtly nodding the head to subconsciously affirm that statement and elicit agreement.
Run through the strategy step by step just as it was elicited earlier but this time you adopt the role of the 'pupil' learning how to run the strategy i.e.:-
' What's the first thing that has to happen that lets me know it's time to X? Do I hear something, see something, feel something, say something to myself? etc.. etc. '
' What should I do next? etc. etc. '
For each step in the strategy purposely mis-match the key sensory modality using an example which is the polar opposite of the experience that the person running the strategy would usually have.
For example, let's say that at the second step of the strategy the person says to themselves ' Oh no, this is going to be really scary '. Even if they say this silently to themselves in their own mind there will be certain submodalities associated with the voice that they 'hear'. Let's assume that the voice is a low pitched rumble, the kind that might invoke fear - your response could be:-
' So I have to say to myself 'Oh no, this is going to be really scary'. And what voice should I say that in? Is it a really high pitched voice like Mickey Mouse? '
It's important to actually demonstrate each action in the way you describe it i.e. you would actually say the above words using a high pitched voice like Mickey Mouse (or as near as you can get to it).
If that sounds like a silly idea then that's great - anything which shakes the person's model of the world and gets them thinking about behaving in different ways fits exactly with the purpose of this method.
It is vitally important to maintain rapport with the other person throughout this process. In the absence of a strong rapport the person you're working with may lose trust in the process or may feel that you are treating their behaviours as a subject of fun.
Make sure the behavioural examples that you offer for each step of the strategy are (within safe, sensible and ecological boundaries) extreme polar opposites of those described by the person whose strategy you wish to change. This is fundamental to assisting this person to stretch their world model sufficiently by forcing them to consider behaviours radically different to those they are used to.