Here is how you can turn around a dialog of what could have been a self-destructive internal:
I have to make that phone call to order that book. I blocked the last time I called that salesman. He reminds me of my dad. I was afraid of my dad. But wait a minute. He isn’t my dad, and I am no longer a child. I am a grown adult. I don’t have to worry about my dad calling me stupid. Goodness, dad isn’t standing over me, watching everything I do. And I do know how to speak fluently, without holding back. I’m fluent when I talk to my friends. I know what I will do: if I start to get anxious when I’m talking to him, I will pretend that he’s an old friend and we’re just having a chat. Hey, I think that will work!
What you say to yourself, and the way you say it, really does make a difference in how you feel, and that affects what you do, and how you come across to others.
Changing the kind of movie in your mind sends signals to your body which create a state of well-being. This already happens with some of the people you communicate with. You don’t bother to run your blocking movie with those people, and just get on with the conversation. You don’t even think about how you are speaking or coming across; you just carry on talking comfortably. This is fluency. Editing the movies in your mind
Note: Before working with other people using these techniques, it is important that you have experienced using them for yourself. Practice these interventions so that you can do them easily, know what to expect, and what works for you. Remember that other people may do things differently ….
How exactly does a PWS create a blocking movie? Before a potentially anxiety-producing event, the PWS imagines a movie with any or all of the following: pictures, sounds, feelings, smells, tastes, and commentary. In terms of the way people process different kinds of information, pictures (Visual) are by far the most important. Sounds (Auditory) come next, and feelings (Kinesthetic) after that. Now by feelings, the reference is not to emotions (more about emotions later), but to their ability to feel temperature, pressure, texture, humidity, and so on. This is about both external (tactile) and internal (proprioceptive) feelings. Taste and Smell are important for a minority, but these qualities are often missing from most people’s mental movies.
People who do not visualize well use their other senses more. If a PWS is not aware of creating a movie with pictures, ask them about the sound-track. Are they talking to themselves, providing a voice-over description of what is happening? If so, what kind of voice do they use? What kind of tonality? Where does that voice seem to come from? These are the type of questions worth asking the PWS to discover just how they structure their movies.Movie qualities
Every movie has qualities in terms of how it appears, how it is constructed, rather than the content, what it is about. For example, in terms of the qualities of the images, notice whether the picture is big, bright, panoramic, in saturated color; or dim and distant, with a border, with muted or dark colors. These structural qualities may have major implications for blocking.
There are many distinctions that we can make in terms of the qualities of the pictures, sounds, feelings and so on. Figure 4.2 lists some of the key qualities in the visual, auditory and kinesthetic systems.
Visual (pictures) Auditory (sounds) Kinesthetic (feelings Brightness Pitch Pressure Contrast Timbre Location Color and saturation Tempo Extent Density and transparency Volume Shape Size Rhythm Texture Clarity and focus Duration Temperature Depth Distance Humidity Distance and location Location Movement Moving, still or looping Clarity Duration Edge or border Continuous or interrupted Intensity Associated/dissociated Movement Frequency
Figure 4.2: Sensory qualities
Any movie can be analyzed in terms of its qualities; the structure, the attributes of the pictures, sounds and feelings. Each quality, on its own or in combination with others, provides meaning, and people are skilled at interpreting such combinations, to know whether they are “good” or “bad”, “safe” or “dangerous”, “interesting” or “boring” and so on. It is also the case that as the qualities vary, from light to dark, from loud to soft …, so does the meaning. Let’s play with this for a moment.
Think of a pleasant experience, and see it as a movie. Notice how far that movie of that pleasant experience is from you. Is it close or distant? Is the movie in bright colors, desaturated or pastel colors, or in black and white? Is it a broad panoramic picture or small like a snapshot? Is it full, realistic detail, or more like a cartoon or line drawing? There are many such variations in how people create their internal movies. However, there are general patterns. For example, most people make their pleasant movies rich in detail, up close, in color and usually panoramic (but there are always exceptions so you have to find out). Although most people have never been asked such questions before, all they have to do is to look and tell you the answers.
If the PWS is unable to create a visual movie, ask them how they primarily experience the pleasant memory: as a feeling or as a sound? If not visually, most will do it with feelings. If so, ask them the qualities of the feelings: “Where do you feel it? Is the feeling heavy or light or somewhere in between? Does it have a temperature? Describe to me how you experience that feeling.” Use the sensory-based quality descriptions as
