Symbolic modeling is a powerful coaching modality that utilizes the client’s personal metaphors to create lasting change. It was developed by James Lawley and Penny Tomkins based on the work of David Grove.
At its heart, Symbolic modeling keeps the coach’s judgments out of the client’s metaphorical map of experience, using a series of so-called ‘clean’ questions. During a coaching session using Symbolic modeling, the coach uses only these clean questions so as to provide the greatest amount of space for the client to create change.
The process may look like this:
Coach: What do you want to work through today?
Client: I have so much stress it feels like a vice.
Coach: And when it feels like a vice, where is vice?
Client: It feels like it’s right here (motions to chest).
Coach: Is that inside or outside?
Client: Inside.
Coach: And when vice that is inside, what type of vice is that?
Client: It’s tight.
Coach: And when vice is inside, and tight, is there anything else about that?
Client: No.
Coach: And what needs to happen to vice?
Client: It needs to fall away.
Coach: And can that happen?
Client: No.
Coach: What needs to happen for vice to fall away?
Client: The screws need to come loose.
Coach: What needs to happen for screws to come loose?
Client: I need to relax.
Coach: And when you relax, where is relax?
Client: It is all over.
Coach: And when relax that is all over, what kind of relax is that?
Client: It is peaceful.
Coach: And when you have relaxed that is all over and it is peaceful,
what happens to vice?.
Client: It is gone.
This is a brief example of a classic Symbolic Modeling coaching session. This type of coaching can be incredibly powerful, although it can be a somewhat lengthy process. As you can see from the above segment, the coach’s only job is to walk the client through his own metaphoric experience by asking open questions. Later in this chapter we will learn how to use this same approach as the means of Deep Trance Identification. This type of language is a profound method of building states and internal landscapes.
Metaphors
Metaphors are an important part of life. We learn through metaphors and communicate through metaphors. A large part of the human experience is connected to metaphors. This is more than evident when a new client comes into the office. He will talk about problems using phrases like:
“I’m stuck,” or, “I have a barrier in my way.”
Clients will also use metaphors in their gestures. Next time you are speaking with someone about a problem, or a resourceful state, pay attention to the gestures he uses for a problem, verses his gestures for the resource. You will notice some very interesting things. Although he may not describe the precise metaphor his unconscious mind is using, he will show it to you in gestures.
Even problems are metaphors. Think about nominalizations, ideas that are mistakenly made into nouns, as if we could push a wheelbarrow of anxiety or even happiness around the office. Words like anxiety are types of metaphor.
Clients will create stories around those metaphors. For example, I (Jess) had a client recently gesture, as if he was holding a box, each time he described his problem. Each and every time he would speak about the problem he made the same exact gesture in the same space. It was as if he was physically holding on to the existence of the problem.
One of the ways a client keeps a problem in place is through the creation of his ‘story’. By this we mean the client finds it important to tell his story around the problem, and the causes of the problem.
A client affected by a trauma may be using the story of his survival as a means of holding a specific issue in place. For example, a client who had been in a car accident may now feel tremendous anxiety over driving. He tells his story of survival over and over again, refusing to give up the feelings associated with it, as if he fears he will lose the story. Each time he tells the story, he is strengthening the neural networks associated with anxiety. As you can see, the use of metaphors in a story is vital to experiencing problems. Transforming these metaphors is vital to finding event solutions. to them.
If clients can use these metaphors to hold problems in place, we can use new metaphors to begin dissociating them from the issue, and transforming the problem. In fact, you can think of deep trance
identification as being the construction of a new solution oriented metaphor that the client can experience from the inside out. For example, in the chapter on superheroes we explored how those particular metaphors can be used, knowing any model the client chooses can become a resourceful metaphor for him.
Clean Questions
In the traditional approach to Symbolic modeling, these metaphors are brought out through a series of questions. These questions allow for the maximum amount of space so the client can explore the issue in a metaphoric environment or context. Symbolic modeling itself creates a dissociation, wherein the client is able to interact with different pieces of the issue in an imaginative landscape, where he can interact with his metaphors, and his various metaphors can interact with each other.
In a clean session a coach will use the following ‘clean’ questions (as well as other, less common questions):
And when X, that is X like… what?
And when X, what kind of X is that?
And when X, where is X?
Is there anything else about X?
What happens next?
What happens just before?
What is the relationship between X and Y?
What do you want to have happen?
What needs to happen?
Can that happen?
How Symbolic Modeling works
The opening question, “That’s…like what?” invites the unconscious mind to begin to construct a metaphor that dissociates the client from the problem. Saying one thing is ‘like’ another invites a metaphor to be created. It is an invitation to the unconscious mind to come out and play.
During this type of coaching session the coach elicits the metaphors for the problem, as well as the metaphors for the resource, solution or outcome, and then begins to piece them together.
Linking problem and resource in Symbolic Modeling is done by asking about relationships, about what needs to happen, and whether that necessary metaphoric event can indeed happen. These questions connect the problem state with the solution state through symbolic steps and processes; so that change can happen easily. Once the problem and resource, or solution, is linked within the metaphor, the unconscious mind has a roadmap for change.
Symbolic Modeling and Therapeutic DTI
We can use Symbolic Modeling as a means of Deep Trance Identification in a way that creates a uniquely therapeutic experience for the modeler. If you're using DTI for therapeutic change this allows a unique type of dissociation.
Having chosen the model as the resource needed for changing the problem, the problem and model are already linked within the modeler’s unconscious. Then all that is required is to build the metaphor linking the two. Through the use of the main questions listed above, the modeler will use his model as the metaphoric representation to counter the problem. In other words they can associate into the resource (the model) before even interacting with the metaphor for the problem, within the metaphoric landscape.
Using clean questions, the hypnotist can help the client build a highly detailed sensory environment in which the client becomes responsible for the metaphoric change, which then maps across onto real life.
In a traditional Symbolic Modeling session the client's unconscious mind may create metaphors that have subtle resources attached to them. For example, a client could describe the resource as being like a blue cloud. A blue cloud could mean many things to the client. In terms of therapeutic value, clouds are soft, amorphous, can fly high above, and can bring life through the rain that falls from them.
Combining DTI with Symbolic modeling allows for a much more obvious yet unconsciously powerful metaphor. The client’s model will have resources linked specifically to him. What's more, the fact that the client has chosen this model means that at some level the unconscious mind has identified skill sets useful in achieving this change.
Symbolic Modeling and Generative DTI
If we are doing a more generative DTI, clean questions offer the widest range of possibilities to the subject, in terms of experience, because the hypnotist is not leading. The modeler’s unconscious mind is encouraged to fully engage with the process, by creating all of the details of the sensory experience.
The unconscious mind designs everything from the landscape, to the sounds, to the emotions, the feelings, the values, and everything else the modeler experiences as the model. This also increases the enjoyment of the modeling process because the modeler can fully associate into the model and simply relish the experience!
The Symbolic Modeling approach uses the modeler’s unconscious mind for the greatest amount of flexibility in terms of experience. As hypnotist, you will guide the subject with a particular set of questions, however your primary role is to lead him to engage more fully with the metaphoric environment he is constructing.
This approach may be done as part of an in-depth modeling project, utilizing the protocol highlighted in this book. In this case, the Symbolic modeling portion is carried out when the modeler is inside each of the events of the Event Matrix.
It can also be used as part of a rapid DTI by jumping right into a Symbolic Modeling exercise. In the next section we’ll present you with a transcript of a DTI with Spiderman, utilizing the Symbolic modeling approach. There is no formal trance induction needed. Symbolic Modeling tends to create deep trances automatically, because it requires the modeler to associate deeply into the experience in order to answer the questions.
The example below is an excerpt from a DTI session in which the modeler is using DTI as a means of therapeutic change. His desired outcome is to feel more resourceful in speaking to an audience. The modeler—being adept at deep trance—decided to keep the content private, trusting the unconscious mind would create the desired change.
Coach: So who are we modeling?
Modeler: Spiderman.
Coach: Spiderman. And when you are Spiderman what kind of man is Spiderman?
Modeler: Flexible.
Coach: He’s flexible. And when you are Spiderman what kind of man are you?
Modeler: Flexible.
Coach: Flexible. And when you're flexible what kind of flexible is that?
Modeler: It is a type of flexibility that gives greater freedom.
Coach: And where is flexibility, when it gives greater freedom?
Modeler: It is inside.
Coach: It’s inside, and whereabouts inside is flexibility that gives greater freedom?
Modeler: It's both physical and mental.
Coach: And when it’s physical and mental, where is physical flexibility?
Modeler: All over.
Coach: All over. And when there's flexibility inside and it's mental, where is mental flexibility?
Modeler: It is like space in my mind
Coach: It's like space in your mind. And when there's space in your mind whereabouts is space in your mind?
Modeler: In the center.
Coach: In the center. So there's physical flexibility, which is all over inside, and there's mental flexibility which is a space in your mind in the center. And when there's Spiderman and flexibility is there anything else about Spiderman?
Modeler: Courage
Coach: Courage. So there's Spiderman and physical flexibility that's inside everywhere, and mental flexibility at the space in the center of your mind. And there’s courage, and when there's courage what kind of courage is that?
Modeler: It is the kind that…Trusts.… that when Spiderman jumps off the building he is going to have a web to swing from.
Coach: Its courage that trusts…That when Spidey jumps off the building, he has a web to swing from. And when it's courage that trusts, where is courage that trusts?
Modeler: It is inside
Coach: Courage is inside and when it's inside whereabouts inside?
Modeler: It is in the head and the heart.
Coach: And when it is in the head and the heart, what is the relationship between courage that's in the head, and flexibility that’s in the head?
Modeler: If I have one, I have the other.
Coach: If you have one then you have the other. So if you have flexibility that is the space in the center, then you have the courage to trust, and when you have the courage to trust you have the flexibility that's the space in the center.
When you have the courage to trust, that's right (modeler closes eyes and dropped deeper into trance) in the heart. whereabouts in the heart?
Modeler: It's in the center.
Coach: It’s in the center and when it's in the heart and it's in the center, is there a size or shape of courage in the heart?
Modeler: It's like a seed.
Coach: A seed. Is there a color of the seed?
Modeler: Gold
Coach: It's like a seed in your heart in the center and it’s gold…
For brevity we have excluded the rest of the transcript as it continues for some time. Symbolic Modeling, as a therapeutic strategy, may take a full session or even multiple sessions. Although not as rapid as some other approaches, it can create a tremendously powerful, life-changing experience for the client. The rest of this particular session resulted in the symbol for the problem; being completely absent from the metaphoric landscape where the client builds a tremendous resource state.
In a traditional approach to Symbolic modeling, the coach may wait for the client to unconsciously provide the metaphor for the problem or desired state. Or we may begin the process by asking the question: “And (state) is like…what?” The same holds true for its use in DTI. The client may give you the model as a metaphor. For example, they could say something like, “I want to be confident like James Bond.” A statement like this is an excellent spring-board into an instant DTI. This is also a wonderful strategy as part of a long-term modeling project. If the client has the model in Mind, as in the example above, then you can begin immediately with the clean questions listed above.
The thing to keep in mind here is that the questions lead the client’s unconscious mind to build the landscape. We are creating a neural network from the resource back to the issue.
As you will notice in the transcript above, the hypnotist continuously repeats back to the client the chain of symbols the client provides. This may sound odd, but it helps tremendously to stabilize the experience and keep it active in the resourceful neural network. In fact the number of repetitions actually used has been edited down for brevity. As you go through the process of DTI, remember to always repeat the client’s symbolic word-chain before each new question. As you do this the client
will associate more fully into the experience. It also makes it easier for you as the hypnotist to remember and track where the client is in the process.
Unlike most of the other DTI processes, Symbolic modeling DTI does not contain a step-by-step process. Instead it relies on your curiosity and intuition as a coach. Through the process you can continuously loop through the various questions to build the metaphoric landscape and help the modeler create new neural networks.
If you're using this as a therapeutic tool you'll begin with the resource and build the chain back to the problem state. If you're using this as a generative process, you can build the experience and then use the same questions to make links to specific contexts in which the modeler wants to be more like the model.
Conclusion
When we use Symbolic modeling in coaching sessions, whether it's for DTI or other purposes, we may not always go through the entire process. The clean questions themselves are useful tools in helping a client dissociate from problem states, and associate into resource states. Feel free to use these questions in any way if they can help the modeler associate more fully into the model. For some sessions this may mean that the entire session consists of this approach. Or it may be that at some time, while working with the modeler, these questions and the metaphoric approach became a valuable tool to quickly and easily anchor a state or experience.