Steve Andreas > Articles > Gaining Additional Perspectives in Relationships

Aligning Perceptual Positions

Once the client has learned the basic exercise presented above, the benefits can be dramatically increased through additional exercises in which each position becomes carefully aligned. Everyone that we have worked with so far has had misalignments, in which some aspects of the positions are out of place. For instance, a feeling belonging to the other person may be located in Self position, a Self voice may be located in Observer position, or the eyes in Self position may be looking from a point three inches to the left of the actual eyes, etc. These misalignments prevent us from gaining everything we can from the positions. Learning to align the positions increases the purity of our access to each position, and the resulting benefits.

Ideally, the observer position is at the same eye level as the two people in the interaction. If the observer eye level is higher, it is likely that the observations will become criticisms. Moving the position down to eye level will change criticism to neutral observation. This simple move, when practiced over time, has helped people become less judgmental.

If the observer is not equidistant from the two people being observed, there is usually a tendency to take the side of the person who is closer. Moving the observer position to be the same distance from the two people will eliminate this bias.

One client had been tested and diagnosed as biologically depressed and needing antidepressants. Through aligning his relationship with his mother, he discovered that �his� voice was actually his mother�s voice stuck in his throat. After allowing his mother�s voice to return to her, making room for his own voice, his depression spontaneously cleared up over the next two weeks. For more information about how to do these alignment exercises, the many other alignment criteria, and how to deal with objections, see (1, 2, 3).

The basic perceptual positions exercise comes from the field of NLP. The alignment criteria and exercises were developed by Connirae Andreas, and is the subject of a forthcoming book tentatively titled, Coming Home to Yourself: aligning your inner world (Real People Press).