Simple tactics like this could be (and are) used just as easily, and more effectively, by the attorneys participating in trials.

Most capable attorneys, of course, will do the majority of their work by settlement out of court, which is generally much more efficient and economical than going to trial. The same rapport building, information gathering and influence tactics may be applied in out–of–court negotiations as well (other techniques, procedures and skills for negotiation will be presented in later portions of this book). If you can elicit the motivation, convincer, decision making, and buying strategies of your client, your opponent and your opponent's attorney, you can utilize each of their strategies to bring about the most rapid and satisfying solution to the negotiation. For instance, if you could elicit the buying and decision making strategy of your opponent's attorney, you could influence him to accept a plea bargaining or a settlement as being more efficient than going to court.

Analogue marking and covert anchoring will be extremely useful tools in such processes.

4.45 Implications for Psychotherapy

We have already described in this chapter a number of ways in which strategies and anchoring could be applied therapeutically. The essential basis of therapy and change is the three–point process—(1) eliciting and applying personal resources to a (2) present or problematic state to assist the client in (3) achieving a desired state. In the transcript on anchoring presented in this chapter we showed how this could be done by integrating, (through collapsing anchors), the client's stored representations of his or her problem state and some relevant resources. Resources consist of reference structures for success from the client's personal history or new 4–tuples created internally by the client.

Problems and resources are defined and identified in relation to the client's abilities to access representational systems and gather, process and respond to information gathered through the sensory channels. The more access a client has to the information provided by all of his representational systems, the more resources he will have. This kind of flexibility will contribute greatly to the adaptability of the individual. The individual's ability to gather and discriminate information about his environment and access the appropriate strategy with which to respond in that environment will be his other major resource. This involves the sequencing of one's behavior in the form of strategies.

Problems occur when an individual gets caught up in one representational system or a strategy that loops, and when he is kept from observing and responding to important cues in the environment. Problems also occur when an individual accesses a strategy or response that is inappropriate for the context.

The therapeutic procedures of neurolinguistic programming are outcome oriented — that is, the client's behavior is engineered to achieve specific outcomes. The essential therapeutic procedure presented thus far in this book is the elicitation and utilization of an appropriate resource strategy of the client's through anchoring and pacing. The programmer, as therapist, would require the same skills for achieving therapeutic outcomes as he would for getting outcomes in any of the other fields discussed so far. Specifically the programmer should be practiced and capable in each of the following:

1. Building Rapport — You will have established rapport with your client when you have elicited in him the kind of behavior that is generally labeled "trust," "responsiveness," etc. Rapport, as we have pointed out, is essential to the success of any communication, interaction or relationship. You will know when you have achieved rapport when you can smoothly and easily lead the client into new experiences. The programmer builds rapport by being sensitive to and by pacing the client's strategies and macro– and micro–behavior such as vocabulary, tonality, tempo, posture, breathing rates, facial expressions and so on. Quickly establishing anchors for resources and positive experiences will contribute to the building of rapport. Therapeutically, rapport serves to help eliminate resistance and speed up the process of change.

Programmers should be warned, however, especially those in the field of therapy, that you should not always pace all aspects of your clients' behaviors. It can be physically and mentally maladaptive to pace the behavior of many individuals. In most cases you will want to pace the client only enough to establish the rapport necessary to be able to work to achieve his desired outcomes.

2. Information Gathering — Through questioning and the observation of accessing cues and other minimal cues the therapist will gather information about the client's strategies and sensory abilities, to be used in the three–point process. The therapist will want to find out what natural resources the client already has available, which resources and strategies are missing and which are needed. Some clients may need a strategies to motivate themselves to change old behaviors, establish new patterns of behavior or to access resources that they already have. Others will need to learn new strategies and behaviors to be utilized in their present situation. Still others may need to employ the process of creativity or to make consequential decisions to clear up crippling incongruencies in their behavior. Many times, a number of these processes are involved. To make this determination the therapist will need to gather from the client the following information about the present state, desired state and resources of the client:

a) Desired Outcome — What do you want or need for yourself? How would you know if you got it?

b) Present or Problem state — What is happening now? What is causing you problems? What is stopping you from getting what you want?

c) Resources — What do you need (what would have to happen) in order for you to get the outcome you want? Have you ever got this outcome before? What did you do at that time?

To be relevant and utilizable to the programmer the answers to these questions need to be in terms of sensory based reference structures from the client's model of the world (although the client need not have a conscious appreciation of such answers), and the sensory observations the programmer makes of the client's behavior and strategies. "Sensory based" means specific and non–interpretive. For instance, for someone to say that he wants to be "happy" is not a sufficient answer to define a desired outcome. You need to have definite images, sounds, feelings and smells for what specific changes will be made in their behavior and their environment for them to have that kinesthetic experience. As we have said before, we highly recommend that you study the meta–model (in Structure of Magic I) to acquire skill at eliciting this type of answer.

3. Therapeutic Procedure and Delivery: Repackaging and representing the client's problem in a form that matches an appropriate resource strategy that he presently has available is the primary therapeutic procedure discussed thus far. Utilizing a resource strategy in this way serves to add in abilities that have not yet been brought to bear on the client's problem state. Anchoring is another way to accomplish this.

In the coming chapters of this book, methods for the therapeutic design and installation of new resource strategies will be covered in detail.

4. Operating Off of Feedback: The only way you have of knowing whether what you are doing is working is by the feedback you get from your client. Only a small part of this feedback will be the conscious verbal reports of your client. The majority of it will be changes in the client's ongoing accessing cues and minimal cues, which will all be rooted in your immediate sensory experience.