Steve Andreas > Articles > Gaining Additional Perspectives in Relationships

Perceptual Positions Exercise

These directions are designed to provide an example of a general path; different people will need more instruction on different aspects, have different questions or concerns requiring explanation, etc. After at least one, and preferably two or three guided experiences of the process, the client is asked to find a quiet place and do the same process daily with one or two incidents from each day.

1. Choose Event. Fred, I want you to think of a minor difficulty that you have had with your wife, Ann. When first learning this method, it is very important to use a small difficulty. Later, when you are more experienced and fluent with the steps of the process, it will be much easier and more useful to process major issues.
2. Self position. Relive this experience from your own point of view. You are seeing out of your own eyes, hearing with your own ears, and having the feelings you had in response to those events...
3. Observer position. Now I want you to allow yourself to move out to the side to a comfortable position from which you can see yourself and Ann equally well (or allow the scene to move around until you are in a comfortable position to observe the two of you).

From this position, run the exact same videotape that you just saw, but from this new perspective, seeing and hearing all those events again, this time simply with an attitude of curiosity about what you can learn about this interaction between Fred and Ann over there...

If you have any feelings other than curiosity or a gentle compassion for them, those feelings probably belong to either Fred or Ann, and you can let those feelings move over there to where they belong...

Now take a little while to allow your whole being to memorize what this observer position is like, so that it will be easy to return to it in the future whenever you might find it useful.

4. Other position. Now look over at Ann and notice how her way of being in the world is expressed nonverbally in her voice tone, her tempo, her postures, movements, and gestures, etc. Temporarily leaving behind your own beliefs, values and assumptions, gently move toward her and step into her, so that you can experience this situation as she does.

As Ann, run that same video of that event, as you discover what it is like to be her in this interaction. Take some time to do this, again with a sense of curiosity about what you can learn from this. You may want to repeat the video once or twice to be sure that you experience it all thoroughly from this perspective...

5. Observer position. Now return to observer position. Keeping all the learnings of the Other position, you can completely let go of that position, and again run the video, noticing any changes in how you experience these events from this observer position after experiencing Ann’s perspective.
6. Self position. Now return to your own self position, and again run the video, noticing any changes in how you experience these events from this position after experiencing Ann’s perspective and Observer position.