Tom: Yes.

Would you demonstrate for Beth exactly how that message was given, so that she'll know exactly how to get across this message that she is committed to giving you.

Tom: Well, she came up and put her hand on my shoulder like this, and…

Good, thank you. So now I have Beth try that, and I sit back and watch to make sure it works.

If it doesn't work, I can ask Tom how, specifically, she could do this behavior differently to make it work, or ask Tom to go back and search for some other behavior that worked in the past. OK. Thank you, Beth and Tom.

Man: That doesn't seem like a very realistic example. It doesn't seem like Tom would get depressed when all Beth said was «Hello, how are you?»

It's actually quite frequent with real couples, that what seems to be an innocuous behavior triggers a powerful response. The stimulus may not be obvious, but Tom's response is obvious, and lets me know that something significant is going on. It may be that Beth's voice tone or the way she glances at Tom is associated with other experiences in their past that I don't know about.

The stimulus that elicits an unpleasant response in someone else may be hard for you to detect because it seems so trivial or innocuous. Once I worked with a schizophrenic teenager and his mother. All that was observable to me was that every time the son started to go berserk it was right after the mother had pointed to her arm. It turned out that the mother had survived the Nazi concentration camps. Every time the mother wanted a certain response from her son, she would point to the part of her arm where the identification number had been tatooed. I don't know how she had built that anchor up to have such an impact on her son, but it was as quick a knee–jerk response as I've ever seen. The kid would immediately start to go really berserk, yet the stimulus was one most people wouldn't have noticed.

When you use this format, you assume that people want to communicate in such a way that they get what they want, and that they want to respect the integrity and the interests of the other people involved. That assumption may not be true, but it's a very useful operating assumption, because it gives you something to do that can be very effective. If you make that assumption, it's always possible to find another solution—not a compromise—that satisfies both parties.

Any time there's a difference between the intended message and the response elicited, you first need to train the person who sent the message to recognize that he didn't get the intended response. You make it obvious to the person that the intent of his message was different from the response that he got. «What response did it elicit? Describe it. Did you notice you got it? Good.» This builds a perceptual strategy into the person who originally sent the message and makes him more sensitive to the responses he is getting. The next question is «Is this response what you wanted? Is this what you intended?» In ineffective communication I have never yet run into a situation where it is. Then you train the message sender to gather information that will be useful in varying his behavior to get the response he wants.

This is the simplest format for couple reframing. I want you all to try it in groups of four, using the following outline. Two of you will role–play a couple in a problem interaction. One of you will be the programmer, and the fourth person will be a meta–person to keep track of where you are, and to give feedback to the programmer.

Outline

1) Identify and interrupt a stimulus–response (X—>Y) loop.

2) Ask the person responding:

a) «Are these feelings (Y) familiar?»

b) «What is the message you get when she does X?»

3) Ask the stimulus person:

a) «Is that (Y) what you intended by doing X?»

b) «What did you intend?»

4) Ask stimulus person, «Are you committed to getting your intended message across?»

5) Find a way to make message received equal message intended:

a) Find it in the experience of the stimulus person. «Have you ever gotten the response you want? What did you do then?»

b) Find it in the experience of the response person. «What behavior would work to get that response in you?»

c) Select a model, or pretend that you know how to get that response.

6) Have the stimulus person try out the new behavior to find out if it works satisfactorily.

Now that you've all had some experience using this simple format, I'd like to demonstrate some variations. Let's do another role–play. Rita and Joe, play this one for me. It starts like this. Rita, I want you to attack Joe verbally. Joe, you respond by feeling bad.

Rita: «You creep!» (Joe stiffens.)

I interrupt that loop and anchor Joe's response. I ask «Hey, are these feelings familiar, Joe?» (Yes.) «OK, what message did you get?»

Joe: She's angry with me.

Rita, did you intend to let him know that you're angry?

Rita: You're damn right!

So this time message received is message intended. I say, «Well done, congratulations, you are communicating very effectively.» This validates that their communications and their intentions are effective, at least at the level they are describing them to me. However, they are both in unpleasant states, and probably those states are not helpful in arriving at a satisfactory solution to their difficulty.

Since the message received is the same as the message intended, but it's not satisfactory, I need to use a variation of the previous format. I can find out Rita's «meta–message," and gain more flexibility. «Rita, what does letting him know that you are angry do for you? What are you trying to accomplish by this?»

Rita: I want him to really hear me, to pay attention to me.

OK. What will having him really paying attention to you do for you?

Rita: Then I'll know he cares about me.

OK. So when you raise your voice and start yelling, you're saying «God damn it. I'm angry because you're not paying attention. If we're in a relationship like this, I want you to pay attention to me because I want to know you care.»

So, Joe, this may seem quite contradictory to you, especially when you have these unpleasant feelings, but she is trying to say «Hey, demonstrate to me by being attentive that you care, because it matters to me.» Are you interested in this message?

Joe: Yes.

And Rita, you're committed to getting it across, right? Rita: Yes.

Now I simply search for alternative behaviors that are appropriate and acceptable to both of them.

You can use this variation any time the message intended will not produce productive results. So what if Joe knows that Rita is angry? That in itself is not likely to finish this interaction in a way satisfactory to both Rita and Joe. So I ask, «What is letting him know you are angry going to do for you?» «What are you going to accomplish by it?» «Are you satisfied to stop here, or is there some other goal you are after?» And Rita will find another goal. If she didn't have one originally, she'll make up one for us that will be more useful.

Notice that when I ask these questions, I get the outcome of the outcome, or the intent of the intent. I may have to ask this question four or five times until I find an outcome that both of them are interested in. What I'm really searching for is a message or outcome that both parties are interested in achieving. When I've found that, I've got about 75% of the negotiation work done. Once I've got an outcome frame that both parties congruently agree to, it's just a question of varying their behaviors until they find a specific way of getting there together.

OK. So Rita wants to send the message «I want you to demonstrate that you care," and Joe is interested in receiving it. Now I'm at a choice point. I can either get an alternative behavior from her or from him. If I'm using Rita to create a new behavior, I can ask «Rita, out of all the time you've spent together, do you remember a time when you were able to get the kind of attention and caring you want from Joe, that you are not presently getting? Do you remember ever being able to do that?» This is the same as step four of six–step reframing: creating alternatives. She now searches through her personal history and finds an occasion when she has successfully done this. I can have her remember in a specific and detailed way. «See yourself doing this very clearly; listen to the way you do it, etc. When you have seen and heard what you did in detail, try out that behavior with Joe, and we'll find out if it works here and now.»