Woman: You don't even program the two things? You leave that to the unconscious?

Yes. We put the person into a profound trance and taught her unconscious mind—or some unconscious part—the reframing model. We'd say «OK, unconscious, what we're going to do today is build this part and it's going to do reframing. I want you, the unconscious, to select something that you didn't particularly like about her conscious mind's behavior today. First identify it, and then… .» We'd go through all the six steps very systematically. We wouldn't just say «Do it»; we would go through each of the six steps carefully. The person's conscious mind is gone; she is just in a trance, responding. You can do it with finger signals or any other yes/no signal, or you can do it verbally if your client happens to be a good verbal unconscious communicator. I'd go through it once systematically, and then have her unconscious pick something else and try it, and notify me if it gets stuck. I'd literally educate her unconscious in the six–step model until it could do it a couple of times without any problem. Then I'd say «Look, each night just after she's dropped off to sleep, identify and reframe two things that you think are important, given the experiences of the day.»

A month later I went back and checked with everybody's unconscious to find out what kind of things they'd done. Those people were changing like crazy. One student's unconscious reported to me that every night he would see himself in front of a blackboard, and he would make a list of all the things that didn't occur the way he wanted them to that day, and then all his parts would describe the possibilities of each one, and they'd have a vote and select two, and then the unconscious would go ahead and reframe those two things. Then his parts would review past reframes, and read the minutes from the last meeting—he was a very organized guy.

It seemed to work very well for about three months with each person, and then each would need another shot of it. People changed so much that the process didn't fire off automatically after about three months.

Woman: Why did you have to teach the unconscious the six steps? If you've been reframing others, the unconscious knows it even more than the conscious, doesn't it?

The important thing is to make sure that the unconscious does it explicitly and methodically. Saying that «the unconscious knows it» is assuming more than I'm willing to assume. Some people's unconscious minds don't know it, and some people's unconscious minds do. But I'm not willing to take that chance. I want to build a part whose job is to jump out every night and say «It's reframing time!» You can always consciously reframe with yourself; however, it's much more convenient to have your unconscious do it after you go to sleep. Let your parts do it. It's hard to install this in yourself; it's better to have somebody else zone you into a trance and do it for you.

Bill: There is a question that keeps bugging me about what kind of signals to use when I'm reframing. Some say to use only signals with definite unconscious yes/no responses. Other people talk about just going inside and asking an open–ended question and seeing what comes up. Yesterday afternoon you were having me go through a negotiation reframe without taking time to set up specific signals—

Oh, I had yes/no signals, though. You were responding in ways that I could notice.

Bill: OK, you had the yes/no signals. But in our own experience of reframing ourselves I thought the only thing we could use as a signal was an unconscious response that we were aware of. The response I got was in my favored representational system—that little old internal voice that I always get—which I have learned not to trust in myself or in my clients. How can we trust the signal we get from ourselves, or from our clients, when it is in the most favored representational system?

That's a contradiction. You asked «What signal can come in the most favored system which I can trust to be an unconscious signal?» The most favored representational system is the one that is in consciousness. It's best to have a signal that is not under conscious control. If your signal is internal dialogue and you don't trust it, then the only way to have a signal that you will trust is to have an involuntary kinesthetic or visual response that intensifies and diminishes. You get a yes/no involuntary signal which is not finger–lifting or anything you can consciously control.

Bill: I get the same confusion when we talk about finger signals. Everybody talks about hypnotizing people and using finger signals. Most people I work with can do those quite voluntarily. What is the use of having a person give you a signal which can be under conscious voluntary control?

They can consciously move their fingers, but they can't do it with unconscious movement. Can you distinguish between conscious movement and unconscious movement?

Bill: Yes. What bothers me is this: the person may be giving me all the signs of being deep in trance, and I'm seeing lots of involuntary changes. And then the finger signal looks like conscious movement. Do I necessarily interpret that as being a conscious movement?

No, not necessarily, but I always do. I would say «NOT THAT MIND!» Something subtle like that. I want verification. Personally, I usually do not use finger signals as signals. I use them to distract the client, and as a way of setting up some other signal system.

Bill: How, specifically, do you set up those other signals?

One thing I do is calibrate, I say «Your unconscious mind can lift this finger to answer 'yes.'" Then I watch and find out what else occurs naturally. «And it can use this finger to answer 'no.'" I notice the nonverbal differences between them. If I'm not sure, I do it ten times until I'm sure.

Another thing you can do is this: before the client goes into trance, sometimes you can set up great signals by saying «Look, you are going to go into a trance. What we are going to do is set up a 'yes' (shifts his head left) … 'no' (shifts his head right) system of communication.» Then when the person goes into trance, you'll often get these great signals—his head will shift left and right. Of course, you can use any movement to install a signal—a raised eyebrow, a flaring nostril, or any other signal that he can detect unconsciously. If he doesn't signal the way you established, then you can do other things. You can say «And when things aren't going the way I want them to, I lift an eyebrow in disdain," using embedded commands to make sure the eyebrow lifts. You can do really obvious things, and his conscious mind won't notice. Sometimes I'll set up the yes/no signals with a person's feet using one foot for «yes» and the other foot for «no.» I'll say «When you are really positively behind something, you put your best foot forward … and you know which foot is the right foot to do that with, don't you?» He'll demonstrate nonverbally. The important thing is that I always verify by asking innocuous questions. Rather than going immediately for the material I'm interested in, I start asking questions that I know the answer to, in order to make sure that I have the right signal in the right place. I'll say «Now, your name is Bill, and you know this is to be true, do you not?» If I get a «no» response, then I say «Aha! To whom am I speaking?» You can learn about this in detail in Trance–formations.

Woman: When you are working with yourself, and there's some part of you that you can't really identify, or there's a part that just refuses to actually come out and say what it is, and you can't really get to that part—

That's just like saying «Well, there's a member of a family I can't really talk to.» That's always a function of your communication. Sometimes a person will go inside and he'll say «Well, nothing happens.» There are a number of things that you can do. One thing that almost always works is to say «Well, I know that for years now you have not gotten along with this part. You've insulted it and fought with it, and I wouldn't talk to you either if you did that to me. So I recommend that you go inside and apologize and tell it that you misunderstood its intentions and now you would sincerely like to communicate with it.» After a person goes inside and apologizes, nine times out of ten he'll get a response.