Well, you will always be doing that. Ann suggested that the semantic cue be a particular weight. However, I want you to talk about it differently today. Part of the game we play is how you can change how you talk about experience so that you can make changes in different ways. You're still playing the strategy game. There's no such thing as a strategy, and there's no such thing as a part. The question is «How can we talk about it differently and be able to do different things?» If you forget that, then I recommend that you build a part that reminds you. «The map is not the territory» and that's not true, either.

Man: How about changing the extra weight to happiness?

I beg your pardon? A part whose job it is to dissolve weight and turn it into happiness?

Man: As long as we're dreaming.

Sure. OK, but is that going to do only what the person wants? You see, there's a big danger in what you are suggesting: six months later this thirty–pound person is going to walk in the door smiling and saying «You're the best therapist I ever had!» Either that or she's going to come in with both arms gone, and she's still going to be fat. She'll say «I feel great … but I've got this small problem… .»

I want you to listen very carefully to your definition of a new part, because in experience, that's the kind of thing that will actually happen. I think that anorexics are made by well–intentioned people, although not necessarily by therapists. Parents often give a young woman lots and lots of messages that make food such a negative anchor that she throws up when she tries to eat. Through the positive intentions of parents, the daughter ends up becoming anorexic.

I'm recommending that as a therapist you be very cautious about specifying outcomes. The more carefully you specify exactly what a part is going to do, the less you'll get objections from other parts about having it exist, and the better it will actually be able to function. If a new part is poorly designed, the other parts will be more likely to wipe it out. If we build a part that is going to take weight and turn it into happiness, that part's going to get annihilated! All the other parts are going to do an exorcism. What about the part that likes to eat candy? It's going to pull out its samurai sword, sst—whacko, and that's it. I'm asking you to conceptualize definitions for the purpose of making installation easy, effective, and useful.

Man: How about a traffic control?

You'd better be more specific than that. This is not a metaphor seminar.

Man: A part that would sequentially direct other parts to do their thing to get the desired outcome. Most overweight people know how to gain weight and lose weight. Maintaining it is the difficulty.

So you would have a part that's in charge of maintenance, for example?

Man: It would provide directions for other parts, and say «Now you do this, and you do this, and then you do this, and now it's your turn.»

OK. That's certainly a possibility. What other outcome could you specify for a part that you could build to take care of this problem?

Bill: I'm thinking about a client of mine who eats mainly in the evening when she's alone and bored. I want to build in a part so that whenever she is alone and begins to feel bored she will immediately generate several interesting activities she can engage in, so that she'll do those instead of eating.

OK. That's a strong possibility, assuming that your information is accurate, namely, that eating at that time produces the unwanted weight. Then the first question you have to ask is «Does she already have a part whose job it is to entertain her when she gets bored?» She might have one already, and the way it does that is by stuffing candy down her mouth. Then all that part needs is three other ways to entertain her. The six–step model would be adequate to do that. That is one possibility. Or it may be that she doesn't have a part to entertain herself, and it would be appropriate to build one.

Bill: She has had a lobotomy, which raises some interesting problems.

It could. I don't think parts get cut out that way, though. I think they become subdued.

Bill: But it does raise some anchors in her mind about what she is incapable of doing or thinking.

Well, all you have to do is produce research which proves that it's possible to make the changes you want to make. I'm sure you can come up with lots of studies and dates.

Bill: I've just remembered a whole volume.

Yeah. It's known as «instant research.» For some clients it's very, very valuable.

Let me give you another problem. Let's say you are using the six–step reframing model. You ask «Do you have a part of yourself you consider your creative part?» And the person says «I don't know.» And you say «Well, go inside and ask if there is a part of you that can do things creatively.» She goes inside, and then she comes out and says «Nothing happened.» And from your outside observation, nothing happened. There are two choices at that point about how you create a creative part. One is to act as if you received messages from one that was there. If you congruently convince them of this, they'll build one on their own. The other choice is to officially build them a part because they don't yet have one that can perform that function.

What other kinds of contexts would be appropriate for building parts, rather than reframing ones that are already there? Give me some examples of when building a part could be more useful than messing around with the parts that already exist.

Man: Some kind of a history that the person has never had, never experienced in his life?

That's not an example. Examples are content–specific, so that when you name them, people can go «Oh, yeah.» What you gave me was a class, and that's a different game. Give me an example of the class you were talking about.

Man: Let's take someone who has never had a satisfying sexual experience.

OK. What are you going to build a part to do? Do you want a part to make them feel OK about that, so that every time that they're sexually dissatisfied, they say to themselves «I'm OK, I'm OK»?

Woman: Have them imagine one, build it in the imagination of the person.

That is how we are going to go about building parts. You're back to procedure again, instead of outcome. I'm not going to teach you how to build parts until you know what you are building. It's an old rule of mine. Give me some examples of what you would build parts for.

Woman: If someone is born with a coordination problem, you could give them a strategy for being coordinated by copying somebody else.

OK. I'll accept everything except the preface about being «born that way.» There are many people who could use a hand–eye coordination part who were not «born that way.» They just never developed a part that had anything to do with being coordinated. Even if there's a physical impairment, it still might be appropriate to build such a part.

Bill: Let's say I have an army brat who was raised overseas and who has not had the same experiences that most of his peers have had. I want to help the kid acquire certain kinds of social skills. I could build a part to teach him how to listen carefully to people around him and to build a new history from what he hears people talking about.

What's the outcome of the part's behavior?

Bill: The outcome of the part's behavior is to teach him to speak congruently about things that he has never experienced, so that he can build social bridges and not seem different.

That's still behavior. What's the part's function?

Bill: To help him increase his social interaction with other people.

OK. That's the outcome. I can think of situations where that would be very appropriate.

Man: You could build a part that would motivate you to explore new things, risky things.