Background Information

Fifty-eight-year old male presenting with difficulty in male-female relationships. He has been in several bad relationships (indicating a poor relationship strategy), four of which were marriages that ended in divorce and several others of which have begun with great promise only to fizzle and bang or bang and fizzle within six months, often with a great deal of tension and rancor from shortly after the relationship begins until the final bell. He wishes to obtain better results in finding a mate for a relationship. It does not need to be “'til death do us part,” but he would like one that does retain some form of permanency, as he is getting older and “no longer has the energy to chase.”

Client Interview

I elicited the client's relationship strategy. Although he met his first wife in college with the relationship forming and being driven by common interests, primarily politics, his subsequent romances were driven more by just finding somebody. In other words, he would take anybody that would have him. The woman “needed” somebody; he “needed” somebody. The first marriage broke down after he discovered his wife and the next door neighbor were having an affair. In his words, his “self-esteem was shot.”

From there we broached what a relationship now would do for him. He said that it would end his loneliness and stop him from going to the bars and nightclubs so much, which would help him to cut down his drinking. It's not so much that he had to drink. In fact, he didn't like doing so all that well, but bars, he believed, were his best shot at meeting someone. He is a traveling salesman, so there is not a lot of opportunity for finding a paramour on the job and, with his schedule, he was rarely around to attend social functions and special interest get-togethers on a regular basis. So, when in the bars, he does not really feel like there is much else to do but drink and try to find a woman. Finding a relationship, he said, would mean they could be engaging in other activities together, so he could swear off the bars. He could also take her with him on road trips at times.

He was unclear how he would know when he had the relationship, although during his response to this question jumped to and answered a question he was unaware would ever be asked: what stopped him from having what he wanted already, so I will address both together. By his own admission, after some discussion consisting of my asking questions -- without any comment of opinion or judgment --one of his criteria was placing the cart before the horse. He yearned to be in a relationship, and wanted to be in one for the long term, but had to start one with the “right person” to get there. He often, he said, by force of habit and longing, insisted that the behavior of both he and his partner conform to his standards set during the middle of his first ten years with the first wife. He would know, he indicated, that he had a good relationship when he felt ensconced in the comfort and familiarity he experienced back then, at that time and place. Yet he knew, intellectually at least, that he could not go directly to that point without engineering the preliminary underpinnings for the trip there.

We moved then to the effect it would have on other people in his life. There were no others, really. He might spend less time with his friends and drinking partners, but “pretty much all of them were guys to go out with who were all looking for the same thing” he was – women. The only difference was that some of them were not necessarily looking for a long-term relationship. So, he stated, that didn't make much difference. Friends were always disappearing and re-appearing depending on whether they were dating or in a relationship or alone. As far as his family, he indicated, all he had left were his children, who were all grown and on their own, and a grandchild. Since they all live in other states and cities in the Southeast, time with them would not be affected.

By the time we got to the last two questions, what resources he already has and what other resources he needs, he has entered the arena and is ready to play, feeling, he says, that he is beginning to get some insight into the process and himself. He indicates his existing resources: interesting, intelligent, “told that [he's] pretty attractive for an older guy,” and makes a “decent living.” Resources he believes he needs: patience, “better judgment when deciding to date a woman,” and a place other than bars in which to meet potential relationships.

Client Meta Programs

Throughout the course of the interview, his language and responses were congruent and suggested the following Meta Programs: Away from (he is moving away from his inner turmoil and loneliness so strongly and quickly that he is charging in the direction of the very thing he does not want – a “bad” relationship), External (he often referred to what women thought of him and in what manner he sought their approval), General (his language, even on matters of great importance to him, never was very specific), Mismatcher (he generally referred to differences, not similarities), Through Time (obviously as even at the beginning of the relationship he was geared to some point in the future when comfort and familiarity had been established), Random (at least when it came to choosing a mate, given he would end up taking any woman who crossed his path and showed interest and had no plan for his endeavor), Action Oriented (he was not one to sit around and think much; he wanted to take action at all times, even if it was detrimental to what he stated he wanted and could have used some thought beforehand), and a Team Player (his whole outlook depended upon the Team of himself and his wished for significant other – for better or for worse, independence is one of the very things he is running away from).

Techniques Used For Reaching the Goal

The interplay among several issues is at work here. His belief that he has to have a woman to somehow feel complete and “not lonely;” his belief that a “good relationship” is necessary to his wholeness as a person; his belief that he must rush to jump immediately into the same relationship over and over without qualifying the woman for compatibility and without obtaining any significant level of comfort inherent in the “getting to know you” phase. Therefore, the intervention will require a belief shift of some magnitude to allow him to be more selective so that he can attract an appropriate partner to him instead of propelling himself toward anyone that he believes may be open to him. In doing so, I will use his meta program of away from pain and loneliness to elicit and make clear a more painful and uncomfortable state when he enters and attempts to keep a “bad” relationship than when he is in no relationship at all and some of his other meta programs to reinforce that pain.

I first used a variant of the Circle of Excellence technique that I called, appropriately enough, The Circle of Ill-Suited Relationship Hell. In this variant, a state of pain and loneliness was achieved by eliciting his sub-modalities for pain and loneliness of the type he experienced when in a relationship that caused pain, frustration, and tension. After the sub-modalities were elicited (black, down and to the left, smell of burnt hair similar to the odor in the air right after someone has a perm done, slight taste of that smell on the tongue (partial synesthesia – how does that smell taste on your tongue?), about four feet tall by four feet wide by four feet deep with the feel of sandpaper), I had him double it, double it again, and double it again until the look of physical pain and discomfort came upon his face, before having him step into the circle while picturing himself entering into a relationship before qualifying a woman for suitability. I then explained that this would be his state every and any time that he thought of jumping into a relationship, and had him go through this process four more times.

Immediately thereafter, I stated: “And as you remember your real desires, you may find that you feel you've been deceived somehow, that you've been tricked into taking action for any relationship instead of the actions necessary for a good one.” And then, taking advantage of the principle of perceptual contrast (in this case the wide range between the perceived pain from the The Circle of Ill-Suited Relationship Hell to the positive feelings engendered by the next exercise), I immediately launched into having him do the New Behavior Generator, using his younger self as the role model when he entered into his “good” relationships, feeling confident, independent and unneedy, taking his time and finding similarities of interests, activities, and belief systems as he enjoyed himself and his partner without hint of desperation. Again, I had him go through the procedure five times before moving on to another positive technique – one designed to see himself as the pursued rather than the pursuer to foster a sense of independence and completeness in seeking a relationship.

Given that sub-modalities are at the heart of NLP, I elicited from him the sub-modalities of his External meta program (approval seeking from the woman or women from whom he thought he wanted a relationship). In a role reversal of sorts, I then asked him to project those sub-modalities onto every woman with whom he found himself attracted so that he would perceive her to be seeking approval from him instead of him seeking approval from the woman. To accomplish that, I used the the Belief Systems Exercise, eliciting first the sub-modalities of a universal truth (daylight will come tomorrow morning), then the sub-modalities of a self-truth (he was an excellent salesperson), then the submodalities of his External Meta Program projected onto the woman, and then elicited the submodalities of his recognition that a woman was seeking his approval. We then mapped across to match the sub-modalities of his belief that the woman was seeking his approval with those of his belief that he was an excellent salesman and then chained that to the sub-modalities of daylight coming tomorrow morning using a swish pattern (obviously not the classic operation to go from an unproductive behavior to a more productive behavior, but to chain a high order of belief to a higher order of belief). We went through this procedure six times before ending with a general discussion pointing out his other meta programs and how trying a shift in some of them, where possible, may better serve him in meeting his goal (e.g., try matching to increase rapport, try more independence for showing a lack of neediness, try specificity in defining what he really wanted in the relationship, try less randomness in choosing where to meet those he might be attracted to, and try more thought preceding action before and after the approach).

Results – Progressing Toward the Goal

The original session was four weeks ago. There are to be follow-up sessions as his schedule permits so that we can go over shifting his timeline at appropriate times and experience some additional techniques.

However, I have spoken with the client by telephone. He continues to practice the exercises on a regular basis and relates that he is not trying to jump into relationships anytime a willing woman happens to cross his path. He is dating and has gone out with one woman in particular three times, but is not trying to push it into the long-term relationship category. According to the client, he has gained some insight into himself and “the relationship game.” He believes he has made enormous progress.

Conclusion

Although change often happens in an instant, the goals for which those changes are made generally are achieved over time. The use of client meta programs is an essential skill in the arsenal used to effect positive behavior modification in the lives of those we touch.

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