4.33 Covert Anchoring and Pacing.
Because consciousness is a limited phenomenon, there will be times when you are pacing and anchoring an individual or group overtly, within their conscious awareness, and times when you are doing it covertly, outside their span of awareness (and sometimes your own).
In overt utilization the programmer paces by making sure the client is consciously experiencing each step that he and the programmer are going through. The programmer makes them aware of the steps in their strategy and shows them how to utilize the representational sequences to achieve new behaviors.
Covert utilization involves pacing and anchoring which are performed completely or partly outside of the client's conscious attention. This type of situation tends to occur the most often naturally during utilization because it is difficult (and often a hindrance) for an individual to be consciously aware of all of the steps in their strategies — particularly if these steps have reached the level of an unconscious TOTE. Covert pacing and anchoring often lead to the most effective results because the strategy is allowed to remain an unconscious TOTE, where it is able to function more readily and swiftly without conscious interference.
Most covert work will usually take place through the client's least conscious representational system(s). That is, through the sensory channels that the person is least aware of.
Covert anchoring is something that many people have to practice to be comfortable with. Beginners often experience themselves as being "manipulative" when they first start anchoring covertly. This results in breaking their rapport with the client (the client picks up on the programmer's discomfort) and reduces the effectiveness of their work.
A good example of covert anchoring that you may wish to practice can be drawn from a demonstration that we occasionally present in our workshops. In the demonstration a subject is asked to recall a number of instances in which he has forgotten something. For instance, we may ask the following series of questions:
Can you think of a time you forgot someone's name? What was that experience like?
Can you think of what it's like to have something important right on the tip of your tongue but not be able to get it out?
What is it like when you know that you know something but just can't remember what it is?
As we observe the subject's facial expression, skin color, breathing, and tonal and tempo changes as their 4–tuples for "forgetting" come up, one of us will anchor each of them with a clearing of the throat (an Ae anchor to which most people pay no conscious attention). Eventually, the subject is asked to remember something that should be readily available to him — such as his telephone number, his mother's first name, or to repeat what they just finished saying. As soon as the question is asked, however, one of us will clear his throat, triggering the strategy for forgetting. The subject will often experience an unusual and convincing amount of difficulty in the recall task. If one of us keeps clearing his throat, the individual may be unable to recall the information for extended periods of time.
In one workshop one of the authors noticed that a participant had a primarily auditory recall strategy. She was asked to recall a song that she was particularly fond of, which she did easily and readily. The author anchored the song with a finger gesture (subtly moving the finger as if directing an orchestra). Because the woman was tuning in to her internal auditory system her external visual experience was outside her awareness. The woman was then asked what her home address was. She quickly supplied the answer. Immediately after she finished saying her address she was asked to repeat it. This time, however, the author fired off the anchor for the song. For a full thirty seconds the woman could not answer the question — until the music stopped. She was very confused at what caused the difficulty, even though she knew it had something to do with the song. The process was repeated several times for other simple tasks, such as remembering her phone number, children's names, etc., until she was finally made aware of the visual anchor.
Demonstrations like these often bring up the question of the negative aspects of manipulation: an important issue. We, of course, urge you to use your full discretion in using and applying the information we are providing in this book. We want to remind you, however, that these utilizations are influence tactics and do not magically "make" people do things — especially things that they don't want to do. As Milton H. Erickson, M.D., (one of the persons from whom this model was derived) said, "If I could make people do things that they didn't want to do, there would be a lot more well people in this world today."
We suggest you keep in mind that the events and procedures we are describing here are constantly occurring all the time in our everyday lives. Most people just aren't aware of them. An excellent example of this can be seen in a film about Carl Rogers, a man who epitomizes non–manipulative, client–centered therapy. In one portion of the film Rogers is "feeding back" to the client a statement that she made of a conflict she was having (we will refer to the two aspects of the conflict as X and Y). Paraphrased, the interaction goes something like this:
Rogers: I understand you have this choice X (gestures with left hand) … and you have this choice Y (gestures with right hand) … Now I don't know which one (gestures with left hand) you will choose, but I'm sure it will be the one (gestures with left hand) that is best for you… .
The client, not surprisingly, decided to go for choice X (anchored by the gesture with the left hand). Certainly, though, Rogers had no conscious intention of influencing the client's decision in that way. Perhaps at an unconscious level he chose which way would have been best for himself, a choice revealed by his hand gestures. Both Rogers and the client were so tuned to the auditory external (and probably kinesthetic internal) portions of the ongoing communication that neither of them were conscious of the subtle gestures picked up through the external visual system.
It is not possible to prevent these kinds of subtle anchors, nor would it be useful as the more powerful channels of communication are those nonverbal channels which lie outside of awareness. If you consciously attempt to avoid anchoring with your hand gestures and words, you may begin to anchor instead with your breathing, tonality or facial expression at the unconscious level. If you pay attention to these variables in an attempt to stop them, you will lose track of others that will communicate your unconscious decisions. It is better that these subtleties be brought out in the open than to remain hidden in such a way that people become victims of their own (and others') unconscious processes. You cannot not influence someone.