How to Coach Yourself and Others Coaching Families

Bandler & Grinder (NLP) identify two forms of reframing: meaning and context. Context reframing takes an undesired attribute and finds a different situation where it would be valuable. In meaning reframing, you take an undesired attribute and find a description where the attribute takes on a positive value. Reframing - Virginia Satir A classic example of a reframe by Virginia Satir concerns a father who complains at the stubbornness of his daughter. This results in a double reframe, in which Satir points out two things to the father: 1. There are situations where she will need stubbornness, to protect herself or achieve something. Reframing switches to a context that makes the stubbornness relevant. 2. It is from the father himself that she has learned to be stubborn. By forcing the father to equate his own stubbornness with hers, this creates a context in which he either has to recognize the value of her stubbornness, or deny the value of his own. Reframing - Milton Erikson One of the common challenges of family therapy is to help the parents to let their children go. Independence is of course a negative goal. The parents have to gradually stop supporting their children, and the children have to gradually stop relying on their parents. Milton Erikson often used the approach of creating an alternative goal for the parents: of preparing themselves to be grandparents. In a typical case, a young woman consulted him; her parents had used their life savings to build an extension to their house, where she was to live, when she got married (At this time, she was away at college, and had no steady boyfriend.) Erikson met the parents, and congratulated them for their willingness to participate so actively in the rearing of their (hypothetical) grandchildren, having babies crying through the night, toddlers crawling through the living rooms, toys strewn across the house, babysitting. He thus created a powerful positive image of the joys of grandparenthood; yet for some reason, the couple decided to rent the extra rooms out to mature lodgers instead, and save the money to support their grandchildren’s education. When the daughter subsequently got married, she lived in a city some distance away with husband and baby, and the grandparents visited frequently, but not too frequently. http://www.blackwellreference.com/public/tocnode?id=g9780631170488_chunk_g978063117048821_ss19 PUNCTUATION Technique used to create a different perception of reality. Punctuation is “the selective description of a transaction in accordance with a therapist’s goals”. Therefore it is verbalizing appropriate behaviour when it happens. 183

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