Steve Andreas > Books Authored > Six Blind Elephants > Chapter 12

A sensory-based example

Usually it is much easier to understand exactly what a problem is, and how to solve it, when we have detailed information about a specific example included in a category.

A videotape would be best, but since that is rarely available, we usually have to rely on a client’s report. Usually the client’s initial report is severely lacking the information that we need in order to know what the problem is. If the presenting problem is, “She drives me nuts,” that is a very general abstract category with very little specific information. We don’t know anything about what she does—it could be anything from looking away during a conversation to inviting the neighbors over for an orgy. And we also don’t know what his “nuts” response is—that could be anything from tensing up to throwing dishes through the windows or physically abusing the kids.

The category “what she does” might contain specific examples, or it might contain more specific categories. When you ask him about an example of the category, he might respond with a sensory-based example, or he might respond with a more specific subcategory. “Well, for instance, last night she—” would tell you about a specific example. However, “She’s always laughing at times when I’m serious about something,” would indicate a subcategory of experiences that drive him nuts.

Now you can ask for a specific example of that category. If he responds with another more specific category, “Well, like times when I’m really involved in talking about sports,” you ask again until he provides you with a single specific example that tells you exactly what she did, and what he thought and felt in that situation. “Last Thursday I was really excited about a rim shot that a player made, and she kind of snickered at me. I couldn’t figure out what she meant by that, but I was afraid to ask her and I felt small.” That will begin to give you the kind of specific information that you need in order to know what needs to be changed in his experience.

For instance, the words “feeling small” are often quite literal, indicating that someone is imagining themselves much smaller or younger in relation to someone else. This is common in a variety of situations in which someone feels inadequate, evaluated, or inferior, often in relation to some authority. If you ask him to increase the size of his image of himself until it matches the other person, he will no longer “feel small.” This change in size will usually make him feel more comfortable in asking her what she meant by that snicker, etc. All this information is completely lacking in the general statement, “She drives me nuts.” Shifting attention to the level of a specific example also makes the scope of the problem smaller and more manageable than the category with its many examples.

After you have determined the sensory details of a specific example, it can often be useful to ask if this is a “microcosm” of the more general category. “Does the same thing happen at those other times when she ’drives you nuts,’ or are some of them different?” If he says that all of them are the same, then when you change his response to that one example, the change will usually generalize to all the other examples in the category.

When some of the other examples are different in some way, they may require a different kind of solution. You can ask for a specific example of this subcategory and go to work again to explore that. Since it is in the same general category of events that “drives me nuts,” it will probably be similar in many respects to the other example you worked with, so it can speed up your work to ask how an example of this category is different from the other one.

Alternatively, you can make a change in one example, and then say, “Now I want you to close your eyes, and consider your effective new response in this one situation, and review all the other times when she has driven you nuts in the past, and find out if that response works well in some, or all, of those other situations.” Sometimes a solution for one example will work for all the other examples in the category; at other times it will only work for a group of them, while others will need an additional resource, or a different one.