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Virginia clearly understood that her main focus of change was people's images or perceptions of their world. When perceptions change, people's beliefs, responses and behaviors change as well. Once people's perceptions and feelings are different, it's relatively easy to teach more effective ways to communicate.
When a family has difficulties, it's often because family members believe that the world is a certain way. This belief is not useful because it presupposes that it is a reality that can't be changed. Often Virginia would listen to what a family member would say and then restate it as a perception. The distinction between how things are and how they seem, or how someone sees things or thinks they are, is subtle, but it opens the door to other possible ways of seeing the same events. Words or phrases indicating perceptions are italicized in the examples below.
You'd like to somehow have your dad look at this a little differently. (1983, p. 38)
What happened that Susie got her hands on your hair? What's your idea about that? (1983, p. 42)
Everybody's got their own picture, so we'll see. (1983, p. 50)
Coby: Well, yes, ma'am, but you know, he loses his temper too easy.
Virginia: I see. So sometimes you think your father thinks you do something, and then you don't do it, and then you don't know how to tell him or he doesn't hear you, or something like that? Is that what you're saying? (1983, pp. 34-36)
Virginia also modeled the distinction between perception and reality in her own behavior as she told the family her understanding of its situation.
OK. Let me show you a picture that I see at the moment. I just want to get the picture out, and then you help me to check it and that. And I think it starts out, Coby—and this is my picture in my head from what I learned, and it may not fit at all, but it could. (1983, p. 54)
The elements mentioned in this section are often described as components of hypnotic communication. Virginia generally had harsh words for hypnosis, because she disliked the idea of manipulating people. However, this type of hypnotic communication was an important part of her work. This was most apparent in the “processes” or “meditations” that she used with large groups. In these processes, she asked people to close their eyes and relax, and then took them on a carefully structured and overtly hypnotic journey. For an example of one of Virginia's hypnotic meditations, see Appendix IV.
Virginia also used many other patterns of hypnotic communication, both verbal and nonverbal. For more detail about these, see TRANCE-formations (1981), or The Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H Erickson, Vol. I (1975), both by Bandler and Grinder.
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