Metaprograms are behavioral tendencies. (See Healing with Language: Your Key to Effective Mind-Body Communication, p. 51 ff) In general, the most important metaprograms in the relationship between doctor and patient or client will be the following:
Conduct: Is the individual a rule follower or a rule breaker?
Cognitive Style: Is the individual primarily a thinker or a feeler?
Direction: Is the individual primarily motivated to move toward a positive objective or away from a negative consequence?
Toward:
Other people have recovered from this.
Even if no one else has recovered before, I might be the first.
I have good doctors, and I am doing everything they say I should.
I will cross that bridge if I come to it.
Away from:
I have a lot to lose.
Everything has some side-effects.
There are no guarantees.
This is not covered by my insurance.
In between:
There are no guarantees, but I have good doctors and I am doing what they say.
This is not covered by insurance but money is not the most important thing now.
Everything has side-effects, but I will cross that bridge if I come to it.
It is important that we make choices that make sense to us.
Because the patient’s metaprograms may not be the same as yours, the language you would use for yourself (and are naturally inclined to use with others) may not be the language that would be most effective with a given patient. Individuals focused on the terrible consequences of their problems may respond better to language that focuses on ways to avoid the consequences than to language that emphasizes the positive outcomes from a particular course of treatment.
Rule followers do better with specific rules to follow, while rule breakers need to have at least a few rules to break even while they follow others, just as those who violate the rules for speed limits may follow rules about wearing seat belts and using turn signals.
Thinkers respond well to statistics and logic. They do their best to make rational decisions. Feelers are motivated more by emotions. Thinkers will want to know your “evidence procedure” for what you are recommending. Feelers will need to have a sense of your empathy.
In some cases your patients will reveal their metaprograms during an intake interview or in other conversation. In other cases, you may not know the degree to which an individual leans in one direction or the other. In such cases, you will do well to cover both ends of the metaprograms, covering both the negative consequences and the positive possibilities, the critical rules and the rules that may be broken on occasion, the logic and the feelings.
Send your questions about how other-than-conscious communication skills can hurt or help your patients and clients to Joel P. Bowman (Joel@SCS-Matters.com) or Debra Basham (Debra@SCS-Matters.com), co-developers of Subtle Communication Systems. We will provide answers to those for you. For more information about Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP), Hypnosis or Hypnotherapy, or about the Imagine Healing Process, visit:http://ImagineHealing.info or http://SurgicalSupport.info. Healing with Language: Your Key to Effective Mind-Body Communication is available for a limited time for $10 plus $5 shipping within the U.S. For volume orders and overseas shipping, check with Debra.See the Table of Contents and List of Exercises in PDF format for more information about this comprehensive text and training manual.
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