ARChangeArticles

Achieving lasting change and opening minds

Milton Erickson was a great story teller and through his stories he could change peoples behaviour.  For those of you who don't know of him he was an American Psychiatrist and is regarded as the "father" of modern hypnosis.  There are many sites with information about his life and work.

His stories were often obscure and tangential but he was a master of the metaphor.  In one case he discussed growing healthy tomatoes to assist a client to change his eating and lifestyle habits.
Metaphors are wonderful aids to elicit change.  Their effectiveness is evidenced by the use of metaphors in children's books and fables, religious writings and more recently by business in advertising.  We are subjected to many metaphors every day because they are so effective.

Consider using stories when you want a person to change a behaviour rather than telling them to stop doing that and start doing this.  It is far less confrontational and operates on an unconscious level which is far more effective from a learning perspective.

The use of metaphors can broaden perspective and enable people to see there are other options available to them in their lives.

A more direct approach to broadening a persons perspective comes from NLP and the use of questions that take the person to a higher level.  From this higher level they can usually see that there are other strategies and options available to them. 
If the cannot then you may have to "chunk up" to yet another more global level.   Do this until they can see other possibilities.
Once your client can see the other possibilities they will notice a shift in their perception and capacity to operate more effectively.